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

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can I just mention how much I love the subject line this thread has happened underneath.

― Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:34 (sixteen years ago) link

I guess my issue is often that the songs/singers being talked about just sound really feeble to me, no "pop transcendence" or big hooks or much of anything.

if you want proper vocal skillz and are annoyed when limited singers get kudos, go harsh on some indie thread's buzz! at least teenpop singers generally hit notes.

But it's true, I've often wondered why he focuses on Brie Larsen or Miranda Lambert and doesn't apply the same critical skills to Green Day or LCD Soundsystem, too. Not to say that Green Day or LCD Soundsystem are more deserving, of course.

well what are you saying then? why should frank write about green day or lcd soundsystem? (fwiw he's commented on lcds, on poptimists; i think his thoughts can be summed up as "meh")

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:35 (sixteen years ago) link

the amount of purposeful obtuseness in this thread is staggering

most of it is yours (though not as much as alex in baltimore)

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:35 (sixteen years ago) link

who's being obtuse? what's a thread?

― dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:36 (sixteen years ago) link

at least teenpop singers generally hit notes. at least teenpop singers generally hit notes. at least teenpop singers generally hit notes. at least teenpop singers generally hit notes. at least teenpop singers generally hit notes. at least teenpop singers generally hit notes. at least teenpop singers generally hit notes. at least teenpop singers generally hit notes. at least teenpop singers generally hit notes.

― deej, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:37 (sixteen years ago) link

^^^^^^^^^^^OBTUSE

― deej, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:37 (sixteen years ago) link

i have now realized that everyone of lex's posts can be read as the internet equivalent of "why are you hitting yourself?"

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:38 (sixteen years ago) link

there isn't a missed note in peter, bjorn and john's "young folks," for what it's worth.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:38 (sixteen years ago) link

No, actually, I've been making a couple of jokes that people took literally ("who's 25?" = I AM NOT) and I misread something strongo wrote above. Otherwise I think I've been pretty much on point, except for the anarchy bit a while back.

― dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:38 (sixteen years ago) link

Unless that was re: the lex (shoulda clarified cuz you pointed at me).

― dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:39 (sixteen years ago) link

"pointed"

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:40 (sixteen years ago) link

xp "i would just like to point out that i have been otm on this thread"

― deej, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:40 (sixteen years ago) link

the comment was inspired by this btw

where 'defanged' = 'feminised'?

unless it was a legitimate question, but experience tells me otherwise

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:40 (sixteen years ago) link

haha

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:41 (sixteen years ago) link

jess has ilm completely rotted your brain over the years or is this the deliberate obtuseness you were referring to right here?

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:42 (sixteen years ago) link

well, you know, if only all singers were as macho and manly as Brandon Flowers

― Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:42 (sixteen years ago) link

OTM is relative. I just mean I haven't been obtuse in my arguments, tho I feel kinda obtuse now. Isn't ^^^ pointing to the post above? I know not your language.

― dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:42 (sixteen years ago) link

i read 'beat of my heart' as without-a-care, more than anything else. its *high school movie* music, like ruby & the romantics talking in your sleep.

actually, it also reminds me a bit of things like michael mcdonald sweet freedom, but a high school version of it. a sort of naivety, optimism, even ...self-helpy a bit! but not ecstatic, i dont think it does that

and i think it does sound like early killers, theyre highschool/mall movie music too

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:43 (sixteen years ago) link

Jaymc: if you want to read Frank trying to engage with other stuff (or at least encountering other stuff), we've been playing a game on Poptimists in which people encounter music 'blind' (w/o knowing who it is etc.), and review it. Each player only had to do this with one comp the other players make for them, but Frank's been doing it for all of them, which has been interesting. He definitely seems willing to engage with all kinds of stuff - he focuses on teenpop cos not many others are, I guess, and because that's where he's finding whatever energy he looks for.

This thread seems to have hit the trenches, though.

― Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:44 (sixteen years ago) link

it's certainly rotting my brain today

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:44 (sixteen years ago) link

I'm under 25. Also - I aced my final. Score!

― Mordechai Shinefield, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:45 (sixteen years ago) link

and, you know, most of my threads pan out like this

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=2955

so, its good that its discussed at all, right?

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:46 (sixteen years ago) link

where 'defanged' = 'feminised'?

No, "defanged" in that "Mr. Brightside" has a sense of tension and dynamics that "Beat of My Heart" lacks. Aly and AJ's "Rush" has it, too, for matter. I've only heard the song twice now, though, so this is just first impressions.

― jaymc, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:46 (sixteen years ago) link

this thread has inspired me download the entire hilary duff album. perhaps i will do a real time review.

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:47 (sixteen years ago) link

which one?

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:48 (sixteen years ago) link

oh they're all good

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:48 (sixteen years ago) link

my secret shame is that the real reason i don't like hilary duff because my ex-girlfriend did

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:49 (sixteen years ago) link

DINGDINGDING part two

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:51 (sixteen years ago) link

way to play the sympathy card about 500 posts too late!

