Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

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So what do people (Brits, Germans, Canadians, anybody) know about Pretty Donkey Girl? A google search suggests she's "the new Crazy Frog," and "Dolly Song" is a big ringtone apparently, which is good, because so far it's my favorite song (post-Boney M Cossak disco or something?) on the pre-release CD that fell into my lap at work. Said mule-like mammal (who strangely looks more like a lady hippopotamus on the CD cover) seems to also have a taste for Caribbean rhythms, as witness her excellent cover of Chubby Checker's "Limbo Rock plus "La Isla Bonita" plus "Don't Worry Be Happy" plus "Holly Samba," but she additionally dabbles in ragtime ("Pretty Intro," which is actually "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin), bubble-goth ("Horror Show," total Lene Lovich/Nina Hagen new wave), country disco ("Mister Joe," her in retrospect inevitable and of course more than welcome version of Rednex' version of "Cotton Eye Joe") and early '60s pop ("Lollipop," which is the "oh lolly lolly" "Lollipop" -- who did that? it was always on TV commercials for oldies compilations for years, I kinda hated it then, and I haven't thought about in forever -- not Millie Small oddly enough since Millie would fit in with the island-rhythm theme), and more. And o'ourse it's all turned into "Hamster Dance"-style chipmunk-punk techno, as it should be. Is this on kids TV somewhere, or what? It's great!

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 01:01 (nineteen years ago)

Oops, left out the Teutonic cabaret dance track "Ciao Ciao Goodbye" (I know it's Teutonic 'cause it sez "auf weidersehen" in there somewhere.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 01:08 (nineteen years ago)

Trivia Question:

If you were to describe Hannah Montana's awesomeness using only metaphors, how awesome would you say Ms. Cyrus is?

― Mordechai Shinefield, Sunday, 22 April 2007 02:02 (nineteen years ago)

my recent incident was "you have to choose Matt, Paris Hilton or me."

I'm still thinking it over.

-- Matt Armstrong, Saturday, 21 April 2007 21:15 (Yesterday)

Matt, please keep us informed as to how this plays out.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 22 April 2007 05:19 (nineteen years ago)

Mordy: Miley Cyrus is about as awesome as a chronic, persistent, and extremely annoying respiratory infection.

― Dimension 5ive, Sunday, 22 April 2007 05:25 (nineteen years ago)

"Matt, please keep us informed as to how this plays out."

Will do.

When it comes to metaphors, I always get stuck on the first one that comes to mind, even if it's not so great. With that said, I think Hannah Montana is as awesome as chocolate ice cream with crumbled reese's pieces on top.

― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, 22 April 2007 05:41 (nineteen years ago)

Dolly Song" is a big ringtone apparently, which is good, because so far it's my favorite song (post-Boney M Cossak disco or something?)

More Haysi Fantayzee than Boney M, I'd say now, with a definite sea shantey meets Make 'Em Mokum Crazy bubblegabba bent. And "My Name Is Holly" is a rap ("When I say Holly you say Dolly" -- possible reference to Kano's 1980 metal-infused gay Eurodisco hit "Holly Dolly"??); "Holly's Farm" is basically "Old McDonald Had a Farm" done by robots.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 19:36 (nineteen years ago)

Also both "Holly Samba" (one of my favorites, along with "Dolly Song" and "Mister Joe") and "My Name Is Holly" are propelled by hey-hey-hey gang shouts.

Some youtube clues:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Z77aY_LhxAc

"Dolly Song" is the same as "Holly Dolly" I guess.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dwI4S6MH8zQ

At the end of the first one of those, the tag says "Netherlands," so maybe the nonsense words are in Dutch? I was starting to wonder if the donkey came from Japan. (The "Holly Dolly" video has anime-like parts. Not sure what to make of that little blackface-like bug character toward the end though.)

Also, interesting to note from youtube comments that I'm not alone in my "That's a hippo" opinion.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 20:05 (nineteen years ago)

Comment attached to second one:

its finnish, not gibberish

"Slap & Tickle" is not on my copy of the CD, oddly. (It also does not appear to be a Squeeze cover.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

Holly Dolly has been a hit all over Europe now, one of those things that seems to crop up in France or Germany then get followed by several imitators. I tend to avoid them.

DJ Otzi is #1 in Germany at the moment, BTW. Teenpop thread regulars may remember Tokio Hotel; they're #3, fresh off the back of having had a hit in France with their previous single, somehow.

At #53 - 'Ich Rocke', by Debbie Rockt! I shall investigate and report back swiftly.

