Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

Forget the Karas of the future--the Kara of now is good enough. (1) She is working with Ashlee again, per her official site and this article in Billboard, which (2) makes me feel a lot better about her whole "This song is giving too much of the power to the man and it does not make me wanna la la," because apparently what she meant by that was (direct quote): "Dude, you are not writing that. You're a fucking hot bitch, and you are not begging for anything. These guys are begging for you." (Dave: I believe this means Kara is in favor of "My Humps.")

http://tommy2.net/2007/alyandajinsomniatic.jpg

I'm just going to quickly pencil this into my year-end ballot real quick...

er, LIGHTLY pencil it in real quick. Or quickly real light.

Reminder:

AMNIOTIC SIN, ANIMISTIC? NO!, INACTIONISM, MOSAIC INNIT?, I SIN INTO M*A*C, and SIMIAN TONIC are but a few of the alternate titles to this abum.

Come on use a pen DABUG, this is clearly going to be one of the ten best albums of the year.

<i>I believe this means Kara is in favor of "My Humps."</i>

Maybe. She's right that "men begging for it" can be sexy, but she's wrong that "begging for it from a man" CAN'T be sexy. Tricky conflation of personal kinks w/ systematic/institutional sexism and power relationships there, because to me Ashlee's song is empowering precisely because she knows exactly what she wants, and what she wants is very different from what most people want. The "Papi" idea was mostly bad because it was <i>boring</i>.

Anyway, I think it's hard to have pop music both ways -- as something that represents an individual viewpoint expressing incontestable personal emotions/kinks/whatever (as the writing process in that piece makes clear) but also something that can be said to influence a "culture," so that when Ashlee wants to get thrown like a boomerang (N.B., she also wants to come back and beat you up!), she's "giving men power"...well, sure she is, because sometimes giving men power gets her off! Having power over men gets her off, too. It's called a sexual identity -- it's complicated. If we wanna take power away from men, let's write some laws that do it and not just tell people how to (say they like to) fuck!

Er, Kara's got issues is what I mean to say, but that article was great.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: STUPID TAGS

"from what most people want" should be "from what most people say they want in pop music, as opposed to real life, where lots of people like to beat up/get beat up, sometimes both at the same time." Usually it's all about fidelity and I'll be with you forever and our love is so friggin' huge and boring crap like that.

I was listening to "Better Off" on my way to work and it's quickly becoming one of my favorite Ashlee songs. For one thing, it's completely NOT about what I've always thought it was about -- the recent end of a relationship. Actually it's about that strange, low-key beginning of a relationship, when you're still trying to "lay low" and you're not sure if it's going anywhere. She is so specific in this song, she just NAILS that early relationship ambivalence. Art Brut sorta nails the excitement in a song like "Good Weekend," but "I've seen her naked...twice!" isn't the only way to see a new relationship, and from my own experience (well, vicarious, since I tend to fall in love instantly, as does, er, can Ashlee, except really she has to feel things out little by little like "the rest of us"), the "Better Off" scenario is way more common that Love At First Sight. (Worth noting: "Love at First Sight" is really "Love at First Listen," not really about SEEING anyone at all, but falling in love through music!)

"Better Off" has about a million little arguments and observations running through it, none definitive, none particularly cliched and all related to a real individual person...all delivered with ambivalence and slight disinterest in which way the relationship might go. But it's about the amivalence and disinterest and the little things that help you gauge those first steps...wearing his clothes, telling your friends you're trying to keep it on the DL, etc. etc.

This in TWO unique verses, the rest being the chorus and bridge. That's about a dozen lines worth of lyrics, maybe a handful more.

*than, not that Love At First Sight

Plus there are plenty of thrown-in-there-for-the-hell-of-it lines that just kind of color the song, "hair's a mess when it's straight," whatever, "feet are on the ground even though I'm stuck" is self-conscious like Elvis Costello, using a great line that either has very little to do with anything in the song, or sums the song up in too pat a way (as it does in "Better Off"...I mean, it's true and captures her ambivalence, but "spilled my coffee etc." is better at painting the picture than using two cliched metaphors to make one not-cliched metaphor that's still obvious).

