Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

"Tem Dias (Que A Noite É Foda)" (more rockabilly, less fetching)

"Experimento". The new wave. Good tune.

The lipsynch.

OK. Question. If I'm writing a review for readers who don't know anything about ninths and subdominant chords and relative minors, is there any way to give them this information without boring them and getting in the way of everything else I want to say? Or even if the reader does know what those technical terms mean, does using them really communicated anything that's essential to what the song does? I made this the Song Of The Day over in the left column of my MySpace profile, and I left out the technicalities and just wrote this: "gentle and pensive, uses complex jazz chords, which don't turn this into 'smooth jazz' but rather keep the flow just unsettled enough so that it is flow, a quiet push in the music. This is the one soft song in a hundred that maintains its emotion throughout." Still might not mean a whole lot to people. I don't know.

I meant to write: "G (do), which is the ninth note in the F-minor chord."

Also, I really really really really really need to tell someone how awesome '1980' by Pascal Obispo & Melissa Mars is. It's in the French charts too - again, not exactly teenagers, but she looks about half his age, so, y'know.

Soddit, while I'm at it - Najoua Belyzel's 'Je Ferme Les Yeux' is still bloody amazing. And she's possibly teenaged too. I bet she bloody isn't, but she's got better odds than Pascal Obispo.

So yeah, in summary - French chart-pop: not half bad, sometimes.

"This Christmas card is so contrived
A mannequin looks more alive
Haven't meant a word I've written here
The page is full not one thing sincere"

It's the third line I'd not taken in, which changes the whole meaning for me. It's not a pre-printed card she's calling phony, but her own words.

(*I have no idea which voice is Aly's and which A.J.'s. In fact, looking at them in their videos I don't know who is who either, never having seen their respective TV shows. I suppose I should google their album cover; presumably, Aly'll be on the left and A.J. on the right.)

The Teen Cultural Revolution

2) Do any older-time listeners of Radio Disney know if Hoobastank or Maroon 5 got any plays on RD at the time?

3) I've been watching the WB Summerland lately which has implications on the teen singer/actor discussion thread above as it stars Jesse McCartney and Zac Efron, and also features Sara Paxton as a regular guest star. Zac and Sara were good as alyways, but I have to say I thought Jesse McCartney was surprisingly very good as an actor. Don't care for his singing though. I will probably post my full thoughts on my blog soon.

I saw them do "Chemicals React" on the Megan Mullally show, seemed like their voices were distinct (Aly's voice was stronger and less pinched), but on record it's not clear.

"Silent Night"

"Joy to the World"

"Let It Snow"

"Deck the Halls"

Links for "Greatest Time of Year," "I'll Be Home for Chistmas," and "Not This Year" >here.

("Greatest Time of Year" and "Not This Year" are very good, "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is pretty good, "Silent Night," is not so bad, the other three are adequate, I guess.)

UK chart notes:

1. Meat Loaf & Marion Raven made the UK Top 10 this week. Quite possibly the last time Marion will ever reach such giddy heights over here, but you never know.

2. My Chemical Romance have the #1 single for second straight week (and the LP, released today, is sure to follow it to #1). MCR are pomp-emo but have a large teen girl following here judging by the crowd that attended their gigs in London (one of them a matinee!) a year or so ago.

Aly of Phil of the Future adopted all sorts of crazy hairstyles, practically a new one every episode. But yeah, I agree that she looks best with just the normal straight hair.

Just checked out Matthew Gerrard's pre-Disney history, bass player before featuring on a Mandy Moore album and producing Eden's Crush (unknown early DioGuardi track on that one, not very good) and Nick Carter. But his breakthrough was Lizzie McGuire --> Hilary Duff. Otherwise he seems to be the producer equivalent of a Disney-bred star, doesn't stray too far.

83% of you say Paris Hilton does not deserve to be a popstar.

Those who think Paris does deserve to be a popstar are less likely to have a problem with popstars miming, less likely to demand that popstars are interesting, and less likely to believe that popstars should be able to sing.

Almost half of you think Kylie should keep her hair short and that Girls Aloud are better than The Beatles.

17% of you want your popstars to be hairy, and 15% think that being able to sing is unimportant.

Only 3% of under-18s want a Spice Girls reunion.

44% of Lily Allen's MySpace friends think her next album will be shit.

Full report available there.

