Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

k.. sooooo
i was walking down the street
all innocently and stuffff
and i pass by an EMO
yes, thats terrible, i know!
&& thats not even the end of it!
he's with his friend
((yes, ANOTHER emo))
&& he said
"yuu think the exorcism of Emily Rose is hawt right?"
and his emo friend says
"well... let's just say

id excersize emily rose"

&& then he started
humping the air
im scarred for life
=]]
but ill admit
it was PRETTY DAMN HILARIOUS
or as i [told] sam taylor pais && danielley
it was both swadacious and lidacious
;]]]]]]]]
goooood times

Better, at least for now, are Blog 27, Polish kiddie r&b/rap. (Faux twinpop: they were born on the same day, November 27, 1992, but to different parents.)

LDN sounds very flip, snarky... like Allen is just tossing off lines. This is slightly reflected in the lines "Pimp and his crack whore... Sunny in the sky, oh why oh why would I want to be anywhere else." But it also feels tired and old, already. And while I think one of the best things about Allen is her exhaustion, I don't think it sounds best cynical.

Smile on the other hand has that smokey jazz sound. It's a kiss-off song, which is hardly innovative, but the tone makes all the difference. I think of scotch and Lucky Strikes - maybe Dorothy Parker in a speakeasy kissing off Robert Benchley. Or a continuation of some of the themes on Joni's "Court and Spark."

Everything is personal (and you'd probably have to share my obsession with Parker/Mitchell to feel the same way) but I feel like Smile has a depth that LDN lacks. Smile sounds like a natural expression of world-weary exhaustion, while LDN sounds like Allen is justifying the attitude with examples. And I always think jaded sounds better without justification. Otherwise it has the taint of an affectation.

That even the ways that they don't sound the same are similar. They choose the same places to distinguish themselves from everyone else.

Don't know a whole lot about her (except she friended me a few months ago), but she's currently streaming a cover of Dashboard Confessional's "Screaming Infidelities," interpreted as an acoustic ballad. Can you say "infidelities" on Radio Disney?

But first my own private confessional. I liked Screaming Infidelities. Admittedly, I liked it more when it was placed into its cultural context (thanks to the Greenwald Emo book). It improved a notch after I went through a break-up (and reconciliation) and listened to The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most. I figured that the best way to listen to Dashboard was to listen to him like the "kids" do. In heartbreak. It improved, slightly. (But still hasn't replaced Blue as most painful album of all-time). Finally, the Legion of Doom mashup "The Quiet Screaming" was the final nail in the coffin.

This said, what seemed to be the link between all these things was the stripped down naked feeling of the music. The cracks in the voice weren't a bug, they were a feature. And the only reason the song worked in the mashup was because it played the soft half to Brand New's "Quiet Things No One Ever Heard" harder sound.

So with Hands Down, then moreso on Vindicated, and finally all over this new album, the sound is too clean. Too refined, too melodic, too -- everything. Now when he can't hit a note, it sounds like an honest to god fuckup.

That said: Joanna cover of Screaming Infidelities completely replicates the breaking voice, heavy breathing to articulate, finally soaring chorus - except with better production values. To that extent, it reminds me more of Legion of Doom's "Quiet Screaming" than the actually original. Except at about 1:20, she just starts whining, and my ears start hurting. Bombastic and soaring aren’t the same thing... what I’m trying to say is: There is something very sincere about the breaking voice. And something very insincere about faking it. And it sounds like the second-half of Joanna’s cover is faking it, and the first half is sincere. And the beginning of Dashboard Confessional’s career was authentic, and now it’s insincere. Which is to say (exhale): The sound of trying to sound sincere is essentially an insincere sound. [Which, Frank, is why I don’t like LDN half as much as I like Smile]

Her latest work is stupefyingly mediocre, including "Whatever It Takes" and "Healing Side" on the stupefyingly mediocre SHeDAISY album. Seems to me I was pretty clear upthread about my interest in the SHeDAISY alb having a lot to do with my liking various previous tracks by the people involved.

