Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

Marion Raven's giving away a free MP3 once every week for eight weeks as some sorta promotional thang for ArtistDirect, you can get 'em here, first track is "Here I Am."

(For those who have the album, this is a live version.)

Being the last person in the universe to listen to Lil' Wayne, I had no idea what was an official mixtape, what was an unofficial mixtape, what was a semi-official mixtape, what was a studio release (uh, none of them as far as I can tell so far). My favorite out of my thirteen choices for 2007 releases has definitely been the tracks from what I thought was an officially unofficial version of the album (official mixtape) for The Carter III (which, unofficially, is the official leak).

So I was confused and went to Wikipedia, which gave me some startling unofficial information about the official leak of the unofficial demo of "I'm Raw," which is officially one of my favorite tracks, even though there are glitches in my MP3 copy (making it the unofficial version of the official leak of the unofficial single).

Wikipedia told me this SHOCKING NEWS:

"I'm Raw" (featuring Ashlee Simpson) (Produced by The Neptunes)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also: Celebrity informants report that twenty-two year old singer Ashlee Simpson and her twenty-eight year old boyfriend, Fall Out Boy rocker Pete Wentz got engaged just before the band at last Saturday’s New York’s Live Earth concert and are currently expecting a baby!

With some dubious evidence: “Ashlee may have helped start the rumours herself.” “She was at a family wedding and was wandering around rubbing her belly. And she refused to drink anything.”

The Ashlee collab is obviously a buncha crap...for now. In fact, the leak that was subsequently dubbed "The Leak" does not have "I'm Raw" on it, but the leak of the Carter 3 that is called "Carter 3 Mixtape Bootleg" does have this track. Not to be confused with "The Carter Three Leak" (versions one and three only), or "The Carter Three Leak" (version two).

And none of these should be confused with "The Pre-Leak," which is completely different.

The Keren Ann album is really pretty. Like falling asleep on a slowly rocking boat. Less teenpop than Israeli chanteuse, but very pretty.

Also - just listened to Iceberg Slim's "Loney (Da Break Up Song)." This is the guy who wrote all those books about pimping, right? Off-the-wall. Also, Frank, this strikes me as the kind of thing you might dig.

Oh, apparently this is Iceberg Slimm - with two "m's." And he's a U.K. hip-hop artist apparently. Still.

Interesting variation on Kogan's Third Law of Aly and AJ (after "you do not stop talking about Aly and AJ" and "YOU DO NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT ALY AND AJ") from PopJustice:

“It’s tiresome to go out to parties, fake your way through them and pretend you’re having a good time,” Aly says. She sees Sidekick pagers as the ultimate signifier of that lifestyle: “To me, getting a Sidekick would be like trying drugs. Don’t do Sidekicks!”"

Here's a picture of Aly & AJ.

http://www.popjustice.com/images/stories/a/alyandajsidekick.jpg

Phil from the Future ftw.

Kelly Clarkson Gets the Message, Returns to Pop

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291060,00.html

her new manager is Narvel Blackstock. NARVEL BLACKSTOCK.

My friend ran into Aly at the airport. She said she seemed really nice.

Y'know, considering Fox News effectively launched the War on Lindsay, you'd think they wouldn't be so happy about this, since it means Kelly's gonna be doing Lindsay retreads by the end of the year! (It's even the same writer!) Besides which "Hole," "Judas," "Never Again," and "Maybe" >>>> "Black Hole," which isn't bad itself.

A&A fans suggest as much, though aren't that nice themselves occasionally:

honestly you're pathetic & a worm. fucking bloggers, just like perez hilton. you probably look up to bastards like him when aly & aj are actually respectable role models for young people. look at other stars their age & the destructive lifestyles they have.

so go ahead & rip apart every last thing that they do.i'd like to see the influence you had on anyone at their age.

New Tegan and Sara album is pretty good! Like a cross between Paramore (in shemo sentiment) and nu-Lillix (in, um, keyboards). Hardly a song over three minutes, neither, and not a bad one in the bunch that I can tell. Might write more about it when I've listened more.

Paramore caught my attention but turned me off by asking, "Why can't you be a man about it?/Fight with your bare hands about it!" Um...sorry, guess I'm a coward, but that question makes me uncomfortable. Please don't ask that in my presence again unless some radioactive accident grants me superpowers.

