“Blurred Lines” and the Songs We Shouldn’t Sing Along To

Has the time come to censor what is classed as ‘entertainment’?

woman covering herface with her hair and wearing headphones — image by Elice Moore on Unsplash

When I first heard Amanda Palmer and Reb Fountain’s mash-up of “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke and “Rape Me” by Nirvana, I was stunned into silence. The performance was raw, cathartic, and deeply revealing. A sharp spotlight turned on the music we casually call “popular.”

But who were these women behind the gut-punching duet?

Amanda Palmer is a performance artist, author, and musician, most widely known for being one half of The Dresden Dolls — a cabaret-punk band that never shied away from uncomfortable truths. Reb Fountain, by contrast, is newer to the scene, releasing her first album in 2020. Becoming friends and later finding out they were cousins, what these women share is an unflinching artistic honesty — a refusal to go quietly.

When Amanda was invited to cover a traditionally sexist song for the DoReMeToo fundraiser, she knew instantly that Reb had to join her. With just a piano and two voices, they pressed record — and peeled back the gloss.

Without the infectious pop beat to distract us, “Blurred Lines” was stripped down to its disturbing reality. When placed in a kind of haunting dialogue with “Rape Me”, the mash-up becomes a jagged…