Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

The Truth Squad is a vocal and dance hip hop/pop- “super group” -comprised of four uniquely talented young performers that individually have mad skills in dance, electric vocals, and an unbelievable presence. They also share a unifying desire to fight lies and expose dishonesty. Pledging to stick together through thick and thin, the Truth Squad has set out to show how friendship and trust are the keys to a better world and best of all, they do it all through phat beats and tight moves.

They all have acting/dance resumes, one of them was a dancer in a Missy video (forget which one) and "Hollaback Girl."

Q: If you could change something about the pop scene today, what would it be?

Miki: Not to make it as provocative as it is and to make it more kid friendly. That's maybe one thing to change.

BOOOOOOORING.

So, just listened to their single off the new album, "The River." Which sounds like they've evolved into P!ATD and MCR. Benji's vocals are completely inscrutable for me compared to Young and the Hopeless. I don't want to sound like G.C. can't do anything right, and in fact, the song is pretty good - well-produced, a nice amount of angst. Yet it's hard to take G.C. seriously.

I know people on the AltPress forums are going to hate G.C., just because of who they are. [Random Mosher from the AltPress forums: "Stick your head in a tub of water for 10 minutes please. Good Charlotte is the worst, worst, worst, candy coated, cookie cutter, Tiger Beat, Poser, TRL babies, Pop-f*gs, scene killing *ssh*l*s I have ever heard or scene...EVER!"] And certainly, there is something inauthentic about the style change. Yet I can't ignore the fact that they sound better, more cohesive, on the single than they ever did. I only wish they had retained some of the spunk from Young + Hopeless, instead of going for the easy push buttons of their audience.

"As I walk through the valley
of the shadow of LA
The footsteps that were next to me
have gone their separate ways
I've seen enough now
to know that beautiful things
don't always stay that way"

Didn't "Welcome to the Jungle" do the same sentiment, but make it fun?

"Baptized in the river (on my own)
Baptized in the river (on my own)
I wanna be delivered"

Thursday does the religious-social intersection so much more convincingly, too. (Sugar in Sacrament).

What Mordechai said about the clunkiness of Good Charlotte has always been something that bothered me. They're good for about three lines and then say something so cringeworthy I have to change the channel or whatever.

...wait, hang on, I was talking about 'Keep Your Hands Off My Girl,' I didn't realised 'The River' was the single. It's alright, it sounds like Funeral For A Friend crossed with Nightmare Of You.

Good Charlotte are sort of the in-laws of teenpop, I would've thought, since aside from the Hilary Duff connection (are they still going out?) they don't quite fit into the genre and are vaguely hated by it, despite having obvious similarities to a lot of teenpop.

This may be a really stupid question but I heard some Aimee Allen the other day- teenpop, yes?

Anyway, speaking of Charlotte, she says that 'Waste My Time' reminds her of Moby + Gwen Stefani doing 'South Side.' I hear what she means, in terms of Alexz Johnson's voice sounding like Gwen's in the chorus.

Most of the music on the first series (which is all I've seen any of) is ace, especially '24 Hours.' Some of it is hilarious. There's a fourth series coming out soon I believe.

Not really; he only wrote "Getcha Head In The Game," which was more a group song with (if I recall correctly) Corbin Bleu rather than Zac leading the singing; and the version that got airplay was B5's. Seeley did sing on all the Zac Efron songs, but what I read in Billborad was that Zac sang when the register was low enough but Drew did all the high register lines. So Drew's the one who's soaring and flying. Drew rather than Zac performed at the HSM show in Madison Square Garden.

Matthew Gerrard and Robbie Nevil: s/d and c/d.