― William Bloody Swygart, Sunday, 22 April 2007 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNXOf9uKnWs

It's a bit boring.

― William Bloody Swygart, Sunday, 22 April 2007 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

xp: Why avoid them??? Europe is so lucky!!!

Myspace etc. bring Italy into the equation:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=96168005

http://www.holly-dolly.eu/

Aren't Tokio Hotel sort of a glam-rock band?

― xhuxk, Sunday, 22 April 2007 20:13 (nineteen years ago)

14-year-old new metallers, if I remember rightly, though they aren't especially heavy. Lead singer is a boy who could best be described as 'androgynous'.

― William Bloody Swygart, Sunday, 22 April 2007 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

Omg. Just the idea of Jordan Sparks doing "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel makes shivers go down my back. I haven't heard it yet, but I'm calling greatest performance of Sparks all season.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 22:47 (nineteen years ago)

*deep breath* Wow.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 01:01 (nineteen years ago)

kinda pitchy but she did her thing, she sold it all the way, she's the best

― Dimension 5ive, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 01:44 (nineteen years ago)

It was good but her emotion continues to be well ahead of her singing. She's still my fave.

― Greg Fanoe, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 02:04 (nineteen years ago)

Translating "Never Again" from what's here to a NIN song would take almost no effort.

― i, grey, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 07:47 (nineteen years ago)

As for "angry" being a surprise--I thought "angry" was an integral part of the whole Kelly thing; it's there under most everything she sings, giving texture if only that.

― i, grey, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 07:50 (nineteen years ago)

Why not, Rolling RD for...what's today...4/25/07: New Hannah Montana (don't remember what it sounds like) on top, two covers by the newly-diabetic Jonas Brothers make 2 and 3, Akon delivers on my promise for him to be the "closest 'Ignition Remix' gets to Radio Disney" by debuting at 11 with "Don't Matter," no sign of the muthafuckin princess (duh). Ever(onicas)life seems to have petered out after the, like, eighth best song on Secret Life Of... fails to pass the TEST OF TIME. In the mailbag: Nickelodeon penetrates the Disneyverse with Naked Brothers Band (but barely, so it probably won't go too far -- more boys who sing like girls, anyway). Does the girl in that new show iCarly sing? I remember her being the band manager in School of Rock, should probably get the cross-promo pop album gravy train started up soon if she can sing. In the incubator: Bittersweet, who I can't seem to stream more than two seconds at a time at the moment.

And if you haven't been paying attention, Hilary Duff looks like this now:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/nameom/hilaryandroid.jpg

― dabug, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 22:31 (nineteen years ago)

Slight resemblance?

― dabug, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 22:38 (nineteen years ago)

how can I hear all these new hannah montana singles? I can't find a myspace for her, nor are they on any of the music download sites I frequent.

― Matt Armstrong, Thursday, 26 April 2007 04:33 (nineteen years ago)

Listen to Radio Disney (streaming online at their website http://www.radiodisney.com, now whether ya like it or not) for about...oh, twelve minutes or so.

― dabug, Thursday, 26 April 2007 04:37 (nineteen years ago)

(requires Internet Explorer and does not like Firefox very much at all.)

― dabug, Thursday, 26 April 2007 04:38 (nineteen years ago)

Plus there's youtube: Nobodys Perfect. Not great quality. Also not a great song.

― dabug, Thursday, 26 April 2007 04:46 (nineteen years ago)

Dave, I agree that "Nobody's Perfect" and "Make Some Noise" are some pretty weak Hannah Montana songs. Disappointing!

― Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 26 April 2007 13:33 (nineteen years ago)

By the way "Girlfriend" jumps to number one and is the first non-R&B, non-American idol proper pop song to reach number one in...god, years ("Bad Day" and "You're Beautiful" were number one last year but not proper pop!). OK, I'll actually look it up. Since "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)" by Xtina in 2000!

― Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 26 April 2007 13:55 (nineteen years ago)

Tim, upthread:

Ashlee's probing and restless braniacity is also to some extent her "rockism", although there's perhaps a separate "rockism" at work in the way in which that is recognised by almost no rock critics.

Change "rock critics" to "listeners" and I'm very interested in this sort of thing. Reasonable people can differ on what constitutes an attempt at legitimacy, but I think there are times when we can all agree that someone's making a stab at it, when they're trying not to be successful or make what they want to make but to be taken seriously. (These times include maybe pianos, string sections, or Diane Warren.) And what happens when these attempts (which I think can be viewed as an attempt at establishing yourself, which is to say trying to gain job security) fail? When it's seen as a calculated move and it backfires? I think this is a key dynamic in teenpop right now--the artist's swing from "I want to be successful" to "I want to be taken seriously" to "whoops, I want to be successful again and/or do what I actually want, since the whole legitimacy thing isn't going to work." Not saying it happens in everyone, but it's happening with some artists, and curious how it might look without the second step, or if the second step succeeded, or what.