Hm...Anyway, they come on too strong and too humorless for my tastes, despite some great hooks and a great singer...much prefer Flyleaf. Both are oppressive and they don't seem know how to lighten up -- Flyleaf, as far as I can remember, don't even attempt to lighten up, but Paramore have this tendency to sort of toy with lightening up without actually doing it, which is a little irritating. (I like the refusal to lighten up on the new Kelly -- until she tries anyway and it goes off-balance for the second half.) Meg and DIa found a better balance with this stuff last year, but they also had a much lighter touch. Can't remember more than two songs from M&D's album at this point, anyway.

While the Jonas Bros. guest-DJ'ed on Radio Disney this week, the station got 1.4 million call-ins. In one day. In other news, I think I'm missing their free concert at Penn's Landing right now.

Finally heard Aly & A.J.'s "Blush," which was on the promo for Insomniatic but wasn't on the version streamed at MTV.com, so people have been assuming it was deleted from the official release, though there are versions floating around with it, so I can't say for sure. I already knew what the song was about from what Dave and Xhuxk were saying upthread, and the lyrics right off lay out all the issues, almost tortuous in their explanations ("Even though I like your honesty/It won't lead me to your bed/So go ahead and say it/Even though you know it makes me uncomfortable/Go ahead and say it/If you must make me blush"; "it" clearly being that he wants to have sex with her), yet when she gets to the last line of the song - an obvious one, summing up what she was getting at in the entire song, all she does is insert one extra word, but I won't tell you it because... well, poignancy, it whomped me, all of a sudden tears are in my eyes, I'm up on my feet in the other room and pacing back and forth. An explosion of feeling from I'm not sure where or why, and I won't give it away, on the off chance it'll whomp you too. What got me is that up 'til then the song is all explanatory: she's explaining that she finds his straightforward desire appealing, she's explaining that she wants to be the recipient, within boundaries, and she's explaining and reexplaining, setting rules - asserting control, I'd say, all this word work as opposed the rest of the album's wordplay - and then and only then, within the framework she's laboriously set, can she...

My thoughts on Insomniatic

Comment here or there, as you wish.

(Includes discussion of "Blush", written before I saw Frank's comments above. The song is on my 100% official CD copy. I believe it's only the online editions that omit the song.)

Lindsay Lohan, unknown orig. source: "I start recording one in August. My last albums were amazing but this time I am going to really promote it and tour". She also added "I want to do a Madonna-style show. I very much want it to be a dance record".

Also, great essay, Jeff. I think you found exactly what I did in "Careful with Words" -- I have to consider the album with all released tracks on it in order not to go crazy. (Also liked your defense of a song I'm not totally sold on, the title track. Been listening to this a lot lately, though.)

"Beautiful Girls Reply" by Jojo: Man what a brilliant idea! It softens up the Kingston song around the edges but retains most of the elements. Jojo's voice remains appealingly blank. Mostly I just really love the idea of it. Anybody have any thoughts?

Oh, duh, "Beautiful Girls Reply" can be heard (and downloaded for free) here, on her Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/jojoonline

Don't mean to alarm anyone, but CRAZY FROGS ARE ON THE VERGE OF EXTINCTION. If they don't get enough votes, they may disappear from the Disney countdown altogether.

Taylor Swift's faves over at MSN. I'm pretty sure that question about Xgau was an editorial comment...she likes Fefe Dobson! Someone should email her a zip of Sunday Love.

Return of the Brie. Recommended.

Also, this sounds entertaining:

Friday Night Talent Show
Radio Disney's Friday Night Talent Show is a unique new show that allows kids to participate in a "talent show" by calling in and singing karaoke-style to popular Radio Disney music including songs from Disney High School Musical 2.

I just posted this on the rolling country thread:

Other than some decorative twangy guitar on "Who Says," I've not heard anything close to country out of Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana - that is until "See You Again," which is head, shoulders, and torso above anything else she's ever recorded. A disco-ball arrangement of rockabilly menace music* (that is, closer to Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Chris Isaak than to Elvis and Jerry Lee), doomy reverb, except the lyrics are all sweet girl crush, Miley anxiously but optimistically falling in love! And there's this great bright thwomp-thwomp-thwomp disco pop chorus about being shy and tongue-tied, though with a promise of better things to come: "The next time we hang out/I will redeem myself."

*The tune reminds me of "Bad Things" from last year's Jace Everett alb, though the style is standard enough that I should be able to think of fifty better-known examples, 'cept my memory is Swiss cheese today.

The site's a fake, but right now "See You Again" is the second song posted on this MySpace site.

New York, NY (Billboard Publicity Wire) August 3, 2007 -- Billboard, the world's most comprehensive source of music, digital data and events, today announced an expansion of its Hot 100 formula to include weekly streamed and on-demand music data to the chart's traditional mix of sales and radio airplay. Keeping pace with the growth of digital delivery, Billboard's franchise chart will be supplemented by weekly data from AOL Music (www.music.aol.com) and Yahoo! Music, two of the most prominent sources of online music.

