Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

... specifically "Family Affair," maybe, the way she bends her voice--I don't know, reminds me a little bit of Sly Stone (of course, their means of achieving this effect are entirely different). I remember as a kid the first time I heard "Family Affair" I thought it was really twisted and inhuman and scary and elfin-like or something.

I've probably said this enough, but it can't hurt to say again: I absolutely love Piece of Me, and all my friends love it, and we can't can't can't get enough of it.

T2 f. Jodie Aysha "Heartbroken" is quite excellent. It is the 31st best single of the year. It used to be 30th, but then LeAnn Rimes' "Nothin' Better To Do" passed it. It is in a genre that they call "bassline," "they" being Lex and maybe some other people too; except sometimes the genre is called "niche," which would be a great genre title (just as "scene" is a great title for a particular scene) (and surely a genre called "genre" is just around the corner), though "Niche" turns out merely to be the name of a nightclub.

In related news, I saw this headline a couple of weeks ago:

Northern Rock Board Seen Eyeing Internal Rescue

I was disappointed to discover that "Northern Rock" was the name of a British bank. I'd thought that there was a board charged with overseeing rock in the north. Northern rock is facing a liquidity crisis, part of the fallout from the U.S. subprime loan debacle. I wrote a letter to Northern Rock's board suggesting that the name of the bank be changed to Northern Soul. (This joke has probably been made thousands of times in Britain. But I'm not in Britain.)

Here's a question for you all:

What surprised you in popular and semipopular music this year (you don't need to limit your answer to stuff that's teenpop)?

My immediate answer is Britney Spears. I'd previously loved some of her music ("And Then We Kiss" made my Jackin' Pop ballot last year; "...Baby One More Time" is one of my favorite songs of the Nineties) without giving much thought to her as a human being or a personality or a performer. Starting with the head shave, but even more with her unexpectedly clear-eyed savage mockery of Hilary and the media when she posted her "album title poll" on her website (we talk about this upthread), then the nonapology apology for the umbrella incident, then the intense "Gimme More" single, then the awful walk-through performance on the VMAs while glazed over and fucked-up, then the moxie in calling her album Blackout, then the album itself being mischievous and scrappy and scratchy and angry and cheerful all at once, and really powerful, all in a way that got under my skin.

Another surprise: Miley Cyrus "See You Again," both for the song itself sounding unexpectedly rich and for its breaking onto top 40 radio (up to 1,322 plays, though it's starting to lose steam). And for Radio Disney not playing it.

My #1 surprise (and this is kind of obvious to say at this point--I think others have been registering likeminded surprise) is realizing just how much I like Fergie. I've generally been in the camp of Black Eyed Peas haters, and except for "My Humps," which I NOW assume is the blueprint for "Fergalicious" (which, in my first review of the song in Las Vegas Wkly, I rated 1.0--what an ass!), I don't think I need to go back to find out that I was wrong because I'm pretty sure I still hate "Let's Get Retarded" with a passion bordering on psychosis. But I've liked/loved every single one of Fergie's singles, and even think her latest is good despite it feeling like the well's running a little dry. I regret not listing Fergie (or anyone) on my Idolator ballot as "artist of the year," which I didn't have time to think about.

One thing that surprised me this year was that I tried so hard to squeeze stuff from last year (and previous years) into my list consideration. Not just borderline late releases like Taylor Swift (whom I'd heard and liked in 2006 but didn't really click with until after ballots were due last year) but Justin Timberlake singles and Fergie singles and Marit Larsen singles (I waited for "Robot Song" to be released as a single to no avail, as far as I know). Even a couple of MCR singles.

Other negative surprise came this past week, when I listened to about twenty albums and was disappointed with all of them. I'm looking over year-end lists and I'm not even remotely interested in listening to 99% of what's being repped. And the stuff that piqued my 1% interest for the most part...well, it doesn't suck, it's just really dull, even when it shows promise of not being totally dull (like Battles).

Positive surprise is that Enrique's album (or about half of it) is a good contender for male confessional dance album of the year. I'm not sure if he had any competition, though.

*I could add Robyn and even Rachel Stevens's album (2007 US release via itunes) to the list of things that were technically eligible to vote on in 2007.

i think it's more the production than brit's lack of enunciation, but in break the ice i hear something like

"put your wall hooks/walnuts/wallets in me"

rather than

"but you warm up to me"

doesn't really bug me though.

Oh, another nice surprise, Cassie's second album is shaping up to be as good as (possibly better than) her first. The three songs I've heard so far are gorgeous.

See Cassie: The new Ciara?

I second (third?) being shocked by Britney. I never loved her much, and "Piece of Me" blew me away. Also, I was shocked by how amazing Insomniatic was. I was prepared for something good, but I wasn't prepared for that. I was always shocked by Fall Out Boy. I absolutely hatedhatedhated their last album, and I really liked Infinity on High.

I listened to about twenty albums and was disappointed with all of them

Thought you liked A-Trak's Dirty South Dance.

