Not Selling Any Alibis

Not Selling Any Alibis
'Bills, Bills, Bills'

by Don Allred
September 22 - 28, 1999 Issue 38

Destiny's Child
'Bills, Bills, Bills'
Columbia

"Bills, Bills, Bills" by Destiny's Child starts out with a credibly troubling
description of this man who's begun to take advantage of the singer's regard
and trust— at this point, it's not that he's not hefting the gifties, but that
he's messing up what she's already got. The turning point seems to be "silly
me, why don't I find another" . . . man, not just cell phone. But the
suggestion of practical implements is seized on— rather than settling into
self-berating waffling and resignation, the habitual lament to her patient friends, she
and they suddenly blossom. Nettles and nightshade, stinging, challenging,
risking, taunting, teasing-tantalizing-sauntering past, trailing not a tentacle but
a feather boa across his/my neck. The play is sustained, doomsday deferred as
her payoff is— not a fantasy of happily ever after, but something with more
possibilities. A sort of vision, in the fantasies (vision as something from out
of the depths, but also as perception of her environment). So tensions
resolve into an implied bolero— the "I /Don't/Think/ You/Do/So-o-o/ You/And/Me/
Are/Through" could be a tension breaker. But though something of a punch line it
also ups the ante, and doesn't provide a hook to let him off.
A psychodrama promenade, psychodrama as therapy, as in Slim Shady and for that matter Richard Pryor's desperately brilliant one-man movies of the '70s! But this is a cooler version, daring and discreet, just as calibrated, coming from a different direction---much more self-to-other therapy---an answer song to all manner of male b.s., and then some, in its sexy way. Making the medicine go down far enough? At least leaving a taste for more---maybe it'll get DC up and out of the grabby crowd; she-they do seem ready to clear the air, and the stage.

Compare TLC's "No Scrubs," which sounds so whiny, like they're overburdened, scary-wizened kids, nothing like Salt-n-Pepa, or Destiny's Child ("The Law cain't touch her..."?). But TLC's weary

 point seems proven by stupid Sporty Theivz' "No Pigeons." Any others in this series? Oh! Missy's
"Can you pay my bills? If you won't then who will?"  The chorus sounds so weird—
this little birdy peeping out of the shell. A cautionary example? Think so. How does it feeeellll . . .