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

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Corporate greed doesn't concern itself with artistic vision. The bottom line is: what the fuck does branding (or anti-branding) have to do with music? I can't hear branding, no matter how interesting it may be.

― mark 0, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 08:37 (sixteen years ago) link

So... music has nothing to do with context? In that case, why does 'music aggressively marketed to tweens/teens' have anything to do with the music?

― Mordechai Shinefield, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 08:40 (sixteen years ago) link

Because music is still ~~the~~ a vehicle for sales.

The "smacks more of greed/desperation" refers to the creation of a distinct new revenue stream for Disney, et al.; there's little or no "artistic vision" involved -- it's a notch or two above ringtones-as-a-new-revenue-stream.

― mark 0, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 08:44 (sixteen years ago) link

I think if you asked Aly + AJ, or Hannah Montana, if they had artistic vision, they'd say yes. Are you saying that because their employer doesn't feel the same way Aly + AJ's artistic vision shouldn't be examined?

― Mordechai Shinefield, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 08:46 (sixteen years ago) link

I think if you asked Aly + AJ, or Hannah Montana, if they had artistic vision, they'd say yes.

But they'd be bullshitting you, whether they understand that or not. This is press-release language obscuring the fact that this is emaciated music, pure product.

I'm just saying you're scraping the bottom of the barrel if you insist on the importance of exploring Aly + AJ's "artistic vision", when there's a thousand years of music out there, much of it with more artistic vision than that of any t(w)eenpop star.

― mark 0, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 08:53 (sixteen years ago) link

But they'd be bullshitting you, whether they understand that or not. This is press-release language obscuring the fact that this is emaciated music, pure product.

I get that you believe this. I just don't get why.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 09:00 (sixteen years ago) link

Aly and AJ's music doesn't sound remotely emaciated to me: if anything I find it too intense, too sincere, the overlap of their voices can be kind of suffocating.

They're a good example of an act I'd never have heard were it not for the Teenpop critics writing about them interestingly and pointing out stuff in their songs, actually.

Do I like them as much as Dylan or the Stones or the Beatles? No. But I like them more than 95% of the contemporary acts I see talked about here.

I think you're deluding yourself Mark if you think that aggressive marketing to teens and tweens is a modern phenomenon: the difference now isn't that its more sophisticated* - it's that new communications tech allows it to be much much more targeted. Which in turn is why people outside the target demo looking in and trying to relate to it seems "creepy" I think: targeted marketing is designed to exclude as much as include.

*(huge chunks of this stuff simply doesn't sell well, if judged by the standards required to launch most other consumer goods "pure products" the teenpop marketers are chumps and failures, with the exception of whoever came up with HSM)

― Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 09:02 (sixteen years ago) link

how do you know/why do you assume aly & aj are bullshitting us? on what basis are you so certain that their music is emaciated pure product?

because all acts working within this umbrella of "pop music" are in the same position. the vast majority will claim they are artists. the vast majority are also, to their record companies, a vehicle for sales, and in every case their image and the way they're marketed can be as important as the actual music. you may as well dismiss beyoncé, or TI, or lcd soundsystem, or joanna newsom, or bjork, as emacaiated pure product for all the logical sense it makes.

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 09:06 (sixteen years ago) link

Lex I don't think it's unfair to suggest there are different marketing strategies for the acts you mention and for most teenpop acts. I don't think Mark's denying that they're "product" on some level - he's suggesting that they have qualities that transcend product-ness.

I think however that he's bullshitting us, whether he understands this or not - the distinction he's actually making is between "product I like" and "product I don't", or maybe between "premium product" and "mass market product". (One of the interesting things about music as a market is that the standard differentiator of premium-ness - price - doesn't vary an awful lot, so other differentiators come into play.)

― Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 09:15 (sixteen years ago) link

xpost

The aggressive marketing is nothing new (I was 3, 8, 9, 12, 13, and 16 years old, at various times in the past); that wasn't what I said. But having a whole (non-)genre of music, a whole category of marketing devoted to this -- that's the new wrinkle (definition #3 of the definitions mentioned above).

And I think it's genius, but from a business standpoint only.

That not all of it sells well is par for the course in popular music. But it's only en masse a failure if the Disney Channel and Radio Disney get out of the music biz.

― mark 0, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 09:16 (sixteen years ago) link

And, for the record, I'm not bullshitting you. I'm a grownup who has nothing to sell you. But I have to get ready for work now.

― mark 0, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 09:18 (sixteen years ago) link

This is the difficulty with these sorts of conversations: that so often even sophisticated arguments as to why "teenpop" isn't worth examining earnestly still ultimately rest on an a priori assumption that the music is "emaciated", or whatever other terms that amounts to this criticism.

It's kind of like how ultimately every legal system and attendant legal theory ultimately boils down to an originary tautological performative act of someone saying "this is the law because I say so".

Problem is, anyone who doesn't agree that Ashlee Simpson is "emaciated" vis a vis Bob Dylan (and I choose this example because Frank draws comparisons between the two) has nowhere to start in terms of trying to come to terms with mark 0's position, because his entire argument rests on accepting this as a given.