I lean towards the Everlys on this but need to listen to a lot more Ricky - and I do not understand the claim that Ricky does not rock as hard as the Everlys. His band was the best in the business, pure fire when it wanted to be. Please please please listen to his version of "Milk Cow Blues." Listen to the snap that James Burton puts into the riff. Dave Davies lifted it whole on the Kinks' version. Burton and Sumlin (w/ Howlin' Wolf) were the models for many hard and frantic guitar riffs since, from "The Last Time" through "Boyfriend."
Ricky's singing is very canny, walking with aplomb atop the music's hysteria. I hear some Ricky in Gary Allen (cf. the title track on See If I Care).

[Ricky was the best of the '50s-early '60s teenybopper boys.][Unless of course you count Elvis as a teenybopper boy, which he was but his social reach also went elsewhere.]

At one point, Disney realized they were able to promote all these non-Disney musicians very effectively. So they decided to use that promotion power to push forward their own actors.

Also; two favorite quotes in the article:

"I'm not into the club scene. You won't see mo go over the edgy edge. I will always be wholesome." -Ashley Tisdale (Sharpay)

"I don't want to be seen buying cigarettes and liquor. It wouldn't be a smart move to be out doing promiscuous things." -Zac Efron (Troy)

Actually, Ashley's upcoming debut is on Warner Bros, not a Disney label, so maybe she's closer to the old school Disney model. Zac Efron can't sing (and didn't sing in High School Musical) but Drew Seeley, who did, has been appearing on Disney comps and is trying to launch a solo career. Zac has the potential to be a Disney-groomed star anyway...maybe he could rap or something.

Britney Spears' sister already works with (GASP) Nickelodeon! They need to start building their own roster. Amanda Bynes (can she even sing?), Jamie Spears, Spongebob...what label was the Emma Roberts album on? (checks...on Columbia, includes rootkit)

IN YR FACE FURTADOO

In other news, 'Samantha' by Margaret Berger is making waves in the Norwegian chart at the moment, and is a bit good in what I am tempted to describe as the Eurodisco manner, except it isn't quite like that. Not quite, anyway.

I cannot find a video online for it, though. Which is a bit of a pisser.

On some of the other songs there is a dominately featured piano, but the playing has a very modern feel to it - the piano's purpose being to introduce the condition of empty modernity that Ell is singing about, as opposed to jaunty tunes. (Glass instead of Mozart - to be slightly facetious).

What do people think?

Looking right back at the top of the thread, at Mr Kogan's KDIS playlist, it strikes me that all the artists there have at the very least been nodded at on this thread, with one exception:

8. CHEETAH GIRLS - Shake Your Tailfeather

Given that I presume the song was a cover, I can kind of see why they never popped up again, but what were they to start with?

(WBS, sorry I never replied to your email; I'll be back at my home digs in early Aug., will try to catch up then.)

I still think it's interesting that Ashley Tisdale and Lucas Gabreel display the least character development...duality (bogus or not) is the main theme, but in Ryan/Sharpay's case the duality is externalized to actually limit the possibility of us being moved by any transformation resulting from them acknowledging inner conflict. Apparently there's a subplot in the works for HSM 2 to explore Ryan/Sharpay by making brother stab sister in the back, not sure how exactly. I don't think that Ashley Tisdale's desire to be her opposite is especially apparent; she only goes after baking basketball guy after the credits have rolled, as a sort of, um, credit cookie. And anyway, I think that it's probably in line with her character's one-note behavior, manipulative, dominant, etc. (How hard would it be for the Wicked Witch to get someone to cook for her? Did she cook for herself? Not being able to touch water would be a severe culinary handicap.) Using the film's binaries, it follows that Sharpay should secretly be an excellent field hockey player or something.