Did no one post this yet?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/fashion/07skin.html

Lil Mama on lipgloss! Album's out in September, and her dad's True, which I was unaware of.

Article about emo posted by Idolator yesterday includes this choice quote:

"It's not edgy," says songwriter Butch Walker (he's also written and produced for Pink, Avril Lavigne and Bowling for Soup). "It's no different than the hair metal movement that Bon Jovi pioneered," he says. "When those girls outgrew New Kids on the Block and Debbie Gibson and started smoking cigarettes and hanging out with boys who drive Camaros, they started listening to Bon Jovi. And that music was not good either."

Walker, whose tastes run more toward the Arcade Fire, concedes that a lot of the Crush bands sound "so same-y - they all have the same look, play the same guitar songs, all the songs are about the same s - - -. I think that's why the critics don't like it." He pauses. "Jonathan may not be the poster boy for what is indie-cred cool, but if he was, he wouldn't be successful. Let's not have our head up our ass and shoot ourselves in the head with the hipster gun. And I think that's why the company is equally loved and loathed."

To Wentz, it's all just white noise. He sees himself as one in a long line of great artists who, in their prime, were profoundly misunderstood: "You know, Bob Dylan plugged in and everyone started booing," he says. "Thirty years later, he's hailed as one of the greatest artists of all time. There are plenty of ways to get rich. It's very easy. But if you want to be involved in this, you want to be involved for the legacy of your art."

Wentz aside, Walker's engaging in some real pot-kettle shit here.

Which Jonathan is Walker referring to? (Sorry didn't click through...)

Jonathan Daniel, head of Crush Management (who work with Fall Out Boy, PATD, etc.)

Those Walker quotes are silly. In particular, I know Walker co-wrote "Everything Back But You" on Lavigne's album and I don't see at all how that is substantively different than the music he is dissing.

Better Off has perhaps Ashlee's greatest lyrical achievement:

i spilled my coffee
it went
all over your clothes
I gotta wear
mine now

Jukebox contributor/screw junkie Jonathan Bradley had this to say about "Better Off" a couple weeks ago:

Apart from "La La" she hasn't to my knowledge really sung about anything explicitly adult, but her lyrics do basically seem to be written from the POV of a woman her age. "I spilt my coffee, it went all over your clothes/I've got to wear mine now" could be sung by a 14 year old, I guess, but I have in mind someone Ashlee's age when I listen to it.

...I really do like that particular Ashlee lyric, and I've been thinking about it, and I think in some way it reminds me of the Hold Steady's "You Can Make Him Like You," when Craig Finn (another artist who consistently sings about being much younger than he really is, and his work is all the better for it) sings "You can hang in the kitchen/ talk about the stars in the upcoming sequel." It's such an easy, tossed off line, one not even detailed or clever enough to really be described as observational, but it paints such a vivid picture of not only the scene, but of all the characters in it, and where they are in their lives.

And that's the thing with "Better Off": in that first verse, I can picture exactly the kind of morning Ashlee is having from the clothes to the emotions she's experiencing. I'm even getting a sense of what her boyfriend is like, what their relationship is like - and this is before she hits the chorus where this sort of thing is made more explicit.

I never really have thought of it in terms of an Ashlee coming into her own metaphor, but I think if there is that metaphor there, it's inherent in the entire 20-ish feel of the passage. The early 20s is for many people the time in their lives when they're first becoming properly independent, and the passage has a very enduring the trials of everyday life feel about it, but also a sense of newness suggesting that these trials aren't things the singer has experienced thousands of times before. If the track were a country song by a mid 30s singer, it would have a very different feel, I think.

Kara's in her mid-30s, isn't she? (I was somewhat wrong about the "coming into your own" metaphor, btw, unless you take it literally -- figuring out who you are, with all of the false starts, dead ends, dead air, etc. that this entails.)

Also, Autobiography was made for a vigorous summer walk. I highly recommend it, esp. if you've never listened to it before!

Those Walker quotes are silly. In particular, I know Walker co-wrote "Everything Back But You" on Lavigne's album and I don't see at all how that is substantively different than the music he is dissing.