Full article here.

I wonder why they didn't include MTV, which also streams a lot of stuff.

I'm sure that the number of listens that streamed material gets on YouTube and MySpace absolutely dwarfs the listens from Yahoo and AOL combined; but there's no real way to monitor 'em.

Flipping through the charts:

"Potential Breakup Song" slowly rising on Top 40 radio, up to a not-very-impressive 450 spins, which is about where "Rush" peaked. Doing reasonably well in places like Louisville and Charleston S.C. (spins in the 30s); the only major markets where it's getting much play are Cleveland (spins just jumped to the mid 20s but on a station that no one listens to) and Milwaukee (stalling in the mid 20s). Is in the mid 20s on a well-listened to station in Providence. Spins in the 30s on Sirius satellite radio, which doesn't mean many listeners but is a sign of popular support for music that doesn't fit into regular radio demographics (Big & Rich and Miranda Lambert always do well there). Only got three adds last week, so its prospects for further improvement aren't good.

Two albums I reviewed well over a year ago, by Flyleaf and by Little Big Town, are back in the Top 100. Flyleaf's doing searing goth-pop agony, and going on the basis of sound alone, if Flyleaf can get play on the active rock stations so should Kelly Clarkson. But stations don't make decisions on the basis of sound alone, of course.

On Enrique Iglesias's "Push," which is the first Enrique Iglesias single I've given a damn about since 1999, Lil Wayne says, "Mama, I can help you get off like the weekend," which is good, especially when he manages to rhyme "weekend" with "Enrique," but not as good as Fannypack's "Get off, like a wedding gown."

Glad to see Wayne's finding some work. I was wondering what had become of him.

Those of you who watch the charts 24/7 have no doubt noticed that Aly & A.J.'s Insomniatic is at 41 on the Billboard 200 after three weeks, whereas Iglesias's Insomniac is at 83 after seven weeks.

Billy Ray Cyrus enters at 20, Tegan and Sara at 34, and BarlowGirl at 40. But you already knew that.

"Potential Breakup Song" is atop Radio Disney with 77 spins, though that's meaningless in relation to the act's long-run viability. Pleased to see that "Umbrella" is one of the eight songs in the top tier of Disney play. Also up there is a "Troy Bolton" song I've yet to hear.

On the Disney Channel tonight:

6:00 PM Hannah Montana
6:30 PM Hannah Montana
7:00 PM Hannah Montana
7:30 PM Hannah Montana

OK, just listened to the Troy Bolton "Bet On It" at Dailymotion. Not bad sub-*NSync r&bish dance-pop. Will fit in seamlessly on Radio Disney. Couldn't tell if it was Zac or Drew singing, or a composite.

(Note to self: stop making the same lame lil wayne gag.)

Got my copy of HSM II about... 45 minutes ago. Which is about how long it took to listen to it. First impressions; seems much more disco/dance influenced than the first one. And there are far less love songs/ballads than the first one. Also, the Troy/Gabrielle seems to be underplayed (to much better effect), with only one duet between them (plus a breakup song), and Sharpay gets a lot more time - probably because of her success outside of HSM (contrasted to at least Gabriella - Troy is in Hairspray, right?).

Anyway, I think it's a lot more successful than the first album, and certainly much more adult. Whether it'll be as successful is a different question. I don't hear anything as 'free lunch' as "Stick to What You Know." Though, I don't know if that was the breakthrough track from the first album (it was just mine).

("Stick to the Status Quo?")

So I was thinking today about how funny it was that Devo 2.0 got away with a straight cover of "Uncontrollable Urge" on a Disney album, and listened to it again only to hear, for the first time, this VERY DISNEY edit, which (unless you wanna be super dirty about it) eliminates the ambiguity:

"before dinner, after lunch/ I get a snack attack, I need to munch!"

Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne will both perform on the 2007 Teen Choice Awards. Kelly will play her song "Never Again," while Avril will be performing her hit "Girlfriend."

The show airs on Sunday, August 26th. Hilary Duff and Nick Cannon will host.

Hm, lessee if I can think of a few celebrities who will likely NOT be in attendance...

Other celebrities who are due to appear at Teen Choice 2007 include Jessica Alba, Megan Fox, Emmy Rossum, Lauren Conrad, Miley Cyrus, Ashlee Simpson, Anna Paquin, Dane Cook, Jared Padalecki and Taylor Kitsch.