Not really sure where to go with this, but I'm really interested in stuff that's trying to be chart pop but doesn't get accepted as such.

― Eppy, Thursday, 26 April 2007 16:52 (nineteen years ago)

How is "Come On Over" not R&B but "Sexyback" is? And "Bad Day" isn't proper pop? WTF is proper pop?

― da croupier, Thursday, 26 April 2007 16:57 (nineteen years ago)

As you've excluded british ballads I can't even assume you're talking about aryan majesty or something.

If we exclude balladry, it's the first rock song to hit #1 since "How You Remind Me," though!

― da croupier, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

I've been trying to explore some of this in recent columns, and might do something on "seriousness" in the "take me seriously" sense, what "seriously" might mean (the hair thing was hinting at some of these ideas). What's exciting about teenpop artists is that there's no real outline for them; they're kind of making it up as they go along, and a lot of them are making it up at the same time. So you see weird stuff like Lindsay disses as both an attempt to be more fun (Ashlee) and an attempt to be more "serious" (Hilary), hair color as indicator of the paradox of "legitimacy," seemingly arbitrary differentiation (I'm not fake like [insert commonly-perceived-as-"illegitimate" artist], I'm real like [insert commonly-perceived-as-"illegitimate" artist]). It's like what Tom mentioned, where a friend discounted Kelly Clarkson as part of a class of people that (presumably) includes Britney, Lindsay, Ashlee. Whereas in the complicated and sort of arbitrary legitimacy terrain within teenpop, it's Lindsay and Paris (fake) versus Kelly Clarkson (real).

There seems to be a kind of incipient anarchy happening in regard to legitimacy as involvement in corporate/institutional models of record distribution -- also a big issue in indie music, where indie has come to mean something social in distinction rather than aesthetic or economic -- with broad, confusing indicators of personality (type of dress, hair color, "stupid girls" kinda stuff) becoming a vague symbol of imminent doom thru excess capitalistic whatever (Hilary to LiLo: "can't buy respect but you can pick up the bill"). These positions are clearly ridiculous and essentially random (like most "positions" on Paris Hilton), mostly because this is playing out like improv, where the scene is developing and you have to stay true to it, regardless of how bizarre it gets. (And, like in improv, you NEVER deny the scene, you have to play by the rules as they're being made.)

― dabug, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

My definition of R&B for the above, which is admittedly rather inclusive, is hit the R&B charts. Which excludes some probably not-R&B songs like "Hollaback Girl" or "SOS" but I mean something that isn't even arguably R&B. "SexyBack" is R&B because it hit #11 on the R&B charts. As far as I know, and heck I may be wrong, "Come On Over" didn't make an impact on the R&B charts. Though I agree that "Come On Over" is probably about as R&B as "SexyBack" or "SOS" or whatever, I'm just going off of what the R&B stations actually played. Probably speaks more to the broadening of R&B radio than anything else, but that's a topic for a different thread.

"Bad Day" and "You're Beautiful" were both Top 40 hits, not genre hits at all, which makes them proper pop, of course. I was just making a bit of a joke (ie I don't like the songs and therefore they are not PROPER POP). In any event, when it comes to a fun, poppy, non-genre hit, this is the first example of that type to hit #1 since Xtina. ("Butterfly" and "How You Remind Me" also hit number 1 between Xtina and Avril, but those are modern rock songs).

xpost, I strictly mean the US Billboard Hot 100, which is all I can speak to.

― Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

xpost to Dave

Also kinda interested in how this'll all be viewed years down the line--for instance, some of those trying-to-be-pop groups I'm talking about (like, to pick an example only useful to me, Mpath) are I guess analagous to what we might regard today as "lost soul classics," people working a popular sound but failing to find popularity. (Or are they? Are they more equivalent to, I dunno, failed crooners, who no one really cares about even now?)

Who'll be first-tier in thirty years? Who'll be an also-ran? This is another aspect of legitimacy, although I'm unclear exactly how much any of the teenpop artists have their eye on the judgments of history etc. etc.

― Eppy, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

A new rock #1! Totally missed that. Will people see it as such, though?