He's not dissing them--according to the article, he's their in-house songwriter, so he's saying his own music is "not good." Which is why I keep thinking that I must be misreading that quote somehow. Does he mean not good as in "not good"? Or did he really just hate on his own music?

Nia, I have no idea what the guy is saying at all. But it just rubs me the wrong way. I wonder if the quotes were taken out of context or something.

Point being, songwriters can be crazy misguided what-have-you's sometimes, so best to leave the personality-frontin' to the professionals like Ashlee (but not Mandy, who does the same thing this idiot does). Loved the bit in the Kara article where Ashlee calls the Kara Hotline with "hey, I wrote a pretty good song and now it needs to be better. Help, plz thx --Ash."

This is like the cutest thing ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nqpW7VjIpQ

It makes sense that Avril's more girly now than when she was a girl (probably lots of earnest teens become girly in their twenties) (I became girly in my thirties) (at least, Leslie kept telling me I was the girl in the relationship), but still I think Avril's first album - the good stuff on it, that is - crushes "Girlfriend." (Which doesn't mean I don't like "Girlfriend.")

Which brings me to, in regard to Kara DioGuardi:

Where's John Shanks? Where's Clif Magness? Two of the three best songwriters Kara's ever worked with (the third being Ashlee). (Two of the four; I forgot that Scott Storch co-wrote Paris Hilton's "Jealousy.") Also think that the Magness songs on the first Avril alb are as good as the two Matrix hits on there (and a lot better than the other Matrix tracks).

So, does anyone know what Shanks and Magness are up to these days? I'm afraid that Shanks has abandoned teenpop altogether; his country stuff isn't as good or inventive as the teenpop stuff, and neither is his adult pop.

Question to self, in regard to Ashlee and Aly & A.J.: have I ever not been disappointed by a favorite artist's followup album? I can't think of any instance where I haven't been. (This is partly due to various accidental factors, e.g., not buying Dylan's mid '60s albs until the early '70s, not hearing the Stooges until all three albs were released, not buying any Stones albs until 1969, first Beatles alb being Sgt. Pepper's.) I'd be surprised if Insomniatic weren't better than Into The Rush, but even if it's quite a bit better I can see myself being disappointed, given the promise of their best stuff.

Song titles, by the way, remind me of Joy Division.

Avril's best stuff on her first couple albums crushes "Girlfriend" but it does not, in my opinion, crush "The Best Damn Thing" or "Hot" or "Innocence" or "Runaway". I think this is my favorite overall Avril album, even if there's nothing with the angsty, weighty crush of a "My Happy Ending" or "Complicated"

Hmmm. Don't think Miranda Lambert was - or quite is - in Favorite Artist category, but "Kerosene" was in Favorite Song category, and her new album is not a disappointment, even if it has no "Kerosene." (There is something missing, however; something that doesn't infuse the roles she's playing with... er, not sure what; she's got personality galore, but the personality itself seems to be a role... or I want something to shine through the roles, in the way that role players like Jagger or Astaire had a Jaggerness or Astaireness that was simply there... I don't think I know what I'm saying, actually. Maybe the Miranda-ness <i>is</i> there and it excites me but doesn't warm me. Still the best album I've heard this year.)

Frank - My initial instinct after I heard the Miranda album was that it was a good album but that it lacked real standout, great tracks. Then I realized that ALL of the tracks are so good that NONE stand out and particularly great. It's a good problem to have. Agreed that nothing on there is as good as "Kerosene", but there's like 4 or 5 9/10 tracks on there, to me.

i spilled my coffee
it went
all over your clothes
I gotta wear
mine now

i don't think i've heard this song but minus that stray I, it makes a perfect haiku

i spilled my coffee
it went all over your clothes
gotta wear mine now

actually that's even better b/c of the ambiguity re who is wearing whose clothes

Track 6 on Autobiography, which I think you own.

