Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

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.

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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.

"Breaking Free," by the way, is written and produced by Jamie Houston, about whom I know almost nothing. A quick Google search finds that a Jamie Houston produced but did not write "It's Oh So Quiet" on the Ice Princess soundtrack, performed by Lucy woodward (and overdone show tune [Dave, didn't you tell me Bjork had done it first?], and he and Woodward wrote "What's Good For Me" which was on her album. Good, rousing, though not up to the best of her Shanks songs (or "Breaking Free"). There's a Jamie Houston on the credits of a couple of Michael Bolton songs; I don't know if that's the same guy. Probably is. Assuming they're all the same fellow, he's got a track on last year's Carlos Santana album, co-writes something on a James Dean Hicks album (guessing it's country), co-wrote the title track on Jessica Simpson's Sweet Kisses, wrote an O-Town song, co-wrote and Aaron Neville song, co-wrote an Aaron Carter song, a Cheetah Girls song, a Jennifer Paige song, etc. etc. etc. Don't think I've heard any but the Woodwards.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF BLACK CHINEY. Black Chiney, the sound, like Jesus, had very humble beginnings. The brainchild of Supa Dups it quietly came into being in September of 1999 as a mixed Reggae/Hip-Hop CD.

(A minibox on the cover of Star. No T of C, and I didn't have time to page through and find out who Harry is.)

And this is maybe my second favorite Aly & A.J. song, "Protecting Me". A basically blissful song (though one that has fear as its backdrop - IIRC it comes right after "I Am One of Them" on Into the Rush), yet there's something in the melody that gives the sound a weird twist of melancholy. The chords are all major key, but the melody centers around the sol note rather than the do note, and (in my ignorance of music theory) I suppose this has something to do with the hint of beautiful sadness. Also the grain of their voices. I'm referring to the melody parts like right at the beginning where they sing "You, you're always there for me when I need you most, day and night you're by my side, protecting me."