(if this were the rest of ILX I would post some sort of crying-eagle jpeg with a "our long national nightmare is over" tag or something)

― Eppy, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:15 (nineteen years ago)

(Oh, and it seems relevent to me because in Sasha's EMP talk about the 01-02 Hot 100 charts and R&B's dominance on such he mentioned Nickleback right at the start.)

― Eppy, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

And also, just to make this perfectly clear, I like many/most of the R&B songs that hit number one between Nickelback and James Blunt

― Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

I don't think most people see Blunt as rock, maybe because it kinda sounds like some of Xtina's recent ballads.

― Eppy, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

Weird thing about it is, it just snuck up overnight. In 00, about half the number ones were non-R&B. In 01, you had 3 or 4. Then wham, none for 5 years. "Girlfriend" won't be seen as a rock #1 because it gets no play on rock stations. Blunt isn't rock because he wasn't played on the rock stations. Thems the breaks.

― Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

Mildly interesting how teenpop has complicated the genre of rock.

When Sasha was reading his paper (dunno if you were there or not, Greg), he just read out the title of the #1 song for each week as a poem or something. It was fairly effective--just total dominance for a few tracks, and almost all of those R&B. Also, kind of a conversation.

― Eppy, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

(Heh, can anybody tell I'm trying to avoid doing work right now)

Dave, thought you might be interested in hearing this, which I heard a DJ saying on the radio this afternoon: "I think it's funny how when Avril first came up, she was all like 'No, I'm not in league with Britney or whoever. I want to be taken seriously. I am a serious musician. But now she's all like 'well, never mind that, I'm just fun and poppy'."

― Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

In 00, about half the number ones were non-R&B. In 01, you had 3 or 4. Then wham, none for 5 years.

there were several non-R&B #1s. you've listed some yourself.

― da croupier, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

they were by american idol contestant and balladeers, but still.

― da croupier, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

uptempo teenpop artists did either drop in sales or move towards R&B this decade though, yes.

― da croupier, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

Who'll be first-tier in thirty years? Who'll be an also-ran? This is another aspect of legitimacy, although I'm unclear exactly how much any of the teenpop artists have their eye on the judgments of history etc. etc.

When the dust settles on the big tabloid boom, I hope that a lot of people are embarrassed by how they conducted themselves on all sides. A lot of the misogyny (in particular) is just awful, regardless of how awful the subjects are, and I hope that any kind of revisionism will at least recognize how out of control the emphasis on personal responsibility of teenpop/tabloid celebs in the perpetuation of their image is ("it's not news when you get a new bag, it's not news when somebody slaps you," says Hil, as if Lindsay is asking for it). But I doubt this will happen, more likely people will think "remember Lindsay and Paris and Britney? *shudder* GROSS, but at least there were some fun tunes."

― dabug, Thursday, 26 April 2007 18:25 (nineteen years ago)

Re: Avril, Greg, when I use the (admittedly stupid) term post-teenpop, I'm getting at what I think is happening with Avril, i.e., she's simultaneously pandering to and insulting her intended audience. Like, here's your teenpop, but we all know this is really stupid *wink*. It's aggressive, way too self-conscious (which is strange because when Skye did what might be the most self-conscious version of a "Girlfriend"-like song with "Hypocrite," it was endearing, mostly because she's really saying she LIKES this kinda music, this is really her; whereas with Avril, it's implied that this isn't really her, it's this little pop starlet character she's constructed for everyone).

― dabug, Thursday, 26 April 2007 18:37 (nineteen years ago)

they more equivalent to, I dunno, failed crooners, who no one really cares about even now?

There are plenty of really bizarre casualties of c. 2000 teenpop, groups like Gemz or Valli Girls or Brittney Cleary (before she became Nikki Cleary -- her second incarnation isn't quite in this category), the stuff I totally missed out on then and only even know about by the scant writing there was about them at the time. I'm still trying to get RD playlists for 1996-2003 or so to find more...Swirl 360 etc. (You could also check out the Radio Disney incubator, which houses a ton of more recent examples of nobody cares at all [but me] artists).

Another group, closer to the "lost soul classics," but probably not "long lost but great" to anyone too far outside this thread (until one of us writes a book or puts out a compilation or starts a Serious(ly good) Magazine to canonize some of this stuff hinthinthint) will be artists like Fefe Dobson and Hope Partlow and Lillix, the wannabe-never-wases (but came sorta close). Hope Skye isn't in this category.

(In the above post I'm really talking more about the people who were big big big but totally loathed in their time.)

― dabug, Thursday, 26 April 2007 21:15 (nineteen years ago)

oh wow, that last Gemz album, which I had no idea even existed until dabug just mentioned it, has some good songs on it! "You Can Call Me" is good stuff.