Just finished listening to the HM soundtrack. Of the songs I never heard the full versions of, thumbs up to "This Is the Life" and "Just Like You", and thumbs down to "The Other Side of Me". The more dance-y HM tries to get, the worse the song ends up being. Still don't really know why "This Is the Life" never really picked up any RD play as it sounds at least as good as, say, "If We Were a Movie" to me. Extra tracks + duet add nothing to the album. I really wish they had included at least one new HM track on this.

PS) The Chow Nasty "Ungawa" guy reminds me as much of James Chance as Jon Spencer; did I ever say that before? Which is not say not as good as James but not as irritating as Jon. If the whole song was as good as chorus chant, it would maybe have shot at my top ten, but as of this moment the James/Jon parts just make me wince way too much.

"Eleven Seven Music was created to help artists release albums that would later potentially be picked up by Warner Music Group subsidiaries."

Whatever that means. I guess "being developed in associaton" with WB doesn't necessarily mean being distributed by whoever distributes WB. Or something.

Dirtie Blonde are more interesting, and more fun, than I thought. Who they sometimes remind me of Artificial Joy Club, this Canuck band that I liked in the early '90s (they're in the second version of Stairway to Hell) and nobody else noticed, though I doubt Dirtie Blonde are that good. But Amie Moriello's sandpaper vibrato seems to take stop-offs not only at Alanis and Sheryl and Morningwood (and the song where she does that somehow turns out to gain something in this context by the way), but also Shakira ("Officially in Love" is kind of blatant in that regard) and Taylor Dayne and PJ Harvey. Hmmm.

Also I don't *hate* the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus song on *Employee of the Month.* It's just your usual dime a dozen emo twerpola, but it does at least appear to be a comprehensible (and comprehensibly hooky, in its lame way) song, where the singer is chiding some other guy for being physically abusive to a woman, or something like that.
Also, *Employee* version of Exile's "Kiss You All Over", by somebody named Santino, is in another language. Wonder if it was a Euro hit.

Also "Ungawa" seems more fun despite itself every time I hear it.

Tom Ewing said that the Mad Cobra "Cobrastyle" is his song of the year or decade or something.

Link is here

I have some more thoughts on Emma Roberts and acting/singing but they will have to wait until I get home from work.

Watching some behind-the-scenes footage of "Unfabulous" from an Emma Roberts fansite, there were several portions I thought were relevant:

1) Asked if she prefers music or acting, she replies: "I like acting better than singing, just because I've been doing it longer, and it's really what I wanted to do. The singing thing just happened from the show and it wasn't really anything I ever wanted to do"

2) Asked what job she would have if she couldn't be an actress, she replies...something, I can't remember, but the important thing is that her answer wasn't "singer"

3) They made it a point to mention, several times, that Malese Jow (Emma's co-star on the show) is also a really good singer and that her and Emma like to sing around the set.

Could Nick be really trying to get into this teen pop thing that Diz dominates? They'd be idiots not to, given all the success Disney has had with it. As of right now, the only Nick product that has any recorded output is Emma Roberts and Drake Bell, as far as I know, and neither is anything good (some of Emma's songs, especially "Dummy", are OK). Maybe if they stopped forcing people who don't like to sing to record songs for them (see Emma R.) and got people who were actually good singers, or at least enjoyed singing, it would work better. Disney has been ultra successful at it by getting people who are great singers but mediocre actors (e.g. Miley) or people who even if they aren't great singers are lively and have personality as singers (e.g. Ashley Tisdale). Emma just sounds lifeless.

Lalena just asked me why I was listening to Edie Brickell (who she likes) while Dirtie Blonde's most country/Sheryl Crow song ("Change The Water") was playing. She's probably right. I never listened to Edie beyond the hit about throwing her into deep water or whatever it was. Mostly with Dirtie Blonde I just hear potential, I guess. But I'll give it a little more time and see if any songs kick in.)

Finally got around to playing Justin's album this week. Has anybody pointed out that his singing sounds really, really consticted this time out? Maybe it did last time too, and I didn't notice, but this album is nowhere near as great as his first one. Maybe that's what comes from trying to imitate Prince instead of Michael Jackson? I dunno. I guess "Summer Love" is pretty good. Am I alone in this? (I haven't really been paying attention to the discussion about that album, at all, so it's not really clear to me what people think about it. Ditto the Paris Hilton album, which sounds better to me, especially "Stars Are Blind" and "Jealousy," though it's weird I like her doing slow songs better than doing dance songs. Though I don't mind the Rod Stewart cover or the Bee Gees imitation. Brooke Hogan's CD sounds to me like the Paris Hilton's only less good, and her version of "Low Rider," which is about low riding jeans, reminds me of L'Trimm's version only nowhere near as good. At least so far.)