Ask A Straight Girl: Sally Shapiro
With the release of her new album “My Guilty Pleasure” last week, shy Swedish disco artist Sally Shapiro (actually the vocalist half of a production duo) confirms two facts. The good one is that her songs, shimmery, unabashedly exuberant swoons of love and loss, is pretty cool. The bad one is that she is way too shy to tour. Though a part of me might relish a Cat Power-style onstage breakdown (who wouldn’t) the overall sweetness of Shapiro’s sound does not jibe well with schaudenfraude. Oh well. Since she won’t soon be coming to a city near you, the best we can do for the time being is enjoy Shapiro’s answers to my questions about being straight.
The New Gay: When did you first realize you were straight?
Sally Shapiro: Oh I haven’t chosen yet. Do I have to?
TNG: What is your least favorite stereotype about straight people?
SS: The one that if you’re straight, by definition you’re caught in your gender and social norms and that you´re not as enlightened as the homo people.
TNG: What obligations, if any, do you feel that you have to the gay community?
SS: To argue against prejudiced people.
TNG: What are the biggest challenges faced by a straight person in today’s culture?
SS: To not get caught in gender and social norms.
TNG: If you had to “go gay” for one member of the same sex, who would it be?
SS: I know numerous of nice ones if I would have the opportunity to choose freely. But I don’t want to name-drop.
TNG: Given the seemingly endless number of “indie” artist in existence today, how do you think you set yourself apart from the crowd?
SS: I don´t really know if I do, since I´m not so updated, I do have the (bad?) habit of keep listening to the same old records for years. But, if I do set apart from the crowd, I suppose it´s the mix of indie pop with electronica with italo disco, all drowned in melancholy. Also, not doing live shows and wanting to have this as a hobby more than a full-time job, diverses me from the majority of artists, but probably not from the majority of people.
TNG: Finally, why should Washington, DC come out and see you play tonight?
SS: Since I won’t ever play live, they could instead sit alone at home listening to the record. Then tomorrow everyone would be very melancholic and kind and love-searching and I think it would be interesting and fruitful in many ways to have a whole town in that mood in the same time. Maybe even war-stopping, if the government also listens…TNG
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