The album cover is absolutely dreadful, reminiscent of the great-bad album covers of the 80s:

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000E5N6C0.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_V46063834_SS500_.jpg

apparently this one came out last year, but I don't see it on TP2k6. Maybe the album cover turned everyone off.

― Matt Armstrong, Thursday, 26 April 2007 23:09 (nineteen years ago)

Who'll be first-tier in thirty years? Who'll be an also-ran? This is another aspect of legitimacy, although I'm unclear exactly how much any of the teenpop artists have their eye on the judgments of history etc. etc.

the issue of legitimacy is a really interesting discussion, because i think it's linked to the declining popularity of teenpop. as i recall, in the early 00s the trend in teenpop seemed to be one of attempting to legitimise itself, and in a specific way - deliberately taking on signifiers of rock authenticity (guitars/real instruments (played by artist), confessional/personal lyrics (written by artist)). i'm thinking avril, michelle branch, vanessa carlton. partly i guess this was consumer backlash over out-and-out plastic, sexualised pop like britney and xtina, partly because this was clearly a generation of girls whose formative music was alanis morissette, tori amos et al, now coming of age.

but it was still teenpop, by virtue of its marketing,the fact that they were still pretty young girls, and not as off-kilter as amos/morisette, and this completely precluded acceptance by an actual rock audience. BUT the way they wore their legitimising rock signifiers was possibly a kind of gateway drug to their fans, maybe? leading to the indie boom amongst teenagers now, the 'hard stuff', and the a priori rejection of simpson/lohan/hilton because of who they are and what they've done.

thoughts are getting quite muddled here so i'll stop but the conclusion i was aiming for was that it feels weird that teenpop wears more legitimating signifiers than ever before - including the "no one likes it, a lot of its stars toil in obscurity" - and the tension of how to square that with teenpop's traditional assumption of commercial pre-eminence is pretty interesting.

― lex pretend, Friday, 27 April 2007 10:07 (nineteen years ago)

I don't remember when the Gemz album I have is from (got it in a batch of Metal Mike's dollar bin dupes)...I seem to remember weird classic rockish mystical-type lyrics over a more bubblegum teenrock sound but I'd have to listen again. Didn't know they were still making music!

Lex, I like your "gateway drug" idea but I don't think Avril, Branch et al were ever anywhere near in conversation with the type of indie that's taken off in the past couple of years. I think that can be traced to increasing web exposure, film crossovers, the general "professionalization" of indie (h/t Eppy), etc. I did mention this re: twin-pop once, though, that it's funny that one of the attractions of twin-pop/sib-pop etc. is a legit performance thing, i.e. two people singing at the same time! But again, this is intra-teenpop legitimacy, which is kind of its own language, since anyone making a distinction between legit and illegit-rock in the first place isn't likely to ever even give this stuff a chance.

Honestly, I really think the artists and producers are just winging it. Kara's denunciation of "La La" is upsetting, but also kind of arbitrary -- what is it about that particular song that's morally questionable to her? Especially since, having written it, she should know that it's deceptively complex and actually empowering if you listen to it on its own (Kara and Ashlee's own) terms? And if it's a front, who's she fronting to, for, etc?

― dabug, Friday, 27 April 2007 16:12 (nineteen years ago)

teenpop wears more legitimating signifiers than ever before - including the "no one likes it, a lot of its stars toil in obscurity"

And is this true? I mean, we say this (I know I do), but I think the fundamental assumption -- and one thing that differentiates teenpoppers from, say, indie artists -- is that they're trying to be famous, going for the superstar audience. They're "Imaginary Superstars," as Skye'd say. So the fact that the Veronicas and Fefe and Lillix and whoever else don't sell may be true, but they're sort of presenting themselves as if they're not toiling in obscurity, that obscurity is a temporary inconvenience, which means that there's nothing to "square" w/r/t commercial viability.

Even the post-teenpoppers like Shut Up Stella -- recently signed to Epic -- have the goal of being big big big, they're not OK with settling with the middle of the road or moderate concessions to commercialism that most indie artists make. They want to right the wrongs of Lindsay & Paris by shouting it to the world and selling a million records. It would be interesting if they professed NOT to want celebrity, but they're really advocating a kind of celebrity-corrective -- "we should have celebs in the normal fashion/system, but they should act like, look like, say *this*...Hilary is doing this in "Dignity" (the song), too, and P!nk is doing it in "Stupid Girls."

― dabug, Friday, 27 April 2007 16:22 (nineteen years ago)

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