Yo Gabba Gabba lives! Premieres on Nickelodeon August 20. Feat. Mark Mothersbaugh, the Shins, Rahzel, Biz Markie, and Sugarland. In the Sunday Times Arts & Leisure section, but doesn't seem to be online yet.

Also an article online about the HSM stage adaptation. The annoying cult religion metaphor and condescending audience qualifiers (What began as a mere made-for-television movie (on the Disney Channel, yet) has grown quickly into an international phenomenon both commercial and spiritual, at least for tweenage youngsters (mostly girls).) don't go away.

Britney Spears has recruited Swedish pop singer and songwriter Robyn Miriam Carlsson to pen a track for her new album.

The singer has turned to Robyn - who is currently at number five in the UK chart with her song With Every Heartbeat - for help as she searches for the perfect comeback track to re-launch her pop career.

"I've been approached about writing a new song for Britney and I'm cool with that," Robyn told the Daily Star. "I've written for her before but it only got to the recording stages, so doing it again would be a good move for me. I'd like to think I could help."

Robyn added that she is aiming for the new track to be "fresh and modern" like Rihanna's Umbrella, which stuck at the top of the UK chart for ten weeks.

"I love Umbrella by Rihanna. I know it got on some people's nerves but there's something really fresh and modern about that song," she said. "I respect artists like Lily Allen and Kate Nash but they're not what I play on my stereo."

excellent decision by Brit.

I listened to Radio Disney for the first time yesterday. A surprising lack of new material, I thought-- almost all of it was stuff I heard 6 months ago. I presume they're simply not pushing the Pruitt and Tisdale albums, which is a shame.

GENIUS. I might be seeing J0rdin Sparks at the American Idol show this week...I was planning on giving her a CD with Robyn/Annie/The Knife/Jacques Lu Cont tracks on it (in hopes that she'd recruit one of them for her record).

They pushed Tisdale for a while. Thing is, I think the groups really do live and die by the call-in votes, even when most of the material being offered is from Disney -- it explains why Cheetah Girls (comparatively) tank while Jonas Bros. won't budge from the charts and Hannah Montana (IIRC) still has like ten out of thirty tracks in the Top 30.

Came here to post that Hilary Duff has been covering Depeche Mode and Pat Benatar in concert. Duffeche Mode - Personal Jesus (clearer-sounding but shorter clip). And Duff is a Battlefield (no, I don't expect that to stop being funny).

(I think she's just sampling "Personal Jesus.")

"You Are the Music in Me" is a great song.

Coincidentally, I finally heard the Tisdale album for the first time yesterday. It's, um, solid. Few surprises until the end - the opening to "Suddenly" was unexpected and I would have liked more in the way of exposed singing of that sort. I expect more spins will bring out further highlights though.

More laffs from Brie Larson.

A somber statement from JoJo, via Idolator:

If you feel overwhelmed by what you are about to read, I am with you. When I take a step back, I sometimes feel ashamed by my materialistic nature as a young American and as if there is nothing that I can personally do to put an end to the monstrocities going on in the world, specifically in The Sudan. And I also find it alarming that we, as a nation, seem to be more concerned with a hollwood party girl's latest panty-less escapades than with the hateful and destructive plans of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudan's evil dictator. With so much wealth, opportunity, peace, and security around us as citizens of the United States, its so easy to forget that there is a whole world out there who does not live like we do. People inhabiting and assisting in The Sudan and surrounding countries live in CONSTANT FEAR. Not fear that us American children have, ( boogey-man under the bed ... Fear that the tooth fairy might only leave $1...) I mean the fear of having limbs blown off from random bombings, schools and entire villages being burned down, running to a supposed UN airplane ( they bring food and other vital supplies) which are painted white but discovering that it is infact a Janjaweed aircraft that was posing as the United Nations(it is illegal to have an aircraft painted in that fashion unless it is a UN craft) and being killed by the militants, being raped and expected to bear the product of a hateful conception, and other very harsh realities.

As I drove home from the gym tonight I realized that in the scheme of things, I have absolutely no idea what fear truly is. It is impossible to justify what is going on in The Sudan and just as impossible to relate to what the victims of the tragedies endured. But what we can relate to is that we are all HUMAN BEINGS. Living, breathing people with hearts, and feelings, and potential to change the world and evoke change in each other. Hope should not be lost.

New term: "psycho-bling," which is what happens when your brain short-circuits altogether and you say things like this. I had a psycho-bling moment when I was writing an essay about Paris Hilton. I just needed a glass of water and encouragement not to publish what I'd written.

But she's right!