Hilary Duff: Joy for pre-teens, not just Humbert Humbert

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omg "Wake Up" is so pretty!

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 9 September 2005 20:34 (eighteen years ago) link

one year passes...

i think hilary at her best is maybe...the very best of the teenpop stars? there's something about her older material (pre-the new album, which is terrific but in a different way) which is tremendously emotionally resonant, and wonderfully crafted: her phrasing is exquisite, the production straddles rough and smooth in just the right way, even the lyrics are great!

this is all based on the brilliance of five tracks:

come clean
wake up
the math
fly
beat of my heart

what else of hilarity's older material is as great as this?

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 12:44 (sixteen years ago) link

my kid has album you refer to -- possible the most moronic lyrics I've ever heard ;-)

― m coleman, Monday, 14 May 2007 12:52 (sixteen years ago) link

you know, i'm actually kinda glad we're moving back into an era when teen pop is just for pre-teens and rock critics reflexively bash it for this very fact. but this one doesn't know quite what it wants to say, does it?

-- strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Monday, 26 January 2004 21:06

oh, strongopaws, how wrong you were :(

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 14 May 2007 12:58 (sixteen years ago) link

i'm no crystal ball

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:11 (sixteen years ago) link

interesting, er, thread to choose, lex

― Frogman Henry, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:11 (sixteen years ago) link

the list of bands who i've drunkenly assured my friends "well that's the last we'll hear of THEM," who then went on to become international superstars, is quite long

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:13 (sixteen years ago) link

interesting, er, thread to choose, lex

there weren't too many specifically about hilary!

i feel that not everyone is treating this as seriously as they could

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:17 (sixteen years ago) link

RIP Haylie Duff

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:17 (sixteen years ago) link

jess i have a little moeny to invest in shares, any tips? i hear the housing market over there is good?

― 696, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:18 (sixteen years ago) link

HOT: curmudgeonly old folks and free jazz
NOT: hilary duff and "fun"

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:21 (sixteen years ago) link

yeah, i was more weeping for the future than gloating over your error, strongo.

Duff's had a couple decent singles but she has the same kind of expressionless little child voice as Sanjaya Malakar. except she still sounds like that even now that she's like 20 years old and has no excuse.

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:22 (sixteen years ago) link

hilary duff isn't particularly fun. but she is hot, cuz she's fly. you ain't cuz you not.

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:23 (sixteen years ago) link

hilary's duff is probably the least "expressionless" of any teenpop singer!!! she really nails her lyrics, she sings them with the exact vague wistfulness/melancholy/yearning that they need. little-girlish yes, but she was a girl. i don't think that's something to castigate her over.

and she doesn't really sound like that any more.

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:25 (sixteen years ago) link

I mean it's not like I expect every pop singer to be a powerhouse vocalist but honestly when critics talk about "the sharpness of Lindsay's phrasing or the force of Ashlee's personality" they just sound deluded.

(xpost dude i've heard her new singles, her voice sounds exactly the same as it did a few years ago)

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:26 (sixteen years ago) link

jess i have a little moet on the shelf. should i drink it?

― 696, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:26 (sixteen years ago) link

her voice is REALLY BAD. above and beyond the cartoonish, OTT platitudes, this is why i can never take lex's duff obsession seriously.

xpost, yes

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:26 (sixteen years ago) link

lex do you think hilary is not girl, not yet a woman?

― 696, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:27 (sixteen years ago) link

honestly for people who claim to dislike hilary, jess and alex sure were all over her thread the minute i bumped it! i think they love the duff more than they care to admit

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:29 (sixteen years ago) link

The only good Duff single is "Come Clean", which may as well have been sung by an Atari 2600 for all the human quality to her vocals.

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:29 (sixteen years ago) link

well, like I said, she's had a couple good singles! and she used to be cute, before her facial features got all Skeletor in the last year or two. (xpost Dom OTM)

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:30 (sixteen years ago) link

i admit it: i love the duff

― Frogman Henry, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:33 (sixteen years ago) link

this is what i do instead of reading the times with my coffee every morning while waking up

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:34 (sixteen years ago) link

well then would you care to talk about what you like about her then, or perhaps even engage with what i've said about her, rather than lazily dismissing entire swathes of opinion just because you can't get over yourself enough to admit you like it without a thousand qualifications to keep your distance from it? seriously being all curmudgeonly is not an appealing look no matter how hard you and jess try to cultivate it - it just makes you look old (ie irrelevant)

xp to alex

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:35 (sixteen years ago) link

lol

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:38 (sixteen years ago) link

my favourite moment of 'come clean' is that line "and going out is better than always staying in" - there's a fantastic chord change on the word "always", there's a sudden guitar peal, it lifts the song from moody introversion into something v positive and hopeful, and then of course the chorus comes crashing in rather wonderfully