He also seems to be forgetting the golden rule of capitalism: The corporation's goal is to make money. Disney would have nothing to gain by attempting some sort of bizzare brainwashing, they just put out what they think will sell, it's that simple.

They can do both, you know. Wink

*sigh* Also, they're singing about the horrors of life. Many many MANY artists do that, but you don't see other people anylizing THEM. Rolling Eyes

Eek, violent? Who gets that out of Aly & AJ?

Their fans, apparently! I get all kinds of violent hate mail from these people.

More female fronted emo over at clap clap, the band is Paramore. Maybe this should be called shemo, since emo has been tainted by a culture war and the girl groups do it better anyway.

In 1998, Britney Spears released “Baby One More Time,” and created the template for teen pop for the next four years. In 2002, Avril Lavigne released “Complicated,” and her bratty pop rock became the new standard for girls on the radio. Another four years later, having been through Avril, Kelly Clarkson, the Veronicas, Ashlee Simpson, Hilary Duff, and a whole bunch of non-starters like Skye Sweetnam, Cheyenne Kimball wheezes the genre’s last breaths. We’re due for a brand new take on teen pop right about now and “Hanging On” suggests the reinvention cannot come soon enough.

I disagree (even though I do think that Cheyenne Kimball's album and new single are pretty awful), but I'm wondering if or when teenpop has ever been proclaimed "dead." This example could just be referring to the Kelly/Ashlee style (in which case I still disagree), but all of teenpop is implicated.

Quick Google search shows that teenpop has been kinda sorta pronounced dead in Time magazine (obliquely, as a question to Xtina), and a few sarcastic results. But here the premise is "teenpop is dying but it was once very much alive!" as opposed to "teenpop is dead, finally."

but right now there is none of that. sure, xtina and justin are still massively successful icons, but they appeal as much to an adult audience as a teenage one. i find i have to do crate-digging to get to the teenpop which still clings on, which is disappointing - i don't like having to crate-dig for pop! crate-digging is indie! pop should be IN MY FACE ALL THE TIME.

yet we have ashlee simpson always missing the top 10 in the uk, lindsay lohan's music barely has a profile here at all, no one ever ever talks about either duff sister apart from ilx people...this stuff is not selling. and no one involved is going to go stratospheric like britney.

(thx to mindtaker_cro for pointing out the vid on poptimists)

http://www.myspace.com/youngbscrillahill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyOAYxHQFL4

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chicken+noodle+soup&search=Search

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_sort=relevance&search_query=toe+wop&search=Search

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_sort=relevance&search_query=tone+wop&search=Search

Except for People, what the tabs print is basically made up. You read them not for info on the celebs themselves but for the stories they project onto the celebs. So what are they saying about Ashlee? In Touch proclaims on the cover that Ashlee's friends are worried that she's obsessed with plastic surgery. The article irself doesn't back this up. The mag talks to a plastic surgeon and show him before and after pictures of Ashlee and ask if she's gotten anything done on her chin, her eyebrows, and so forth. He looks at the pictures and says no. They talk to a psychiatrist who says that getting plastic surgery often fails to build one's esteem. If people suddenly like you, you wonder why they didn't like you before. You don't believe in it. But the article is counterposing two attitudes. (1) Ashlee is insecure, in trouble. (2) Ashlee's now a knockout, a dazzler.

I haven't read the Life and Style piece, but the theme on the cover was dangerous diets, and she was shot in a revealing dress, all open on the side.

Seems to me that what the tabloids want are for the girls to be in distress, to suffer by their own hands, to be torn up inside; and the girls need to have excruciatingly normal concerns about their looks and their appeal and whether they can get dates and whether their boyfriends/hubbies are cheating and so on; and but still there has to be something special, some celeb dazzle or something.

Not sure why the tabs are seizing on Ashlee now. She'd provided damsel-in-distress material from the get-go. Something about the nose job brings her into the tabs' comprehension but also makes her one of the glamour people.