It's surprisingly hard to find music about personal appearance that isn't, like, gross (though never fear, there's plenty of objectification odes on here, see also Roy Orbison), but I did my best to create such a playlist for the Face Value launch party, and you never know when such a playlist might come in handy for others. All these songs are about appearance in some way—odes to beautiful people, admonitions to stay beautiful, paeans to the ways we prettify ourselves, an embrace of ugliness, a mantra of pride, you get the picture. (Apologies for the many covers of a few key songs, like "I Feel Pretty"—when a song was really perfect I didn't see a problem with playing its variations. Like this amazing punk version.)
Two notes: 1) I do not necessarily endorse the messages in any of these songs—surprisingly, there were no songs titled "Hey Women's Relationship to Beauty Is Really Complex and Doesn't Really Rhyme Well." 2) I was pleased to discover that I really, really like RuPaul.
The Spotify link is here, and I'm listing the tracks below. Enjoy!
- Keep Young and Beautiful/Harry Roy Orchestra
- Pretty Baby/Dean Martin
- Pretty Little Missy/Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars
- Beautiful Stranger/Titus Turner
- I Feel Pretty/Helen Merrill
- (It's) Hairspray/motion picture soundtrack
- Keep Young and Beautiful/Starlite Orchestra & Singers
- You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby/Bobby Darin
- Oh, Pretty Woman/Roy Orbison
- Dumb Blonde/Dolly Parton
- Beauty Is Only Skin Deep/Robert Mitchum
- I Feel Pretty/original Broadway cast
- I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair/Peggy Lee
- Life Is a Beautiful Thing/Peggy Lee (I can't find this, somehow)
- Pretty Eyed Baby/Peggy Lee (or this! Peggy! What's going on?!)
- Beauty Is Only Skin Deep/The Temptations
- Lipstick On Your Collar/Connie Francis
- I Feel Pretty/Annie Ross
- Hair/original Broadway cast
- You Sexy Thing/Hot Chocolate
- Flawless/Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj
- I'm Too Sexy/Right Said Fred
- Lip Gloss/Lil Mama
- Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous/RuPaul
- Barbie Girl/Aqua
- Whip My Hair/Willow
- Pretty Girl Rock/Keri Hilson
- I Feel Pretty/Schlong
- Ugly/Violent Femmes
- Beautiful Girl/INXS
- Supermodel/RuPaul
- The Look/Roxette
- Unpretty/TLC
- Isn't She Lovely/Yami Bolo
- Beautiful Stranger/Madonna
- Fuckin' Perfect/P!nk
- Feeling Myself/Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé
- Glamorous/Fergie, Ludacris
- The Beautiful People/Christina Aguilera
- Sexy and I Know It/LMFAO
- The Beautiful People/Marilyn Manson
- Wonderful World, Beautiful People/Jimmy Cliff
- Look So Pretty/Kittie *
- You're Not Pretty But You Got It Goin' On/Band of Skulls
- Venus As a Boy/Björk
- Itchycoo Park/Small Faces
- Beautiful Boy/John Lennon, Yoko Ono
- Pretty Hurts/Beyoncé
- I Feel Pretty/The Puppini Sisters
*When this song—a delight from an all-female Canadian metal band about looking pretty as one digs one's own grave—played at the party, my agent checked in with me to make sure that the bar was still playing my playlist. They were.