The power of radio:

Perez Hilton discovers Miley Cyrus's "See You Again" about six months after everyone else does.

Yeah, I'm being too dramatic. A-Trak was great, I liked the Low album OK, Vanessa Carlton's has good qualities. A few others. But the ratio was pretty low. (Also I get Scroogey around the holidays.)

The A-Trak album kept hitting me as more disjointed than I wanted it to; not seamless enough. Or something. Still real good, and when I submitted a top 150 albums of the year list to Idolator with my ballot, it should have been on there, possibly even in the top 50, but somehow I accidentally left it off, oh well.

I listed some country stuff that surprised me this year on the country thread. A few non-country things that surprised me: (1) I wound up liking a song by Avril Lavigne more than I ever thought I would (even though people here mostly seem to hate it now); (2) I wound up liking a song by James Blunt (namely, "1973") more than I ever thought I would (which is to say, I never expected to like one at all); (3) I wound up liking a Christina Aguilera song more than I ever thought I would again (even though, again, the consensus here seems to be against it); (4) I wound up liking black metal (which can be quite gorgeous, surprisingly enough) more than I ever thought I would (though actually, come to think of it, I initially came to that realizion more in '06 -- so let's say my big '07 surprise is that I now probably "black metal" more than merely "dark metal"); and (5) Just in general, I guess I'm surprised by hip-hop increasingly turning back into a music of catchy goofy novelty hits, which is a development I very much welcome.

The thing that most caught me by surprise, though (which I already mentioned on the country thread) was Kid Rock's album -- just way, way better than anything I ever imagined he would come up with again.

I played "See You Again" for a few friends and all they had to say about it was that it was ripping off "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night." Which means they ignored the chorus and the fact that "See You Again" is much better.

I like "Candyman," just don't really like Xtina's makeover in a general sense.

xpost - yeah, that Kid Rock album is really good! I forgot I listened to that.

xp I regret not listing Fergie (or anyone) on my Idolator ballot as "artist of the year,"

For whatever it's worth, I abstained on that category as well, though I'm not as sure I regret it. Last year I voted for all websites (pandora.com, cdbaby.com, etc.), since I couldn't figure out what else to do, and that seemed like a clever-enough solution. I suppose that some years I could see listing a producer, if one seemed ubiquitous enough. (This year, maybe Lil Wayne would have made a lot of sense, if I'd made any attempt to keep up with him.) But generally, to be honest, I kinda hate the category -- just think it's really vague. So I listed my top 10 '07 EPs in the comments section instead!

C'mon, T. Pain was the obvious answer!

Yeah, that occurred to me -- T-Pain or Akon. May have voted for them if I'd actually cared about any songs either of them did this year. But I didn't.

xp John Waite, Blue Cheer, and Alvin Lee all put out better albums than I ever expected them to again as well, so I suppose those count as additional small surprises. (I'd list Ted Nugent, whose album also turned out way better than I'd thought it would be when it was sitting there on my shelf untouched for months after I heard he'd said something typically asinine on stage and I didn't feel like dealing with him, but his last few have been pretty good, too, so I don't know why I'm still surprised by the guy.)

I split the difference and listed Anteres Autotune as my artist of the year.

xp

And oh yeah, I was also surprised that I liked Tiger Army's album -- they'd never done anything for me before, so I didn't expect it to wind up the 85th best album of the year (more or less), but it did!

My biggest surprise was, on 9/11, liking Animal Collective more than 50 Cent and both of them more than Kanye. I would've assumed the opposite order. Or maybe 50 at the bottom. Of course, I haven't heard any of them since so I can't really explain why, except that AC was catchy and weird, 50 was bangin', and Kanye gets progressively more annoying and less weird or bangin'.

Also, second being pleasantly surprised by Fall Out Boy.

I have all kinds of problems with that "Best Artist" category. I ended up voting for Fania Records because they were probably responsible for the most good music issued this year, even if none of it was actually created this year. Then The-Dream, because he wrote "Bed" and "Umbrella." Then T-Pain, Akon, and Wayne, because I typically liked whatever they did and they maybe affected the sound of the year more than anyone else? But it seems like a chump's game. I feel like a chump. But I'd feel more like a chump just voting for the top 5 from my album list.

xhuxk, Tiger Army placed 40 spots higher on my albums list :-P

Possibly under best artists we should have voted for painters (except I have a really poor eye - or anyway, poor attention span - when confronted by "the visual arts," so I wouldn't have known what to vote for).

My five were:

1. Britney Spears
2. Brie Larson
3. Antonina Armato and Tim James
4. Kelefa Sanneh
5. Danja

I voted for Britney partly based on her Website writing, and for Brie pretty much entirely based on her Website writing and the one short story of hers I read in her lit mag. (I just got the Hoot DVD from the library, but I haven't watched it yet. I've never seen her act.)