They often write as a team, with Gerrard usually handling the production. They did two of the most popular tracks from HSM ("Start of Something New" and "We're All In This Together") and a whole bunch of the tracks on Cheetah Girls 2, which I saw last night. The thing is, their tracks are usually the ones I like least. My favorite song on HSM is "Breaking Free" by Jamie Houston, the two somewhat good Cheetah Girls singles are "Strut" and "Amigas Cheetahs," also by Jamie Houston. "Dance With Me" is on the soundtrack but performed by Drew Seeley and Belinda and written by Ray Cham (who cowrote "Getcha Head In The Game") and Charlene Licera, is heard in the film as a track that Sabrina and the teen count dance to.

But Gerrard actually has one of the better tracks (and one of the not better tracks) on the Vanessa Hudgens album, a good, somewhat dark-sounding dance track appropriately called "Let's Dance," and he co-wrote "The High Road," which is a nice (though below average for that very good album) track on JoJo's The High Road. (Crucial credit on that track, however, might be Jonathon "J.R." Rotem, who wrote and produced LeToya's really good "All Eyes On Me.") Gerrard also cowrote (w/ Avril Lavigne) Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway," which is a good song despite having a line about spreading one's wings (but again overshadowed by other stuff on the album). Also wrote an unheard-by-me Lindsay Lohan track on the soundtrack to Confessions of a Teen Drama Queen, and one of my least favorite Hilary Duff singles ("Why Not"). He has something to do with the Bratz. And a lot more, I'm sure. Robbie Nevil had success as a singer in the late '80s, early '90s.

I wasn't a fan of Cheetah Girls 2 either, Frank. Still, it was better than the original.

Life is a work of art/ You gotta paint it colorful,
Can make it anything U want/ Don't have to stick to any rules
You don't need a high IQ/ To succeed in what you do,
You just gotta have no doubt/ Just believe in yourself.

(Nope, Gerrard wrote a different one. Jamie Huston is on this soundtrack, too, wrote "A Day in the Life" which I haven't heard)

And Jamie Houston wrote "Pumpin Up The Party" which is almost inarguably her worst song (at least, as far as I am concerned). So Hannah Montana turns the Disney world UPSIDE DOWN.

Then again "J. Lurie" (acc to Allmusic) has cowriting credit on my two favorite Hannah Montana songs, "I Got Nerve" and "This Is The Life". F. Lurie is cowriter on "If We Were a Movie"

Whoops, I take back what I said about V above. It's a good album, but I definitely like the Hannah Montana OST more. Neither are top 20 albums of the year.

A few recent articles about the HSM concert tour: One pretty good on Tom Breihan's VV blog, one not so good from NYT.

"Jump to the Rhythm" was by Robyn Johnson and Frank Fitzpatrick, not her normal songwriters, and nobody I've heard of.

Jamie Houston did "Vertical" which is kinda mediocre.

Gerrard/Nevil did "Push It to the Limit" and that Keke Palmer song which name I forget, which are the two pretty good songs from the movie. I'm starting to kinda like "Push It to the Limit", after initially hating it.

On another note, I'm not digging Ashley Tisdale's singles very much. "He Said, She Said" is OK, but I'm not into "Be Good To Me" (and does anybody know the songwriters on that?). Course I might change my mind on this, but neither is really grabbing me.

This is from one of Frank's posts on last year's thread. Just mentioning it because according to my Pandora station, it counts as teenpop! Updating it today, they've added a lot of artists recently. They even have Leslie Carter's "Like Wow!" and Daphne & Celeste's "U.G.L.Y." but no other D&C.

Does Bextor count as teen pop, or is she now artpop like Kylie?

Aliana Lohan released her Xmas album while ILM was down and it's...pretty strange. Video for second-most-resoundingly-"kicked"-on-RD-last-year single (don't know which was #1) "Christmas Magic" is actually kinda disturbing, watch for the weirdly sinister reindeer and snowman at the end that coulda been stand-ins for the dog-suit guy in The Shining. More interesting/WTF is "Lohan Holiday" feat. Lindsay somewhere in the background (I think?), available here.