It might be that Miranda has a "type" she can be heard as conforming to -- can hardly mention her without talking about, say, Gretchen Wilson to use a current example (at least not in the press -- and vice versa, don't know if I've seen anything about either of them without mention of the other) -- whereas someone like Ashlee or Dylan or Jagger or, uh, Marit Larsen, though they might have their derivatives, don't have a clear precursor or "path" they followed. So that even though Miranda does what she does really well, you get the sense that she's not the only one who could be doing it. Miranda's my #1 by some margin right now, but a more unique and personal-connection type personality would beat it pretty easily. But that album doesn't come along every year, so she could conceivably stay on top. (Conversely, R. Kelly has an album I rate pretty highly almost entirely because I can't imagine anyone else making it, even though the album itself isn't fantastic -- just very good -- overall.)

"So, she like the melody, she just wants me to hook up the chorus?" (It's Ashlee Simpson's camp.) "She wants to play me a song and see if I can help her finish it."

OK, have my people get in touch with Xhuxk. I've got this really great idea about Miranda Lambert, I like the wording, and the next idea is great too, I just want him to, like, connect the two, you know, a paragraph transition; I can't seem to avoid using the word "anyway," but I've used it three times already and need something else.

Funny, I've never thought of Miranda in connection with Gretchen (whose new one is her best, by the way; hilarious song where she tells the hubby, OK, if you want someone to mother you, these are the new rules). As for the way Miranda sounds, she's like a stray-cat version of Natalie Maines (that's an incredible compliment, by the way) [um, get Xhuxk back on the phone; need a new phrase that can do the work of "by the way"]. Maybe she's one of the "Goodbye Earl" girls twisted beyond justification and self-satisfaction. But really, she's a Cops girl. (A friend of mine once described her sister's marriage as being a Cops marriage; i.e., the sort of household that the police visit on Cops to break up a domestic disturbance.) [Er, call Xhuxk again; I'm not sure about the parallelism between "marriage" and "household." What? He says it's OK? Like ice cream and cabbage?]) I can picture Miranda's P.I. dad telling stories of the messes his clients get into while teenage Miranda doubles over in laughter.

Was just listening to the LP by Tada, a CDbaby babe from the Bahamas whom Xhuxk was overrating upthread. She's r&b with a sweet island glide; Xhuxk rather ridiculously prefers her to Ciara and Cassie and Jojo and Rihanna; but I'm thinking that with a stronger sound (maybe the sort that a Ryan Leslie or a Scott Storch could provide), her smoothness would work as a pleasing contrast. Best song by far is the self-titled "Tada": a dancehall rap over twisted rock lines, aggressive and frazzled delivery that nonetheless retains its lilt, while blissful tinkles float above the fray. I wonder what Lex would think, if he'd hear the promise that I do. (Other recommended tracks are "Dangerous," "Man Oh Man," "Superman," and "Get Mine," the first of which is on her MySpace page.

CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND MIRANDA LAMBERT: She'll bite your fat neck. George Smith envisages the epitome of the Miranda Lambert interview.

Didn't know anything about Miranda's background, actually, and haven't listened to her all that much (had the IKerosene album, which I liked but not as much as the new one, since late 2006 and just bought her new one at a used CD store)l. I liked the characters she was creating in the songs in the new one, but jeeeeez those Dick Destiny highlights are rough. (Yeehaw? Admittedly re: Gretchen, I guess.) I might have assumed she grew up in a small town before going off to Nashville (plenty of teenpoppers do this too), but other than that she's not exactly wearing her day-to-day "rough and tumble" life on her sleeve. I mean, the first coupla tracks are like (great) novelty tunes! ("COPS girl," weirdly enough, doesn't nec. suggest to me a real person at all -- even though it's a reality show.)

Just posted this on the metal thread:

Heavy Metal video of the year, easy, is Shop Boyz' "Party Like A Rock Star," which I am not being allowed to link to thanks to error messages, but which is extremely easy to search on youtube. Do it.

