Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

Interestingly, as far as I can tell, there's nothing "inauthentic" about Paris Hilton - at least not in relation to the album; she's never made claims for herself or for the album that are untrue. But I do get the sense that the haters want to challenge her authenticity, even while having no idea what they might mean by "authenticity."

(Why I prefer the word "real" to the word "authentic": For some reason, in using the former term, people are less likely to evade their adjectival responsibility to say what "real" modifies. They're more likely to say "she's not a real _____.")

Ashley Tisdale's album is streamed at the AOL Listening Party for free. I am listening to it now, will report back on my thoughts after I'm done.

4 new songs from Jordan Pruitt's album are available for play at the myspace for Levosia Entertainment:

"Waiting for You" is a slow tempo acoustic number, more along the lines of "Outside Looking In", except way more boring. Jordan needs some lovin!

"Waiting for the Weekend" is the Target bonus track. Disneyfied R&B lite, consistent with her most recent songs. With a slight Cheetah-esque latin flair though, in the guitar sound, percussion, and horns. Like "Waiting for You" very yawn-worthy.

"Miss Popularity" is the best of the four. Lite-R&B again, but a nice melody. Lyrics talking about a popular girl, not much going on there. But a catchy tune. Probably the second best Jordan track I've heard, behind "Outside Looking In"

Finally, "Over It" is acoustic guitar based kiddie R&B as well, with some orchestral swells, etc. Very generic.

I'm getting less and less excited about this album the more time goes by.

Er, "you can be blunt." (No, she hasn't gone gangsta.)

Bonus ranking of 2007 teenpop "Over It"s

1. Katharine McPhee
2. Ashley Tisdale
3. Jordan Pruitt

I liked "Miss Popularity" as well, but it didn't make me hit replay immediately like "Over It" did.

I took Greg's word for it on the other two Pruitt songs (or rather, I'll wait for the CD to hear them).

A little underwhelmed by Ashley Tisdale, but the first few songs are really great! The first one, "So Much for You," might be my favorite. The ballads are awful, especially "Love Me for Me" which just goes to show that Ashlee could kick Ashley's ass. (Which one of these did Kara write?) I think it peters out around the sorta Lou Bega-sounding one, "Not Like That," which is a "jealous, bitch?" track with no teeth. So Paris could kick her ass, too. "Over It" is closest to bubble-Britney (haven't heard the other "Over It"s but I really like this one), but, yeah, Britney could kick her ass. And Lindsay'd kick her ass on principle for being such a goody goody. She's older than LL, too! That might make her the first Disney star to successfully and uneventfully weather the over-21 transition by default.

Ha.

(Allmusic.com doesn't list full writers credits and I'm not having much luck with Google, but Shelly Peiken (!) wrote or cowrote the boring "We'll Be Together," and Kara cowrote the likable "Be Good To Me." Need to learn more about J.R. Rotem, who keeps showing up on songs I like, this time "He Said, She Said." My favorite is "Not Like That," with Tisdale as cowriter, but I can't get any other credits. Storch is a producer on at least one track, my guess either "Be Good To Me" or "Not Like That." The Matrix did the pretty good "So Much For You." As for Diane Warren...)

So Ashley kicks Buster Poindexter's ass.

Tisdale is my favorite thing on the Suite Life of Zach + Cody, cause I can't stand those twins.

Strongly agree (though I like Brenda Song a lot too). In fact, I don't think there are any current Disney shows that I really enjoy. Hannah Montana the best, but still below the level of Disney's best work.

Yes, and it's therefore a conflicted song, since musically it's fundamentally a club track, it's there for struttin' and bumpin' and showing off, especially those gorgeous bouncing chorus beats: "All the girls in the club got their eyes on me/I can tell by their look that they want to be/be HOT HOT HOT like that/But it's NOT NOT no it's NOT like that."

But it is like that, of course, 'cause she is hot like that, even if she then claims that she's not that girl and it's not her world.

Wonder why she/they think there's a conflict between being the same blood and bone as everyone else and being hot and special.

I could accuse her of bad faith, trying to have her glamour and shun it too, but I think the track makes a case for both sides of her conflict, and she sounds good doing it.

so even if they are completely detached from the process, they are still living and dying by it.

But I think Ashley and Paris (sitcom?) will both do OK whether or not their albums succeed. The stakes are actually quite low for them! Ashley has a giant cross-platform safety net and Paris has being Paris, which is a 24/7 kinda job.

It's incredible - like she's finally ditched all the precious: I'm a little punk rocker - in favor of a much more teenpop approach to relationships. So where Sk8tr Boi was about how her relationships weren't conventional (they had emancipated themselves from the highschool set and were touring professionally) this is set in the standard context of boyfriend -girlfriends. But in doing so, it's the most punk song I've ever heard her sing. It reminds me of Blondie in terms of investing the mundane with attitude.

"Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your girlfriend. Hey, hey, you, you, I think you need a new one," is far more aggressive. In contrast to Sk8r, where she steals the boy away from his old girlfriend is completely overlooking in favor of the larger tension (he's great, and you missed your chance), here she's actively stealing him. And the opening: Hey, hey, you, you, is almost like a faster: "Ai, Oh, Let's go," without the beat between the noise ("Hey" "Oh") and the narrative ("You, you" "Let's go"). So she's editing out the Ramone's pause in favor of thrusting herself forward. There's huge amounts of pose in here - down to the hand-clapping, which almost sounds as though she applauding herself as she sings. Or maybe even the Stones, singing: "Hey, hey, you, you get off of my cloud," which is probably the more obvious touchstone. Which is perfect! Because she's aggressively pulling you in like the Stone's song chases you away. It's the same attitude, but used to different means.

