Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

(Though when I pay attention to the lyrics - "I'm hanging on today/Nothing's gonna stop me anyway/I'm holding on, I'm strong/I'm the only one who can make a change" - I so get the sudden urge to go listen to "Sister Ray" or "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now.")

*The term "anonymous confessional" coined by Dave Moore.

Aly & A.J. can be really good.

So my conclusion about Cheyenne Kimball is that she's best when you run across her in snatches in the background, but full-on she's a bore. </being generous and open-minded about a mediocrity who's being used to bash my beloved Ashlee>

If you count something like Jessica Harp's "Perfectly" as confessional, that might be a good contender for interesting idea/execution...it was literally anonymous, done by Huckapoo on the Disney Pixel Perfect OST, and just as good as any confessional song by a bigger personality/star. That one was performed by a member of Huckapoo (the original "Joey Thunders") who left the group soon after "Perfectly" was recorded, so who knows if she had star potential.

xpost

"Perfectly" struck me as good but not great, but I take it that the Jessica Harp version I've got isn't the Huckapoo original.

Speaking of furture Wrecker Harp, maybe "Everywhere" by Michelle Branch is the anonymous confessional masterpiece (a great sounding voice but not a distinctive one, and the "you" the song is apparently addressed to seems an utter blank). (The "maybe" in the previous sentence is deliberate, since I really don't know Branch's work all that well, so I may be totally and completely all wrong about her.)

Floating asterisk meant to be "*Just as Merry Clayton and Martha Wash didn't deserve to be stars." (Clayton and Wash had great big soul voices that were effectively used as soul tropes on rock and disco and house music; Clayton the gospel-like voice on "Gimme Shelter"; Wash one of Sylvester's backup singers, later half of Two Tons Of Fun/Weather Girls and then the big voice on "Everybody Everybody" and "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)." And once again I don't really know either Clayton or Wash's careers at all well enough to really make the claim I just did, but if my claim is right IT'S A SPOT-ON ANALOGY. Cheyenne is best as a trope. But compared to Aly & A.J. she's a nebbish.)

Aly & AJ as personalities kind of creep me out to be totally honest, but given the individualism it is an interesting ambiguity that there's two of 'em.

I'm wondering if teenpop does this "I'm going to be OK on my own" in the sound, while often enough the words refuse to cooperate. I'd say that Ashlee, Lindsay, Kelly C., and Aly & A.J. are pretty sure they won't be OK on their own, 'cept Ashlee complicates things (of course) by saying that self-assertion and independence is the precondition of her not being alone, and maybe believes that she may well end up alone and will have to live with it. Think of the arc in her songs that goes from "Right now I'm solo but that will be changing eventually" (album 1, track 1) to "There's no way back/And what if there was/You'd still be you and/I'd still have to say goodbye" (album 2, final track).

Um, that "pretty sure they won't be OK" in the last sentence isn't quite right. Their songs cover a range of moods and prospects just as people in their day-to-day lives shift moods and prospects, and a pop album usually covers many different parts of the romance cycle, heartbreak and joy and despair and re-assertion all getting their licks in.

xpost, but what I said seems to fit, except there's a hint of a shadow in "Rush," exhorting the kids to understand that their life isn't over, which means they know damn well that some kids (or many kids in some moments) are ready to turn their face to the wall, no joke. Just as way back in the teenpop when, the Dixie Cups singing in "Chapel of Love" "And we'll never be lonely anymore" are sneaking in the thought - well, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich are sneaking it in - that loneliness is the base of teen existence.

Chemicals React in SIMLISH with subtitles

xpost

[This in a small sidebox on the cover of In Touch.]

Hasn't that idea been run into the ground?

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=51726984

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=51726984&MyToken=8ec723ce-cdc2-4fdd-9831-76a7630e78bdML

But there are no data to suggest that today’s ’tweens are any more discerning than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago; they may be the last group of listeners who are still susceptible to a Monkees-style all-media blitz.

The Slumber Party Girls stream a few songs at their Geffen website..."Bubblegum" has a fun premise (that boy's got me chokin' on my bubblegum) and nice girl-rap section but they seem fairly bland overall. Still looking for a full version of the (only?) Trollz single "It's a Hair Thing" actually by the Valli Girls, who seem to have fallen between the tracks in this business.

Ron Fair's the guy who prevailed upon Ashlee to cover "Invisible," which was a flop (and not as good as 25 or so other Ashlee songs) - though at this point if Ashlee recorded the greatest song in recording history she'd still struggle for airplay, being shut out by "adults" and too old for teenies.

The fact that duder wasn't able to convincingly pull of the "they're just like a rock band" line is telling.

But he insists the strategy can’t work if the music doesn’t. “People like to say it’s prefab or it’s manufactured or whatever, but it’s really no different than four guys getting together to form a band and going into a garage and creating a vibe for themselves,” Mr. Fair said. “Except for the fact that someone was at the helm, doing it.”