Their album is really good, too! I need to write a review of it for work over the weekend, but suffice to say that "Totally Dude" and "Rock Star Mentality" are like the single only more, that the severely wah-wah-ed "Sumthin' To Talk About" sounds like Fishbone imitating Westbound-era Funkadelic in 1985, and that "Rollin" is a hilarious and totally sweet (dude) and entirely unexpected imitation of the early Beach Boys, appropriately about the Shop Boyz' '64 Chevy. (According to their press release, they were "part of a large group of guys who used to hang out at a local car shop" in Atlanta's Bankhead section. It is also said that their hit has inspired a "new punk wave among hip hop heads in the South complete w/ crowd surfing and slam dancing, mosh pits." Holy shit. And you HAVE to watch the video.) (Oh yeah, my favorite lyric from their hit is the one about "As soon as I came out the womb my Mama knew a star was born/Now I'm on the golf course chillin with the Osbournes." Partying like a rock star means PLAYING GOLF! And getting a tan with Marilyn Manson, who could certainly use some sun.)

More:

I just think that video is hilarious -- all the way to the car blowing up into hook'em horns hands at the end. The video is even more fun (and also a lot more metal) than the song. (Then again, it's not like I watch tons of heavy metal videos -- it's not like I watch tons of ANY videos, actually -- so what the heck do I know? Maybe there is a more entertaining one somewhere that I haven't seen. But I doubt it.) Some of those comments on youtube creep me out, though. Especially the ones about how black people shouldn't dress up like Kiss (which looks totally goth dude, by the way.) But I do like the comment about how the video doesn't look cheap, because if you've ever met a rockstar they are not glittering and shiny! How true!

-- xhuxk, Saturday, June 9, 2007 5:29 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

So, does anyone know what Shanks and Magness are up to these days? I'm afraid that Shanks has abandoned teenpop altogether; his country stuff isn't as good or inventive as the teenpop stuff, and neither is his adult pop.

John and Kara are being grown-ups together, they've got 2 tracks on the new Enrique Iglesias album.

Kara's in her mid-30s, isn't she? (I was somewhat wrong about the "coming into your own" metaphor, btw, unless you take it literally -- figuring out who you are, with all of the false starts, dead ends, dead air, etc. that this entails.)

37 in December. (I just, um, happen to know that.) Ashlee was 19 when she wrote it, and Kara was 33, which I guess averages out to 24. Because "Better Off" does strike me as more specifically 24 or 25 than 20 or "20-ish"; I never particularly identified with it in college (actually felt it was younger than me) but I do identify with it now, and while there's a freshness to the trials listed, there's also a feeling that they've been going on long enough ("things are finally, finally looking up") that she's feeling stuck.

Thinking about my comment that I initially thought "Better Off" was younger than me (at 20)--why? Probably because I had lumped it in with (what I thought was) the post-Avril teen-punk marketing movement and didn't give it any more thought. Interesting because the first time I heard Avril, it was on my countryish roommate's computer; I thought she was a country crossover artist in her mid-20s; I pictured her looking a lot like Miranda Lambert does all these years later; imagine my surprise.

Yeah, listening to Ashlee again it's really been striking me how profoundly conflicted these songs are -- and knowingly so, I think. Such specific conflicts -- Frank said once that for every Aly and AJ song there's an equal and opposite Aly and AJ song, but more often than not Ashlee has the equal and opposite song in the same song. Even the (relative) novelties. I don't know why Autobiography hits me harder this summer than it did last summer (when I first heard it), but maybe it's that you're right that "20ish" really means 23 and not 20. (In response to Jonathan, I said that when you're 20, you're usually -- well, I was -- trying to be "a little older than 20," which is where some of the conflict comes from.)

Tada, a CDbaby babe from the Bahamas whom Xhuxk was overrating upthread. She's r&b with a sweet island glide; Xhuxk rather ridiculously prefers her to Ciara and Cassie and Jojo and Rihanna;

Did I really say she's better than Rhianna? Not sure if I'm convinced of that; Phil Freeman's comparing of Rhianna's new one to Latin freestyle and Grace Jones's Sly & Robbie LPs makes me think I should hear it. Still don't get the appeal of Cassie or Jojo anymore than I get the appeal of Avril's shemo crap (though I like "Girlfriend," and love the remix with Lil Mama on it. The rest of her new album just struck me as joyless.) Liked Ciara's song with Field Mob last year; beyond that, she's a cipher to me.

