“Enough singing,get your clothes off”

Last Sunday saw the closing ceremony of the Olympics for 2012, which took place in my hometown England, East London. The Closing Ceremony although heavily criticised by some for lack of consistency  was a success in my eyes, full of great performances representing British music, Culture and fashion in its best form, with acts such as Oasis to One Direction hitting the stage and even an appearance from the Top models themselves Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. However nothing was more breath taking than watching Emeli Sande’s performance of “Read all about it” the song which she originally featured on alongside a British rapper called Professor Green. As usual during the closing ceremony I was on twitter most of the time looking at everyone’s reactions to the performances, and I noticed a few guys  commented on Emeli Sande’s dress sense quoting them:

“Emeli Sande has a good voice but she always covers up has she even got a figure”

another one said “Emeli Sande is so shit why does she always wear these outfits like she is going to church”

and my favourite one “Emeli sande perfomace would have been better if she wore something a bit sexier, at least give us something to look at”

I noticed over the duration of her performances these tweets started getting retweeted by a lot of teenagers preferable males. Now am fully aware that we are all entitled to our opinion, but when Jessie J came out half naked everyone loved her performance. Now am no singing coach or anything but I believe personally Emeli Sande sounded pitch perfect whereas Jessie J on the other hand had a few let’s just call them off moments, But what really got me angered was the fact that guys started tweeting about Emeli Sande’s performance being bad due to her clothing choice. Since when did dressing half naked make you a better performer.

Thats when my mind started to wonder. Most young people would rather go to a concert or gig and watch these so called “Talented” singers go around stage flaunting their bits and bobs rather than pay to see a quality performance. Its like if you sign a contract to become a singer in this day and age you have equally agreed to give up your rights to wear actual clothes that cover your body. Now I don’t want to sound like a hypocrite but I will be the first to say I don’t wear that much clothes when I go out its usual shorts,mini skirt or a belly top, but I still stand by my point that A woman’s performance shouldn’t be defined by the amount of flesh she chooses to reveal.

If I decided to be a singer tomorrow (not that I would even dream of becoming one with my voice) and changed up my wardrobe showing less skin that shouldn’t de-value my performance as an artist. I have noticed throughout my generation if a new female singer comes along and doesn’t conform to this sexist stereotype of all female singers wearing tight, revealing clothes then they are labelled as either Ugly or a bad performer. A female shouldn’t have to parade around half naked on stage for you to notice her talent,This sexist stereotype needs to stop but with the birth of more and more highly sexualised female singers its seems we are a long way from stopping the spread of this stereotype.