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:38 (sixteen years ago) link

okay let's go

"which is tremendously emotionally resonant,"

this means nothing without being fleshed out and backed up

"and wonderfully crafted"

ditto

"her phrasing is exquisite,"

ditto

"the production straddles rough and smooth in just the right way,"

getting there, but still tells me nothing

"even the lyrics are great!"

ditto

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:38 (sixteen years ago) link

I remember last time I had this argument on ILM I pointed out like two dozen 'teenpop' artists I've enjoyed recent singles by, it's not like I hate the stuff across the board. But you can praise it on its own terms, and not force a bunch of hyperbole about the quality of their vocal performances (i.e. "tremendously emotionally resonant, and wonderfully crafted: her phrasing is exquisite").

I don't mind looking old when the alternative is trying to trying to emulate the taste and writing style of a 12-year-old girl.

(haha xpost ok strongo said it better)

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:39 (sixteen years ago) link

i could plug in "mary j. blige," "morton feldman," or "shellac" in there and it would mean the same thing, i.e. nothing.

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:39 (sixteen years ago) link

basically lex, this would be sent back for rewrites immediately and/or i'd just scrap the assignment, issue you a kill fee, and wish you well in whatever future non-writing career you'd like.

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:40 (sixteen years ago) link

i think Shellac at their best is maybe...the very best of the teenpop stars?

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:41 (sixteen years ago) link

has lex seen logan's run. has this joke been made before.

― Frogman Henry, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:41 (sixteen years ago) link

http://www.thuisexperimenteren.nl/chemicalien/ether.jpg

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:41 (sixteen years ago) link

jess this is ilm, i'm not going to put the same effort into it as into, you know, actual writing

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:41 (sixteen years ago) link

unless you want to pay me of course

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:42 (sixteen years ago) link

i dunno guys, i think shes at the age where a little drink driving could really help her profile

im not sure racism is a good look for hilary just yet, but in a couple of years, she could try see if she could pull that off?

― 696, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:42 (sixteen years ago) link

xpost

of course! but don't expect me to "seriously engage" with the critical equivalent of text message mash notes in that case.

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:43 (sixteen years ago) link

i feel like the people i've watched waste precious minutes of their life trying to get Geir to make sense.

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:43 (sixteen years ago) link

(the math and beat of my heart are great singles btw, not sure about the more recent stuff)

― 696, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:44 (sixteen years ago) link

that's what ilm is kind of based on

xps

― lex pretend, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:44 (sixteen years ago) link

"i think Shellac at their best is maybe...the very best of the teenpop stars?"

Todd Trainer is foxy.

― David R., Monday, 14 May 2007 13:54 (sixteen years ago) link

hilary's startin to look a little like atomizer-era albini come to think of it

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:55 (sixteen years ago) link

I think I'll take songs from Dignity and Good Morning Revival and make an 11-13 song Rumours: The Next Generation. If only their labels did!

x-post sad but true

― da croupier, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:59 (sixteen years ago) link

the lyrics to "jordan, minnesota" could probably do with posting on the rolling teenpop thread

― strongohulkington, Monday, 14 May 2007 14:02 (sixteen years ago) link

Songs About Fucking: The Rolling 2007 Teenpop Thread

― David R., Monday, 14 May 2007 14:32 (sixteen years ago) link

[i]when critics talk about "the sharpness of Lindsay's phrasing or the force of Ashlee's personality" they just sound deluded.[i]

I can only think of one person who said that, actually. (It was me.) How is this "deluded"? (I dunno about the "sharpness of Lindsay's phrasing" bit anyway, this was compared to Kara DioGuardi, who co-writes a lot of Lindsay/Ashlee/Hilary's songs, and her phrasing is much sharper. So I was wrong there...but I do think there's something about Lindsay's delivery that's more interesting than Kara's.)

― dabug, Monday, 14 May 2007 14:34 (sixteen years ago) link

Yahoo! Answers - Is Aly and Aj's new song about fornication?

― dabug, Monday, 14 May 2007 14:35 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah, I'm not gonna defend Platinum Weird, believe me. That bit I quoted just always struck me as odd. Someone like Lohan is, to me, the epitome of a merely adequate (or "adequite") vocalist, someone whose songs might be occasionally good or great (I guess? "Over" was OK), but usually in spite of, not because of, her performances. Of course everyone has their own taste and a right to defend it, but it just seems like such a stretch to praise her or Ashlee when you don't have to look far to find a much more skilled vocalist like, say, Kelly Clarkson or even Pink, doing similiar material. I read lines like that and just feel like someone's been drinking deep from the well of ILM teenpop Kool-Aid.