New tracklist for the <i>Girl Next</i> Vol. 2 is semi-disappointing, not that I woulda thought much of the first one if they hadn't sent it to me for free. But it did have that great Hayden Pennytear song on it and "Outside Looking In" by Jordan Pruitt and the first CD-released Hannah Montana song. And "4ever" and a terrible "dance remix" of "Rush" that was nonetheless interesting as a bad idea.

1. Aly & AJ - Chemicals React
2. Vanessa Hudgens - Come Back To Me
3. Pink - Get The Party Started
4. Katharine McPhee - Over It
5. Paula Dianda - TBD
6. Keke Palmer - It’s My Turn Now
7. Jordan Pruitt - Teenager
8. Ashley Tisdale - Kiss The Girl
9. The Pussycat Dolls - Stickwitu
10. Hayden Panettiere - TBD
11. Slumber Party Girls - TBD
12. Anna Sophia Robb - Keep Your Mind Wide Open
13. Belinda - Why Wait [Spanish Version]
14. High School Musical Cast - Breaking Free [Spanish Version]
15. Samantha Jade - TBD

Only person I don't know on here is Samantha Jade. (I love how blatantly this site gets fed info from Hollywood/Disney etc., printing tracklists before they even know which tracks to stick on 'em!) Interested to know what the new Pennytear song's gonna be. The one by the Narnia (or whatever) girl, Anna Sophia Robb, is awful, Belinda's pretty good but that's not a great track, WHAT THE HELL is that Pink song doing on there?? And have y'all talked about Paula Dianda? I don't think I've ever heard her.

(Woops, Hayden Planeteer, sorry.)

Samantha Jade, new album coming out on Jive. Didn't listen to much (2 streamed track, one sounds demoish and the other's from an OST), but she's from Australia and has kind of a Scandipoppy, er, Robynish maybe, voice over more R&B-pop style. Was on the Step Up soundtrack, which I'm thinking I should buy since you could probably get it for a buck.

I assume "Paula Dianda" is actually Paula DeAnda, who had a big hit with that song "Walk Away" earlier this year (not the Kelly Clarkson one!) 'Twas an OK song but didn't inspire me to seek out her other music and she hasn't had any big hits since so I haven't heard any of her other songs.

i think i heard a song called 'easy' by paula deanda which was v good - "when i'm out shopping it's like having a gun" was a particularly memorable lyric. it had...lil' wayne on it, i believe.

upthread:

Finally, has anybody listened to the Paula DeAnda album? Sounds as mediocre and forgettable and unexuberant and unbubblegum and fade-into-the-background-leaving-me-clueless-about-why-anybody-gives-a-flying-fuck as Ciara or Cassie or [fill in the blank] to me, but I'm willing to hear any reasonably intelligent arguments otherwise.

-- xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 6 January 2007 17:02 (5 months ago) Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ps: I think maybe the blank-fill-in is Jojo, but I'm not positive.] [and I also probably heard a couple Ciara songs once I didn't hate.] [not that i hate paula deanda. she's OKAY. she might even be more interesting if she wasn't okay. even the lil wayne duet and the song called "good girl" seem so-what. and good girl and bad girl and good boy and bad boy songs are supposed to be good be definition!]
-- xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 6 January 2007 17:17 (5 months ago) Link

i've only heard 'easy' by paula deanda but i LOVE it. "when i go shopping it's like having a gun" - !!!

-- lex pretend (lex pretend), Saturday, 6 January 2007 17:20 (5 months ago) Link

i used to have a short-term memory

(That'd explain why I didn't find anything searching "Dianda"...)

Am I crazy for hearing Radiohead in the new Kelly Clarkson single? I expect her to start singing "fake plastic watering caaaaaaan"...and when she hits "away" she's almost a dead ringer for Thom Yorke! Song's gorgeous. (Her album leaked, but I'm holding off on writing about it yet.)

Also, Lil' Mama has a new single, On Fire -- no "Lip Gloss" beat, but she has a good time showing off.