Enough to make a guy want to start a PR firm or something.

I'm tempted to go see her in Chicago now, actually.

But maybe it's appropriate for the AmberWatch foundation, judging from a recent initiative:

Children wearing an AmberWatch® can call attention to themselves at the touch of a button when threatened or scared. The AmberWatch’s trademarked alert signal and bright flashing LED lights call immediate attention to a child threatened with abduction or abuse.

Strange that the missing children site Aly and AJ referred to in their liners promotes the opposite message:

It is much more beneficial to children to help them build the confidence and self-esteem they need to stay as safe as possible in any potentially dangerous situation they encounter rather than teaching them to be "on the look out" for a particular type of person. The "stranger-danger" message is not effective and, based on what we know about those who harm children, danger to children is greater from someone they or their family knows than from a "stranger."

All your doing, is taking these amazing songs full of compassion and care, letting your stupid little brain think the tiniest most far from reality thing about a part of the lyrics like I-I-I-I-I, and becoming freakishly paranoid about it!!!! What is your problem?!

Coaching baseball this week I discovered that the most hummed or whistled song among 12 year-old boys is "Does Your Chain Hang Low."
-- curmudgeon (curmudgeo...), September 27th, 2006 6:07 AM.
are you sure it wasn't "do your ears hang low"

-- deej.. (clublonel...), September 27th, 2006.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whatever it's called, you know it's based on some old old traditional one...
Oh yeah, Kelefa wrote about it in the NY Times--

September 17, 2006 N.Y. Times
Playlist
Yo, Do Your Ears Hang Low?
By KELEFA SANNEH
Jibbs

It is one of the oldest tunes in the American repertory. In the 19th century it was a minstrel mainstay known, depending on the lyrics, as “Zip Coon” or “Turkey in the Straw.” More recently the same tune has been appropriated for a children’s song (“Do Your Ears Hang Low?”) and for the ice-cream-truck jingle that you may be hearing for a few more weeks. And now, thanks to the St. Louis rapper Jibbs, the old song provides the basis for a new hip-hop hit, “Chain Hang Low” (Geffen), which should still be playing on the radio long after the ice cream trucks have gone into hibernation. He raps — brays really — the verses and a chorus of children sings the refrain (“Do your chain hang low? Do it wobble to the flo’?/Do it shine in the light? Is it platinum? Is it gold?”). Perhaps without meaning to, Jibbs has updated one of the most popular melodies of the blackface era, reprising a song that has been stuck in American heads for a few centuries."

-- curmudgeon (curmudgeo...), September 27th, 2006.

(And you can download it free from Supa Dups' MySpace page.)

Rihanna's probably the most played nonteenpopper on Radio Disney (more than Bowling for Soup, Gnarls Barkley, Weezer, Tashbed, Powter, Usher, Black-Eyed Peas, Rascal Flatts, JoJo [whom I'm counting as a nonteenpopper, since her base of support seems to be CHR-Pop]). Of course, RD will never play "Unfaithful," but that doesn't mean the Disney audience won't make its way to that song.

New on Disney this week: Belanova "Eres Tu," which is a wimpy Spanish-language version of "What I've Been Looking For" from High School Musical, which Gabreel & Tisdale did much better. (I like the other songs on the Belanova MySpace page more; smooth disco moods, I'd call 'em.)

New on Disney last week: Belinda "Why Wait." Belinda is a Mexican singer who did the great "Angel" a couple of years ago - it's like Madonna at her aching eightiesish best; the sound's too low on this YouTubed vid (you can go hear/see it on Launch Yahoo in its full glory*); it's well worth viewing for its wonderful morbidity. In fact, I insist you watch it. "Why Wait," unfortunately, isn't one-tenth as good. It's on Radio Disney 'cause it's featured in Cheetah Girls 2.)

Her current Mexican single, "Ni Freud Ni Tu Mamá" ("Knee Freud Knee Your Mother") is way better than "Why Wait," though it's no "Angel." I found this info about it on the Web:

"Ni Freud ni tu mamá" el nuevo tema de la superestrella mexicana Belinda, llega esta semana a la radio latina de EUA. Esta canción escrita por la propia intérprete, será la carta de presentación a su nuevo álbum "Utopía," el primero para EMI Televisa Music.

El tema es de corte pop de actitud honesta y decidida, original de la misma Belinda y producido por Kara DioGuardi, productora de estelares cantantes como Kelly Clarkson y Gwen Stefani.

*Don't know if you can get access to it overseas (just as I don't have access to Launch Yahoo's British vids).

It's an interesting choice on Duff's part. Supposedly the album's going to be more of the same. Maybe she simply loves disco. It's a good track, but about one track per year hits in that style in the U.S. (This was Cascada's year, I guess.) It's not one of the Billboard Top 25 club tracks. It's getting no Top 40 play (well, seven spins nationwide last week). I wonder how it's doing in Australia. What's her relation to Disney? She's still on Hollywood Records.