I’m a big Lindsay Lohan fan. Massive, really.
I’ve got all the magazines she’s ever spread her legs for, held my own in arguments regarding her ‘acting ability,’ and even made my ex-boyfriend sit through I Know Who Killed Me. (Not the source of the break-up, though potentially.)
Obviously then, the starlet’s recent imprisonment has proven to be a deeply trying and troubling time for me. In what little free time I have between stenciling my “Free Lilo” tees for the Save Lindsay! Foundation (accreditation pending) and softly crying myself to sleep to the Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen soundtrack, I’ve also spent some time revisiting some of my favorite cuts from Lohan’s debut album from 2004, Speak.
2004 was a very strange and sexy time in my life. And by that, I mean I was just on the brink of getting my braces off.
Smack dab in the middle of my high school experience (forgive me for outing myself as a youngin’–my mother tells me I’m very mature for my age), Speak came only a few months after what would be the life-changing release of Mean Girls, a film that simultaneously secured Lohan’s status as a teen queen sensation and provided myself and a fleet of fellow young gays with a laundry list of potent quotables for the next half century. (“SHE DOESN’T EVEN GO HERE,” “Dawn Schweitzer is a fat virgin,” etc.)
Speak is an underrated release, plump with single-worthy selections and infectious, post-Disney pop-rock stormers that cleverly mask Lilo’s single octave vocal range. Among the bunch though, there were one or two dark electro-tinged cuts that truly brought the album to the next level: “To Know Your Name” was one of them.
The song, which was penned by tween-pop production fount John Shanks (Hilary Duff, Miley Cyrus) and the annoying judge on the newer, jumped-the-shark seasons of American Idol (who sometimes also writes great songs), Kara DioGuardi, blew and continues to blow my mind (like cocaine).
Though she was still but a baby slut at the time, “To Know Your Name” is drenched in sexy. The story revolves around a mystery lover that La Lohan seeks to keep away from the prying public and those goddamn paparazzi (“Everybody wants to know our love / Everybody talks about our love”). The lyrics about privacy and love also seemed to speak to my inner gay, which was at this point in time now bursting at the seams to trip the light fantastic. Evidently, the same applied to Lindsay years later.
Apart from the somewhat obvious “rebel girl” major label tracks on Speak, the purrs and moans of “To Know Your Name” suggested much promise for Lilo to become a full-fledged electro-pop princess.
Now, as we read about the slow demise of Lindsay Lohan’s extended reign of terror–from DUI’s to questionable nail art–I thought it a good idea to reflect the better times instead: A time when the acting career was still good, and the music career was even better.
In fact, you could even call it criminally good. MUAHAHA.
No, but really…she gets to have a TV in her cell. She’s totally fine.