― Tim F, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:23 (sixteen years ago) link

"originary tautological performative act"

― m coleman, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:34 (sixteen years ago) link

What of it?

― Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:45 (sixteen years ago) link

Surely most people's problem with the teenpop thread is the abject humourlessness of it?

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:46 (sixteen years ago) link

xpost

I'm sorry, but is the emaciation my fault or Ashlee's fault? Or the fault of the passage of time -- lots of contemporary "acts" (I hate that term) are emaciated vis-a-vis, say, Highway 61 Revisited. It's hard to compete with the weight of a long-standing canon. And to switch media, you're asking me to spend time appreciating Diff'rent Strokes when I have Citizen Kane and Curb Your Enthusiasm stored on my TiVo.

I'm at the office now, and I have one last thing to say before I scoot and, like, work. I was wrong. I do have something I'd like to sell you: the idea of making music, of bonding with your kids/nieces/nephews by, say, playing bluegrass on the front porch (much as my elders gathered around the piano, playing gospel music), rather than via shared "enjoyment" of the song stylings of Billy Ray Cyrus's kid.

Hopefully they'll grow up to understand that music is more than just aural fashion, bought and sold at the mall, more than the soundtrack to your bachanalia, more than the soundtrack to your own little movie. Here we are now, entertain us.

I've learned that I really don't give two shits about what Frank (however charming and thought-provoking he may often be) or some other music critic thinks about Ashlee. It's music critics that have us wasting time contemplating Ashlee's place in the world.

― mark 0, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:47 (sixteen years ago) link

Mark: does singing count?

― Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:49 (sixteen years ago) link

^^ correct about making music. but whats to stop bonding over playing/making music of any style, doesnt have to be bob dylan style

wrong about everything else. its easy to argue with a canon. id take dion and the belmonts or elsie carlise or or charlie fry or ambrose & his orchestra over bob dylan any day of the week

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:51 (sixteen years ago) link

Surely most people's problem with the teenpop thread is the abject humourlessness of it?

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, May 15, 2007 8:46 AM

ding ding ding ding! we have a winner.

― Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:52 (sixteen years ago) link

http://www.annettefunicello.net/sleeves/f-394.jpg

― scott seward, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:53 (sixteen years ago) link

The rest of ILM being a barrel of laughs, of course!

"Skye Sweetnam RIP"

― Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:54 (sixteen years ago) link

i dont think thats fair at all, i think the recent paris thread was both thought provoking and humourous

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:55 (sixteen years ago) link

FIIIIIITTTTTTEEEEE!!!!!!

http://squirl.info/users/j/n/john/images/2006/10/letsgettogether_26799.jpg

-VS-

http://www.geocities.com/danadawsonsite/images/lizziemcguirecd300.jpg

― scott seward, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:55 (sixteen years ago) link

does unintentional humor count?

― m coleman, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:56 (sixteen years ago) link

Humourlessness isn't the opposite of "funny", Tom.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:56 (sixteen years ago) link

xpost

Any style is OK. The important part is the making of music, rather than the consumption of (or, the highfalutin' consumption of excessive discourse about) it.

The canon is malleable -- I grabbed Highway 61 out of a hat, but I love Dion too. He's my homey.

(Uh oh, here comes the image flood!)

― mark 0, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:56 (sixteen years ago) link

^^^ in which case ashlee is no worse than bob, as both can be made and played

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:57 (sixteen years ago) link

Put it this way Tom, would you like to see the indie kids on here talk about The Hold Steady, or the rap fans talk about Ghostface, in the same terms that the teenpop thread talks about Aly & AJ? Or does that sound like a definition of a living hell to you?

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:57 (sixteen years ago) link

the teenpop crew act as boosters for their genre, more so than others do (perhaps because of implicit acceptance), whether that comes across well, i dunno

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 12:59 (sixteen years ago) link

That's probably dead on the money, there's a kind of Blitz mentality about the teenpop threads.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:00 (sixteen years ago) link

I mean, rap threads can take 300 post detours into "Young Jeezy has a pointy head", it's hard to imagine the teenpop thread doing similar.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:00 (sixteen years ago) link

in which case ashlee is no worse than bob, as both can be made and played

Yes, but this may be the rare case where "ashlee is no worse than bob" is true.

― mark 0, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:02 (sixteen years ago) link

but your entire argument did appear to hang off that case?

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:03 (sixteen years ago) link

it's a lot easier, i'd imagine, to busk a bob dylan tune well than an ashlee simpson once.

― acrobat, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:05 (sixteen years ago) link

I click on the teenpop threads more than the rap and indie ones, so maybe I would prefer it. But I agree there's a boosterism - I said upthread, it's a very nice thread, and quite earnest: I can see that's going to put some people off. The music that gets talked about also strikes me as pretty earnest, which is often part of why I don't like it that much.

xp to Dom

― Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:05 (sixteen years ago) link

i think part of the reason i have completely disconnect with "teen pop" is that there's no r&b in any of it anymore. and most of the stuff i liked around the turn of the millennium was basically urban radio with training wheels.