I voted for Kelefa Sanneh on the basis of his writing. And my votes for Armato & James and for Danja were based partly on their songwriting.

Actually, I was thinking of voting for Poptimists and for The Rolling Country Thread, but I decided against voting for anything I was involved in, or anyone I was friends with.

One of my artist slots went to OiNK. R.I.P., buddy.

This was Akon's year, for sure.

I tried to shy away from people who were involved in my albums/singles, although I did vote for Elias de Leon exec. produced about four of my favorite reggaeton albums of the year, and for the Clutch, but I added them to my ballot before I added "The Way I Are", and Autotune, which makes a few appearances here and there. So guess only Swizz Beatz and Danny Fornaris got away scott-free.

...de Leon who...

By the way, do we want to have a rolling teenpop thread next year? My basic feeling is that the spark is long gone and that the good pop convos are happening elsewhere, not on ilX. An argument in favor of keeping the thread going would be that some people post here whom I might not get to see otherwise, or info gets posted I don't know about, etc.

So, if someone else wants to start one I'll probably contribute, but I'm not going to be the one to start it.

I know a bunch of jerks joke about the seriousness of this thread, but it's been thought-provoking and fun to read all year. Thanks, dudes. You'll be missed if you go, Frank.

Of course there should be one.

I'd miss it if it weren't here. I see some of the stuff I think Frank's referring to elsewhere, Poptimists and whatnot, but I like to think of the yearly rolling threads--and the teenpop one interests me most of all despite my still not being that cozy with the term--as places to kind of round up some of what's being said elsewhere and just to find out about new tunes, etc. I guess this does happen on the livejournal pages and whatnot, but those don't feel like the sorts of places you just pop your head in to make a stray comment--the way it feels fine to do here--but that's probably just me. (Also, having an entire years worth of stuff to search on one screen is kinda swell.)

I've actually preferred this thread the past couple months, when it has seemed less insular; for most of this year, I couldn't follow the discussion at all. And Poptimists (and whatnot?) has never drawn me in, though if somehow can offer me a clue about how it might do so, I'm open to trying it in the '08...(I.e., does Potimists even have a teenpop thread? If not, what is the equivalent, exactly?)

(Basically, I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with Scott. If there's something better out there, I'm happy to move on. But if so, I've never seen it.)

How about carrying on in a broader "rolling pop" or "rolling U.S. charts" thread in 2008? The best discussions on this thread as far as I could see were the ones that weren't confined to just Radio Disney or stuff specifically aimed at teens/tweens but pop in general (also obviously I have always hated the "teenpop"-as-one-word thing).

I like the idea of a more broad "rolling pop" thread myself, but I'm game for whatever people decide. As long as there's something. (I do kind of like the genre-specificy of some of the rolling threads, too, so I can see both arguments.)

"Rolling pop", yes.

I wonder if RT2k7 just needs a slight makeover. Instead of being genre heavy (and let's be honest, though we mainly touch on young teenager pop, we also touch on a whole lot of over kinds of music here) maybe we need some title that gives us the freedom to talk about all kinds of music. And maybe something that holds the promise of what RT2H* holds: Intelligent, thoughtful, and considered discussion about a wide swath of music.

So: Rolling Debutante's Ball 2008, anyone?

"I regret not listing Fergie (or anyone) on my Idolator ballot as "artist of the year," which I didn't have time to think about."

Scott, I had a similar epiphany w/r/t Fergie this year as well. She pretty much dominated radio in Australia ("Big Girls Don't Cry" probably the biggest radio hit of the year, give or take "Beautiful Girls" - the version of the former with Sean Kingston on guest vocals kinda triangulates the choice). That and "Glamorous" and in the last few months "Clumsy" really warmed up the radio - "Clumsy" in particular is the kind of song that is so interesting as a radio hit. I had to vote for three artists of the year in my local rag, and chose her for precisely that reason.

xpost

Excuse me Al Shipley, but I don't particularly give a fuck what you want or don't want, because if you're on a thread I'm likely to stay off it for that reason alone.

Whoa.

I like both Al and Frank, and I'm in favor of a "rolling pop" thread.

Alright, then.

Who is 'Al Shipley'?

I like teenpop. I mean, there's a minimal thread, why not a teenpop one?

This is seriously the best thread on ilm, the one I'm way too intimidated to post on ever really.

Who is 'Al Shipley'?

-- Mordechai Shinefield, Monday, December 31, 2007 1:41 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

That'd be me. I always thought it was somehow less rude or antagonistic to criticize this thread from the outside, perhaps other people felt the opposite. Either way, I probably did cross a line somewhere and don't fault Frank for feeling a certain way about it, so I'll try and stop posting on this thread right now.

i'd be v. much in favor of "rolling pop 2008" which i guess is basically what we did on the rolling 2007 charts thread and that was pretty cool when it was revived.

i'd imagine that rolling pop 2008 would just evolve into rolling us charts thread 2008 anyway, and that would be a good thread.