Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

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."

I was wrong about The Veronicas--melotron projection issues?

Kelly--on the bridge of "Beautiful Disaster", playing the quarter note thing; The entire intro of Lillix's "Tomorrow"; and on three songs by the tuesdays, who I think are kind of seminal to the form.

Aimee Mann used them nicely on the I'm With Stupid CD, but that was no suprise, considering her Beatles worship.

I just think its interesting that artists and producers whose audience's are unlikely to get the era-quote are pulling their old melotrons out for their signature spooky/melancholic effect (more likely, samples of the things, which were notoriously undependable instruments.)

2. "Protecting Me" is a pretty good song, but I personally prefer "No One" and "Collapsed"

4. Any opinions on "If We Were a Movie"?

New band Hello (not teenpop but same spirit, the line "this is the crescendo" happens during an ACTUAL crescendo!

Old band Melissa Lefton and the Lef-Tones

And the ONLY commenter ever on Hello's Myspace blogs is...Jena Kraus. I'm gonna go lie down.

(Gorgeous song by the way, came out on an unheralded remix alb last year and it was a single this year, went to number 1 in Israel and top 10 in the Czech Republic, Indonesia, and South Africa. So I can vote for it in Pazz & Jop if I want to, if there is a Pazz & Jop.)

VANESSA HUDGENS Come Back To Me
ASHLEY TISDALE Kiss The Girl
CHEETAH GIRLS Amigas Cheetahs
JONAS BROTHERS Year 3000
JESSE MCCARTNEY Right Where You Want Me
HANNAH MONTANA I've Got Nerve
HANNAH MONTANA If We Were A Movie
HANNAH MONTANA Best Of Both Worlds

The problem with the Cheetah 2 Belinda song is that it's not "Angel."

"If We Were a Movie" is one of the best Hannah Montana songs, and I like Miley's singing a lot, but no Hannah song has ever taken me over the top. Good melody. Also earns points for using the subjunctive.

There's something deep going on with these girls. Artists.

(Aly & AJ wrote both "Greatest Time of Year" and "Not This Time" with Antonina Armato and Tim James, the same duo they wrote "Chemicals React" with. Armato and James are the two who wrote Hoku's great "How Do I Feel (The Burrito Song).")

*Unfortunately, no one's YouTubed this song yet.

Why are they unhappy during Christmas? This is the part that intrigues me and (on paranoid days) makes me nervous. I agree that this song is great, easily better than half of the debut and "Chemicals React," which I still don't really like...one of the great teenpop Xmas singles. Has the holiday been ruined because it's been secularized, schmaltzified? Is this a hop skip and jump away from the War on Christmas?

Um, no (though I think in "real life" maybe the answer for them and their parents is "yes"), that's not it in the song (they're just unhappy, no reasons are really given why), which is why I'm slowly and hesitantly realizing that one thing that makes me "nervous" is that I kinda relate to Aly and AJ. (I'm usually unhappy around Xmas time, too.) So far it doesn't put me in the position of being closer to what (I think) they believe, though "I Am One of Them" come closest to making a political argument that I reject, even if it means misrepresenting my own personal connection to the song (I mean, I watch the same TV they do, see the same "news reports and more," sympathize with their fears). If they were to come out with a song whose message was "I'm alone, I'm afraid, but at least I'm not a monkey," I'd probably reject that, too, even if I identified with the first two parts. But in their songs, they seem to be the first ones to admit they don't really know what they believe.

Aly Michalka as an actress is so warm and light and funny, but as a singer is the exact opposite: deadly serious, and as far as I can tell not much personality in the vocal or live performances. (She's still a good singer, mind you, as far as I can tell, just a kind of robotic one). Emma Roberts is the same way. Her acting is filled with expressiveness and personality, and yet her singing is lifeless and completely devoid of personality, which is part of the reason I don't care for her album at all. Ashley Tisdale the same way? I dunno, she steals the show in HSM (and also in Zack and Cody), her singing though not great does seem to express some personality.

On the other end, you've got Brie Larson and Miley C, who are great, expressive singers but horrible and wooden as actresses.

Is there something so inherently different about singing and acting that nobody can be lively and fun at both? Closest I can think of is Hilary, tho her singing is fairly wooden itself. Am I missing somebody?

I'd actually think that acting and singing might draw on similar skills, to some extent, so I'm surprised that I can't think of more. I'd call Aly a lively singer, even if "fun" isn't really her thing.

"Five-and-a-half years later, the twins, 20, have just finished recording a pop album with the producers Dallas Austin and Tricky Stewart. Although they left modeling to focus on songwriting, they still devour fashion."

Blah blah fashion. But, you know, Dallas Austin! Tricky Stewart does not ring a bell.

How's Paris Hilton as an actress? Does her show count? I might also nominate Meryl Streep as hypothetically pertinent to the thread, Pauline Kael once classified her as an android, which I took to mean she'd be a good teenpop singer (not astounding, but maybe a bit like fellow lovable android Hilary).