I listened to/reviewed a whole boatload of teenpop Christmas songs this December. Here are links to some of the more notable ones:

Hilary Duff - "Santa Claus Lane"; Hilary Duff - "What Christmas Should Be"; Christina Aguilera - "Christmas Time"; Mariah Carey - "Miss You Most at Christmastime" (presumably you all know "All I Want For Christmas Is You" already, so I won't take the time to get a link); Cheetah Girls - "Five More Days Til Christmas" (This is the best Cheetahs songs that I've heard - er, sorry about the sound quality though); 'N Sync - "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays"; S Club 7 - "Perfect Christmas". Those are all the songs that I reviewed that are worth listening that I could find on YouTube.

I wasn't a big fan of Hannah Montana's "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree", as I found that her voice didn't work well for the rocking tune they were going for. Maybe after she matures and her voice fills out more she'll be able to pull that stuff off, but right now it didn't sound great. Jordan Pruitt had a Christmas song too, and it was a really good little tune called "Santa Don't Stop", but for the life of me I can't find a free version for listening anywhere online.

Anyway: Was this album in production during HSM? And is it a Disney album? Who is writing the songs? I'm curious if this is a product of her (her manager, whatever) impetus V. the Disney machine's. Obviously for each of these Disney stars there's a point where they have to distinguish themselves from Disney - but I hadn't heard anything about Hudgens before HSM, so this sudden departure from the script feels... well... scripted.

*Also seen him spelled "Arnthor."

Kidz Bop - "Chicken Noodle Soup"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjr-bP-sSgs

(I jest. It's cute.)

Also, Frank, rereading your initial post in this thread (looking for a possible comment on Hudgens) I noticed you said: "Teen newbie Taylor Swift is on the country stations with teen confessional sounds and concerns and may have the talent to match Aly & A.J. if not Ashlee (yet)."

What I heard from Swift makes this statement really confusing. Obviously you aren't comparing styles, or genres (or even a vocal comparison)... is it just the confessional style?

Now that you mention it, her voice strikes me as almost having some of Amy Diamond's phrasing/affectation, the obvious difference being that Ali's way way more subdued (but not bad). I just can't imagine what the general idea behind this production was, since it doesn't seem to be in conversation with any recent music, teenpop or otherwise (maybe background music in a Hallmark commercial, but I bet even Hallmark's moved on to indie rock by now). Do keyboards even have those synth presets anymore? Ditto the costumes in that video...were those all lying around in some wardrobe closet somewhere near the shoot, or did someone actually design them?

(It was "I Like Christmas" that got kicked, can't find the number one most hated of the year yet.)

Mordy - Taylor does softer rock than Ashlee or Aly & A.J. or Kelly, but some of her songs make her emotional growth and personal experiences the issue; e.g., "A Place In This World" starts off, "I don't know what I want, so don't ask me/'Cause I'm still trying to figure it out/Don't know what's down this road, I'm just walking/Trying to see through the rain coming down/Even though I'm not the only one/Who feels the way I do." And the chorus - its melody and harmony - runs very close to "Behind These Hazel Eyes." Her vocal twang and the banjo or mandolin running through the chorus of "Should've Said No" doesn't make it any less a wailing rockin' teen rager on the order of Ashlee's "I Am Me." And "Tim McGraw" has smart smart smart lyrics. Not that there's no precedence for this in country: Deana Carter is a singer-songwriter precursor. (Not an age thing; Deana was already in her 30s before she hit with "Strawberry Wine." "Tim McGraw" is a variation on the first-love reminiscence of "Strawberry Wine." Strange that young Taylor is doing a reminiscence song. Also strange that the lyrics may be better than those in any of the hundred other first-love reminiscence songs in country since "Strawberry Wine.") I'll see if I can hunt down some of my December posts on Taylor from the ad hoc rolling country-in-email-exile substitution for a thread.

the jojo album is VERY good, having listened to it all weekend...