"Ok fine I want you mine you're so delicious. I think about you all the time you're so addictive. Don't you know what I can do to make you feel alright? (Alright, alright, alright)" Combining the speedy breathlessness of the first two statements, which the echoing 'alright' of the third, it's as though Avril is coming overwhelming the target (and us) by pounding us over and over with the Possibility of Her. By the time it gets to "alright, alright, alright," it sounds like we're responding to the song ourself (also through Avril's voice) agreeing to her. She's puppeting both the predator and the prey - so that she never has to fail.

And then the song launches into the greatest thing I've heard - certainly this year and possibly last as well. "Don't pretend I think you know I'm damn precious / And hell yeah, I'm the motherfucking princess / I can tell you like me too and you know I'm right. (alright, alright, alright)" She simultaneously needs this guy, and doesn't need him at all. She's fine without him - sneering: "You know I'm damn precious." - but she's only saying it because it'll let her get him. And when she sings "I'm the motherfucking princess," she completely slays the entire Paris Hilton album. Just the implicit contradiction of using the word "motherfucking" while describing herself as a "princess" is completely honest, jarring, confusing, and refreshing. It means that a "princess" can use the word "motherfucking." It also means she has a sense of humor about being a "princess." It also means that she's a "princess" /because/ she uses words like "motherfucking," which makes her "precious" which she also understands.

This is thus far my favorite song of 2007. And I predict it'll be in the top 5 if not at the top 1 by the end of the year. I can't imagine anything displacing it. It's much better than the Veronica's 4eva - which was near the top of my list last year.

Just the amount packed into those lines in terms of language V. action, and how pop music mitigates that divide - blows me completely away. I'm smitten.

Also like D4L's "Tatted Up," which we might as well talk about here, since the Rolling Snap Thread had become a silly bore last I looked.

Idolator says that "Avril allegedly wrote the song with Dr. Luke"; doesn't reveal the source of the allegation.

Today meaning "Feb. 5" as well as the first hours of "Feb. 6." Good night.

Also, instead of focussing on the chords and musical backdrop to be the thrust as in some of her previous tracks, this one really works the impact of vocal layering and how they strip the song back and let it stand. Eg, the "In a second you'll be wrapped around my finger/ 'Cuz I can, cuz I can do it better" when the second repetition kicks in, it's fuelled by the shift up (a key? not sure of specific technical term) of the vocal, rather than chords as we might expect from her, and then the "Hey you/ No way" layers stand again without much of a musical backdrop. It's definitely the most musically sparse track I've heard from her, but it really works for me because of the bratty enthusiasm the cheerleader chants evoke.

And when she sings "I'm the motherfucking princess," she completely slays the entire Paris Hilton album.

I think that line is terrible, but how does it even compare to the Paris album? Paris is the motherfucking princess, but that isn't really what the album's all about.

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And before someone rubs my nose in "Nothing in This World" (I can do what she can do so much better), I'd argue that the song is much more complex than that, as much about the longing as the boyfriend-stealing. Whereas you get everything you need to know in "motherfuckin' princess"...and she kinda spoils that one early, doesn't she? Megan McCauley lets the tension build a little before she shows her hand (and then she gets shy again in the next section, which does something similar to the Avril build-up with a harmony instead of a higher-pitched shout "maybe we could do something that sometimes leads to other things").

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Have you read this take on Paris yet? I don't think the album (after the first three tracks) is particularly ironic in the way you're suggesting (deja vu, think I said that last year, too), and that you have to project wink-wink into "Heartbeat" or "Screwed" or "Not Leaving without You" or even "Nothing in This World," in the same way I'm probably projecting humorlessness onto the new Avril (except I do think it's kinda one-note when it could be like one-and-a-half note).

But the palpable shift back to undergroundist values has been facilitated by the fact that overground pop is not coming up with the goods at the moment. Oh, you still get lone loonies claiming merit for Paris Hilton's CD while conscientious generalists urge us to check out modern country, but overall there's been a return to a default-mode rockism that prizes substance, complexity, edge.

-- Haikunym (zinogu...), February 7th, 2007. (later)

Et al. I could probably write a dozen more meanings. With Paris I feel like you get one or two. When you're lucky, two. You get the straight-forward meaning and the wink-wink. You don't get much emotion. You don't get much sincerity. (Even if it isn't ironic, though I believe it's very, very ironic music.) With Avril you get a whole range of meanings.

Upon reflection, I still like Katharine McPhee's "Over It" best, because it's going for a more wistful "I'm over the pain", while Tisdale and Pruitt are more confident and assured "I'm totally over this guy and will NEVER take him back" songs. A matter of preference I guess, but I like the melodrama of the former rather than the cattiness of the latter. Plus, McPhee has the music to back it up. It won't make my top 10 and probably won't make my top 20 singles of 2007, but it's probably one of my 5 favorite songs of 2007 released so far. (Umm, below "With Love" and "Catch You" and maybe one or two Tisdales).