Courtney Love? Madonna (ummm)? The cast of Nashville?

Pertinent to this thread there's also Jessica Simpson, who doesn't seem to have too terribly much personality either way as far as I'm concerned. Same with Hayden Panettiere.

Jennifer Lopez comes close to having both, though I don't particularly like her as a singer or actress.

Paris is surprisingly "not bad" as an actress, though certainly nothing to write home about.

Reese Witherspoon, maybe, but we'd have to see more of her singing than just Walk the Line. Certainly a lively actress.

Note how all of the good examples Frank is coming up with are people from long ago (Astaire is a really good one. Not a great actor but certainly a fun and lively one.) What happened to the singer/actor in the last 20 years?

wasn't j-lo v v critically acclaimed as an actress before she launched the singing career? i don't tend to watch films so have never seen either paris or j-lo act though.

Some discussion of the first line, "this Christmas card is so contrived," F.Kog suggested that "being surrounded by real cheer that you can't participate in is more heartbreaking than being surrounded by fake cheer." Which led me to think about how Aly/AJ use banalities and cliches in their songs to bring out ideas that are more disturbing...the "easy" lines (usually in the chorus, in this case in the first verse) act as catalysts to expressing fear, loathing, not knowing, etc. So in "Not This Year" it's very evident that fake Xmas cards are not the real issue...that comes later, acknowledging that it's about seeing sadness "in the mirror," about shouting your unhappiness to the heavens:

"Don't know if you can hear me/ I will speak louder for you/ No more whispering/ Are you listening?"

The way she delivers this line, it's not so much "Are you there God? It's me, Aly," more like "can you hear me now"? This happens right at the end of the album, before a rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" (bonus track) that sounds almost sarcastic in context. The contrived cards bit (which itself is a contrived idea) is a decoy, they haven't really gotten at what's really bugging them, you have to dig for it a little.

I don't know if anyone else in teenpop does this. Kelly Clarkson goes about as dark but she doesn't conceal the darkness (like in "Sticks and Stones," where being alone and helpless is refuted in the chorus...Aly/AJ unconvincingly assert their "invincibility," another decoy, since invincibility and intense vulnerability are clearly opposed). They face down isolation and unhappiness armed with paper-thin cliches ("we won't let the bullies hurt us!" "we'll do our best to stay on alert for kidnappers!") and it works, sort of, in the sense that Aly and AJ are still "safe" by Disney standards. "Not This Year" is where their contrivances aren't even opposed to the general idea (sometimes you're just unhappy, even on Christmas), they're just weak and obviously not the real issue -- it's a little temper tantrum before they get to the point.

Bette Midler. Certainly has personality, as both an actor and singer. But she's fairly minor as a pop star, isn't she?

Isaac Hayes! Crucially important in music. Not a major actor, but seems good at it.

Played in the soaps but I've never seen them act: Kylie Minogue, Paulina Rubio, Belinda, Shakira.

I've never seen their acting but they have a good rep: Dwight Yoakam, Ice Cube, Eminem, Courtney Love.

Was good in Down By Law and scads of people consider him one of the age's great vocalists, though I don't: Tom Waits.

Was good in Cider House Rules and always sounds good when I hear him rap but I need to know more of his music: Heavy D.

My problem is that I've really lost touch with movies and TV; somewhere I had to draw the line, and movies and TV lost out. So the modern interplay may be greater than I realize.

I think Bette and Fred Astaire are the best examples anybody's gonna come up with.

I guess the modern interplay between singing and acting is more than I have let on, especially in rap, and it seems to be mostly by chance that it doesn't work that way in teen pop (I don't think any of the HSM'ers or Cheetahs apply here). Other than Ice Cube though none of the singer/actors you mentioned are too major as actors. J.Lo. is the only one who comes to mind who is/was massive as a singer and as an actor in the past few years (Hilary to a certain extent).

I actually follow the TV and movies more than the music so perhaps I am underrating some of the singers.

I've sold Brie short as an actress. She's not bad, but not good either, and I still don't think she conveys 1/10th the personality she conveys in her singing or on her blog.

Seeing an actress like Lindsay Lohan trying to cross into the music world is not a surprise. Hell, acting and lip-synching are practically the same thing. And let’s be honest here, it’s not like she has to fool a bright crowd.

On this clip of her complete desecration of “I Want You to Want Me,” her fans leave well thought-out comments like: “she looks great in make up” “LOV DA SONG…. LOV HER SHE FAB” and “I [heart] whatever the media tells me to [heart]!!!”

if you watch carefully, you can tell she’s lip-synching. You see, when Lohan actually sings, you can hear a very distinct humming noise from the reverberations echoing through the flapping wind sock that constitutes her vaginal walls, which eventually will shake her past-warranty over-stretched turtleneck lips loose in a blaze of vibrating orange fury equitable only to a combination of a giant Georgia O’Keefe painting on acid and Dante’s Inferno. It’s a strange noise, sure, but on the bright side, childbirth should be very easy for her.

Does anyone have strong opinions about 30 Seconds to Mars?