Things I Like: Solange Knowles Edition

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Live at J&R.

She's never going to be her sister. She's never going to have the big voice, the rap-superstar husband, the ability to record an album based on her secret identity and get away with it. She shaved her head (to her credit, it looks amazing), wears weird clothes and the Go Fug Yourself Girls make fun of her for it, and streaks bright eye makeup across the bridge of her nose. And for all of those reasons, I like Solange Knowles. Do I think she might be happier if her ambition was to be something other than a pop singer like her sister, if what she really wanted to be was, say, the greatest accountant ever to come out of Houston? Possibly.

But Solange seems unburdened by the need for greatness. Her Twitter feed makes her sound like a real woman, and an interesting one at that, one who sneaks out to sleep outside early on a beautiful morning, and eats birthday cake for breakfast, and plays flag football with her kid. And her song "Sandcastle Disco" is one of my favorite slices of pure pop from the past couple of years: light, a little melancholy, a little defiant. If the song were a perfume I'd say it was citrusy. Beyonce is going to need to be dominant for a long, long time: she's both the girl singing in praise of love at the Inaugural Ball, and the fury with the mechanical hand mocking love's regrets. It's a lot to live up to. Solange, on the other hand, has permission to drift along making dreamy songs with their roots in an earlier era for as long as she wants. I know I'll be listening in.