― David R., Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:51 (sixteen years ago) link

That Poptimists discussion sounds interesting, Tom. I haven't really looked at that group before. And I admit that I'm being somewhat unfair to Frank, who I do see (having read his book) as someone who's constantly probing all kinds of music in search of something that captures his interest. I just don't always understand why he's moved by what he's moved by.

― jaymc, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:51 (sixteen years ago) link

she was a total "poptimist" actually.

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:52 (sixteen years ago) link

jess, did she look like...this?

http://www.contramano.net/press/images/fluxblog.jpg

― Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:55 (sixteen years ago) link

u_u

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:56 (sixteen years ago) link

SASSY

― David R., Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:56 (sixteen years ago) link

r.i.p. mathweena perpetua, our loved died too soon

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:56 (sixteen years ago) link

what did people do before message boards at work, guys?

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 18:59 (sixteen years ago) link

He's being cremated next Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and the rest of him they're just going to bury.

xp

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:00 (sixteen years ago) link

"I wish they had never invented fried cheese."

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:01 (sixteen years ago) link

Write War & Peace?

I'm trying to GIS for a machine gun floral arrangement (like from The Wire), but I'm coming up blank.

― David R., Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:01 (sixteen years ago) link

i can run up the street and buy one and take a picture of it, if you like

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:01 (sixteen years ago) link

If you're not doing anything, sure!

― David R., Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:03 (sixteen years ago) link

i'm giving a lecture to my community college students on tropicalia and krautrock today.

― Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:04 (sixteen years ago) link

DUDE STAY ON TOPIC

― David R., Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:05 (sixteen years ago) link

dont be too frothy!

― 696, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:05 (sixteen years ago) link

hilberto duff

― strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:08 (sixteen years ago) link

humberto humbertington

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

(Ah, I can peacefully fade back into semi-anonymity. It's been fun, though, see ya on the teenpop thread.)

― dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 19:27 (sixteen years ago) link

"see, this is kind of what I've been talking about, these kinds of enthusiastic attempts to pin down the logic in a boring heart/start/apart rhyme scheme, painting the lack of narrative or any sense at all as an asset. I guess this is a good example of how the teenpop thread tends to exert a lot of evergy asking questions with very simple or at least not particularly interesting answers"

Coming to this late but it probably makes more sense to pretend that a lot of the teenpop thread posters are gay (and quite a few are) rather than paedophiles - the combination of ambition and incoherence in something like "Beat of my Heart" is ripe for gay fanboyism. The earnestness is a bit of a pose: it's almost a game being played with the music where the listener takes seriously/literally the musical choices that the creator probably doesn't care about. So Jess is kinda OTM about Hillary wanting to do her nails instead - hyperbolic, but the point is true that there is an over-investment by certain listeners above and beyond what the creator could really have envisioned or perhaps even wants.

Gay people have been doing this for years of course! I used to really resent it when I was younger - not the act itself but the way it was applied to musical choices I thought were creatively bankrupt. I remember being appalled that every gay guy I knew loved Kylie's "Spinning Around". Coming to accept and enjoy this critical reaction over the course of seven years or so (story of my life 18-25) was part of my reconciliation with the notion of being "gay" in the strong, cutural sense.

But I accept it might still annoy the hell out of a lot of people.

Note that this doesn't explain everyone on the teenpop thread - for example I don't think Frank is like this at all.

― Tim F, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 21:54 (sixteen years ago) link

The earnestness is a bit of a pose: it's almost a game being played with the music where the listener takes seriously/literally the musical choices that the creator probably doesn't care about. So Jess is kinda OTM about Hillary wanting to do her nails instead - hyperbolic, but the point is true that there is an over-investment by certain listeners above and beyond what the creator could really have envisioned or perhaps even wants.

Is this "over-identification" a gay phenomenon? I thought most critics (esp those who've been in bands) understood that serendipity is responsible for most moments of genius anyway.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 22:04 (sixteen years ago) link

What I'm saying is slightly different I think - there's a self-awareness to gay men's appreciation of stuff that other people would dismiss as being lightweight, hopeless kitsch etc. It's not just an accidental inspiration thing.

Having said that, this is just a really overt and noticeable version of a process that happens with all music - it's not just about gays and teenpop. When I respond to emotionally to, say, Daft Punk's "Digital Love", I can't honestly say "this song has articulately captured something essential and true about my life man!" There is a partial choice involved whereby I'm deciding to let certain things affect me (the whine of the vocoder, the cheesy lyrics, the enormous groove, the Supertramp keyboard breakdown) which someone else might find hopelessly tenuous or meaningless in terms of conveying much of anything.

I think a standard manoeuvre in rock crit is to set up a standard for justification of emotional responses - e.g the literary expressiveness of the lyrics - and I can sympathise with this, but it's clearly not what most listeners actually want or need. Hence people getting choked up over James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". I hate Blunt, but I can't pretend that his inability to make a coherent point is what stops me from liking him - it annoys me because I already hate him, and his whole "style" is not one I'm inclined to make exceptions for, whereas with "Beat of my Heart", because I'm sympathetic to a lot of the stylistic choices in Hillary's song, i'm more inclined to invest anyway.

― Tim F, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 22:17 (sixteen years ago) link

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