You are who you wear, it's true

When I wrote about Heidi Montag's song "Body Language" a while back, I never thought I'd be featuring another song from her again. Not that I was necessarily opposed to liking music from her, but come on, what were the chances of another producer/songwriter actually being willing to give her a great song?

Apparently, much better than I thought they were.

Fashion--(deliberately) ridiculous and catchy. What else can I add? This is another one of those cases where I don't think I could really tell you what makes this song so much better than, say, another (/most) of her songs, but it just is. The Yazoo sample may have been much of what made "Body Language" so enjoyable, a synthesized-to-all-get-out pop-dance track, but "Fashion" doesn't have that hook to fall back on--and still manages to totally succeed. Heidi's squealed, snotty delivery of various foreign-sounding designer labels would be easy to laugh at, but that's kind of the point of the song, isn't it? And even if you don't want to worry about that, the chorus is more than strong enough to stand up on its own; I've been walking around with the desire to sing it for days.

You could argue for the song being given to a different ("better," "less trashy"--take your pick) singer, but to be honest, there aren't many people who would be a better fit for a song that's a deliberate as well as flashily frivolous attempt to win attention and provoke. Heidi's persona here is an exaggeration of how she's perceived and the scene she's a part of--a scene she'll do anything to stay relevant to, with what I'm pretty sure is a "laughing all the way to the bank" (or here, to the 15 minutes-plus of fame) attitude; that kind of hot-right-here-right-now, willing to do anything for the fame while simultaneously being aware that you're playing a role attitude is just what a song about just serving as a blank slate to be stylishly dressed up while actually hyper-exaggerating that whole scene to poke fun at it needs.

Plus, even beyond that, I think her voice here, however it might have been manipulated, just plain works. It does. Great catchy pop song, and that's the bottom line.

As far as I know, "Fashion" isn't available for purchase anywhere, but all iTunes Music Store users can buy two other songs from Heidi Montag on iTunes.

Next up: maybe another American singer.