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:07 (sixteen years ago) link

I just think the teenpop thread represents a lot of the critical style we've been trying to get away from in the past 20 or so years. It reads more like something from a guitar or drum tech magazine than anything recognisable as music writing at points.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:07 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah, Dom hit the nail on the head. This unspoken agreement, to look past all the 'obvious' criticisms that mark brought up, because they're just too cliche'd or fraught with bad old biases about authenticity or whatever. It's really kind of condescending, thinking that the only way to discuss bouncy, youthful music is to write like an exciteable 12-year-old or try to be less cynical about it than even the actual kids listening it are (although David's Stylus columns have at least a kind of affectionate irreverence that's not too far from "Jeezy has a pointy head"-type humor).

(xpost to strongo - the irony is that R&B teenpop has kind of become its own, even more lucrative offshoot of the more overtly white Disneypop. but then, most of the acts on the Scream Tour kinda suck as far as R&B goes.)

― Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:10 (sixteen years ago) link

pretty ricky have some pretty great songs xxp

― deej, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:10 (sixteen years ago) link

but your entire argument did appear to hang off that case?

Then you may be reading my argument wrong. Singing the songs of these individuals on the front porch has nothing to do with whether or not Ashlee's discography or talent approaches that of Dylan's.

This is the tarnishing of which I spake: of dragging the canon (or "canon", if you prefer) down to the level of Ashlee and her peers, whom I see as pure product in the age of flogging the long-dead horse of accessible pop/rock. It becomes, "well, it's all product, after all, jeez!", which is fine. Maybe it is. I'm not here to change anyone's mind.

― mark 0, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:14 (sixteen years ago) link

Man, music ain't nothing but three chords and a haircut.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:15 (sixteen years ago) link

Treat it that way and you'll do fine.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:15 (sixteen years ago) link

well thats what i kinda dont get. im not sure how bob is less 'product' than ashlee. im not sure how talent and product are being linked either (surely there are talented artists that are super marketed, and untalented artists that arent sold as product at all - i dont see the relationship)

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:16 (sixteen years ago) link

xxxxxpost

well my problem with that stuff is that i kinda think that rnb sucks right now too

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:16 (sixteen years ago) link

and if we're coming down to 'talent' or whatever, then bob would lose out pretty heavy to someone like mingus

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:17 (sixteen years ago) link

Mark: the reason I brought up singing is that it seems to me there's a lot MORE encouragement to sing - individually, collectively, as bonding or not - around, largely thanks to American Idol and karaoke. So we're in kind of a golden age for participatory music making! But I'm thinking maybe you're keener on something else.

― Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:18 (sixteen years ago) link

the idea of making music, of bonding with your kids/nieces/nephews by, say, playing bluegrass on the front porch

as has been pointed out you can sing ashlee simpson songs on your front porch just as easily as bob dylan ones. but if you're getting at the communalism of music, the collective joy one can get out of it, i agree, that's a fine thing indeed! i get it mostly from dancing to techno lasers all night. and it's been pointed out as a flaw in commercial pop elsewhere, it's music without a scene or a community, without 'grassroots' - i disagree with this though, it may not have come from a community but it can be consumed in a communal way.

also if we're going to talk about whether things sound EMACIATED or not i wouldn't hesitate to call the bare dry bones of boring bob dylan emaciated in comparison with ashlee's full-blooded, slightly raucous take on celebrity skin-era courtney love.

Surely most people's problem with the teenpop thread is the abject humourlessness of it?

i'm not sure whether we should trust you on anything relating to jokes given that your idea of humour = wikipedia vandalism and shouting "ban louis jagger". lame!

i think part of the reason i have completely disconnect with "teen pop" is that there's no r&b in any of it anymore. and most of the stuff i liked around the turn of the millennium was basically urban radio with training wheels.

i've repeatedly said on the teenpop thread that this is a problem for me as well wrt current strains of the genre - i love bits here and there of the confessional, earnest style but i can't fully embrace it (which is why i've never heard an aly & aj song, don't care for the veronicas or lillix &c, had a barrier to loving ashlee for ages). and tbh i'd love it if it did pay attention to r&b more, but in the meantime i don't think the confessional rock version of teenpop is without its merits, and it's capable of producing some really fantastic stuff. (the reason i loved the paris album so much is because it took the lite-rock stuff, made it less earnest, and nodded towards club r&b at the same time - marrying both strains of teenpop.)

a gazillion xps

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:20 (sixteen years ago) link

i'm not sure whether we should trust you on anything relating to jokes given that your idea of humour = wikipedia vandalism and shouting "ban louis jagger". lame!

We already did "humourlessness is not the opposite of funny". Please read a thread before responding.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:21 (sixteen years ago) link

my problem with teenpop obsession is the same problem i have with any obsession, i.e. i don't get obsessed with whole swathes of music. i couldn't be a rabid teenpop thread poster anymore than i could be ethan.

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:22 (sixteen years ago) link

Genre bandwagonnery is something we should have moved on by now. As a people, as a profession, as a fucking message board.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 13:23 (sixteen years ago) link

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