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 14 May 2007 14:54 (sixteen years ago) link

No way, you should listen to her performance on "I Live for the Day," which is pretty much hands-down her best song. I can imagine Kara singing that song and sounding...uh, "sharp," but not getting that sort of desperate (desperite) tone that Lindsay gets. (And Lindsay's more playful on her first album than Kara usually is, too, but I still wouldn't use the word sharp.)

Also, Kelly Clarkson and Pink are both more "skilled" than Ashlee if you mean divas/powerhouse voice, but the powerhouse failed Pink with, e.g., Dr. Luke where Paris (whose voice is the antithesis of powerhouse) succeeded, and Kelly and Ashlee are about on the same level of emotional resonance (not hyperbole/baiting-talk) but I prefer Ashlee, partly because she doesn't have a diva voice to fall back on. Although I do think that a lot of critics greatly underestimate how good her voice is because of the various fiascos and the underlying assumption that she was autotuned (or something), which isn't really a problem with Kelly.

(I was drinking deep from the well of teenpop Kool-Aid before it came to ILM. But that's interesting...is there a perception that "ILM teenpop" is a pass-the-Kool-Aid deal? I always assumed it was generally seen as Frank Kogan's blog + spillover genre thread shenanigans + lone loonies chiming in about the Radio Disney playlist + a million "cryptic" tangents about Issues in Pop)

― dabug, Monday, 14 May 2007 15:04 (sixteen years ago) link

I will say this, Lohan's phrasing is sharper when she's singing than when she's reading dialogue, but that's faint praise. I haven't heard any deep cuts, though, so I'll reserve judgement on all her music and the song you singled out. As I said before, "it's not like I expect every pop singer to be a powerhouse vocalist," and I love a lot of music by people who are not great singers in the traditional sense, some of it even vocal-centered pop. But this almost strikes me as a matter of how able (or willing) someone is to like a song without feeling the need to love or defend every single thing about it. I can love a song unreservedly while still acknowledging that it's mainly the bassline or the bridge or a vocal tic that does it for me, whereas I don't see someone like The Lex as capable of anything in between despising a song or loving it to bits and praising every little part of it as genius. "Nothing In This World" is a fine song, and Paris's vocal suits it well, any vocal limitations she has don't hinder it and she does exactly what the song needs, no more, no less. But I can say that without deciding she's absolutely brilliant, or giving all the credit to the songwriter/producer to cop out on liking a Paris Hilton song.

And again, it's all relative, but I wouldn't call "U + Ur Hand" a failure at all, even aside from its current chart triumph.

― Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 14 May 2007 15:19 (sixteen years ago) link

Skipping 776 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

good song, but its just r&b!

― deej, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 19:35 (sixteen years ago) link

brace yrself deej

― r|t|c, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 19:39 (sixteen years ago) link

unless... the teenpoppers were to agree with you?

that wd be interesting

― r|t|c, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 19:48 (sixteen years ago) link

haha! i like

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 19:55 (sixteen years ago) link

Are some folks over at dissensus instead? I think Stelfox posts over there about dancehall and Finney is there a bit.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 17 May 2007 03:17 (sixteen years ago) link

i heard qoolout and hillis 3000 were posting on dissensus now too

― and what, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:32 (sixteen years ago) link

Are they still posting battle raps?

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:32 (sixteen years ago) link

did people used to 'keystyle' on ilm?

other than chromski a.k. gattlington i mean

― deej, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:34 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah, it was awesome. They even did the "punctuation so you can see where I'd be empathising these words IRL" thing.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:35 (sixteen years ago) link

blount was right

― and what, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:40 (sixteen years ago) link

RIP

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 17 May 2007 14:45 (sixteen years ago) link

seven months pass...

http://bp2.blogger.com/_2DoVgQdBtOw/RpIXkQ-RdwI/AAAAAAAAAZ0/Ass6-sl2yj4/s1600-h/Studio+33+Pres.+Best+of+2007+Massive+Megamix+Vol.3.jpg

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 28 December 2007 14:47 (sixteen years ago) link

This thread has my favorite Tim F responses.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 28 December 2007 14:51 (sixteen years ago) link

And I seem to recall a Cure for Bedbugs blog post about the new Arcade Fire album, which amounted to not much more than "Ick! Dull, dull, dull!" -- which I guess is partially an attempt to distance himself from his own 9.7 Pitchfork review of the first one.

-- jaymc, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 16:47 (7 months ago) Bookmark Link

Heart of truth at centre of thread.

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 28 December 2007 14:58 (sixteen years ago) link

Rosebud...

― dabug, Friday, 28 December 2007 15:41 (sixteen years ago) link

being all curmudgeonly . . . just makes you look old (ie irrelevant)
-- lex pretend

Old = Irrelevant. LOL.

― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 28 December 2007 15:43 (sixteen years ago) link

welcome to lexworld, man.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 28 December 2007 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link

it's all part of his hilarious ideology and you should subscribe to his newsletter.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 28 December 2007 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah. Like I said on another thread, he seems smart, just dogmatic. And since I'm old(-ish) (39), his comment struck me as funny and perhaps revealing about his enthusiasm for teenpop (my invisible psych degree sits framed on my wall next to my invisible music degree).

― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 28 December 2007 16:57 (sixteen years ago) link

and perhaps revealing about his enthusiasm for teenpop

and perhaps his own youth as well.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 28 December 2007 17:13 (sixteen years ago) link

Is he young? I assumed -- perhaps wrongly -- that he was an adult music writer/critic. I thought I saw a picture of him on these boards at one point (awkwardly holding a guitar, maybe?).

― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 28 December 2007 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link

He's a few years older than me iirc (I'm 21), but I meant "youth" in the broad sense.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 28 December 2007 17:23 (sixteen years ago) link

He doesn't seem that young when he's emulating the taste, writing style and enthusiasm level of someone half his age.

― Alex in Baltimore, Friday, 28 December 2007 17:25 (sixteen years ago) link

This thread has my favorite Tim F responses.

Yeah, they're good. This thread has my favorite Dom Passantino responses.

― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 29 December 2007 03:22 (sixteen years ago) link

i feel that not everyone is treating this as seriously as they could
-- lex pretend

epitaph

― gershy, Saturday, 29 December 2007 03:51 (sixteen years ago) link

one month passes...

Greta (Hilary Duff) is a trip, but she’s not a vacation. She’s seventeen, bright, beautiful and seriously rebellious, full of sarcastic wit that barely disguises the hurt inside. Pushed aside by her mother, Karen, who is on her third marriage and counting, Greta is shipped off to her grandparents for the summer, and she’s not happy about it. In fact, she tells them that she fully intends to kill herself before the summer is over and is currently compiling a notebook of suicide methods. Acerbic, yet winningly impulsive, Greta is a stunning force of nature, disrupting her grandparents’ staid and settled lives and the Jersey Shore community they live in as well. Greta falls for a harismatic, young short-order cook (Evan Ross), only to find out he’s been in and out of a juvenile correctional facility for stealing cars. Now he’s determined to do something with his life, but as their romance heats up, Greta has to overcome the concerns of her grandparents (Ellen Burstyn, Michael Murphy) about her boyfriend’s criminal past. But soon a near catastrophe gives Greta a wake-up call and demonstrates how deeply her own actions impact those around her. Greta’s growing love for her elderly grandparents, along with the excitement of her first summer romance, gradually strips away her defenses, revealing the promising, charismatic young woman underneath her shell.

― Dom Passantino, Saturday, 2 February 2008 21:31 (sixteen years ago) link

this was kinda the last hurrah for the poptimist crew in many ways, most of them don't post much anymore or at all.

― gershy, Saturday, 2 February 2008 21:54 (sixteen years ago) link

two months pass...

which might be why i have a million western swing songs when *logically* i could probably do with about 8

-- 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 14:27 (11 months ago) Bookmark Link

This is the wrongest thing on the thread, just because Bob Willis made a living as a Spade Cooley impressionist, doesn't mean Western Swing was a generic genre.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 24 April 2008 10:51 (fifteen years ago) link

Oh where, oh where did the nerd pedophiles go; oh where oh where can they be...

― Gorge, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:45 (fifteen years ago) link

livejournal? no really, I think that's the serious answer.

― Alex in Baltimore, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:47 (fifteen years ago) link

anyway kinda surprised to see Duff on the top 10 of FHM 100 Sexiest Women In The World 2008 considering that she's looked pretty awful with horse teeth veneers for at least a couple years now.

― Alex in Baltimore, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:49 (fifteen years ago) link

BILL O'REILLY CALLS FOR CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS MILEY CYRUS LINGERIE PICS! EXTRA EXTRA!

http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/images/gallery/miley-cyrus-boyfriend_448x261.jpg

(maybe all the nerds are at the conference.)

― scott seward, Thursday, 24 April 2008 19:00 (fifteen years ago) link

one month passes...

did people used to 'keystyle' on ilm?

-- deej, Thursday, 17 May 2007 15:34 (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

deej be all "Damn, I should have gotten here earlier"

― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 15:09 (fifteen years ago) link

you've revived this thread four times

― and what, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 15:11 (fifteen years ago) link

I know, great innit?

― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 15:15 (fifteen years ago) link

Nah. It's kind of sad. Let go, man.

― Pashmina, Tuesday, 10 June 2008 15:24 (fifteen years ago) link

one year passes...

soon to be an honorary edmonton oilerette !

― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, 20 February 2010 16:48 (fourteen years ago) link

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