Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

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Late to the game (as per custom), but my 2 cents on Avril's "Girlfriend" video: The stupidest part of the whole thing is the dance routine. Avril, don't do dance routines. Please. Poor girl looks like she's in pain,

― Je4nne Fuhfuh, Monday, 30 April 2007 22:18 (nineteen years ago)

"oh yeah and I'm the motherfucking princess" is most likely the lyric of the year, whatever the motivation behind it may be.

― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 01:20 (nineteen years ago)

Mordy, dude, the idea of a song that can be played in the car in front of mom but everybody knows the real lyrics but everyone gets to whisper them in the backseat and giggle...THAT'S TEENPOP GOLD BABY.

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 01:34 (nineteen years ago)

When I was younger, and we'd listen to profanity-laden singles with my father in the car, we used to all cough really loudly when the artist swore. One time, we did this during an Eminem song. My father become concerned about our health.

― Mordechai Shinefield, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 05:38 (nineteen years ago)

DONT NORMALLY POST IN THIS THREAD BUT
http://www.cwtv.com/shows/pussycat-dolls/cast/asia

DID U KNOW? the winner of that Pussycat Dolls reality show is Asia Nitollano, aka daughter of Bataan Nitollano, aka Joe Bataan.

― deej, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, we used to turn down the volume knob on our backseat boom box, but for us it was the Clash and the Pretenders and the Stooges and stuff like that.

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

uh xpost. i forgot to type that because deej just blew my mind, and because damn, asia is kinda heartbreakingly pretty in that picture.

― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 18:08 (nineteen years ago)

i rave about that Mims/Toto mash-up last week and now i only just hear JoJo's 'Anything'. you can't fuck up that hook I guess!

― blueski, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 20:53 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqf-TXDt6Dc

Never Again video. Freaky eyes! And too bad she sacked her old bass player.

― MRZBW, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 01:22 (nineteen years ago)

And is the Britney comeback THE anticlimax of the year? (Just a guess)

― MRZBW, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 01:34 (nineteen years ago)

A new link for the "Never Again" video.

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 May 2007 01:37 (nineteen years ago)

And "Never Again" has withstood scores of listenings and still sounds great. But I think I like this one more.

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 May 2007 01:51 (nineteen years ago)

Woohoo! Goodbye Chris! Yay, Blake!

― Mordechai Shinefield, Thursday, 3 May 2007 02:07 (nineteen years ago)

Or maybe I do prefer "Never Again." I think the video has too much shoulder-shaking, however; think the song itself tells a stronger story.

By the way, is "Never Again" available for sale at all? My guess is that running on airplay alone it won't have a shot at the top ten; with sudden download sales it could get into the top ten but its stay will be brief - unless the video itself is some kind of monster hit, which I doubt. It's rising solidly but not spectacularly on Top 40, but is getting no support anywhere else, and its rise in airplay isn't nearly as big as Daughtry's "Home," Justin Timberlake's "Summer Love," or Rihanna's "Umbrella," the latter two also getting significant r&b play. In fact, "Never Again" isn't getting as many new spins as Pink's "U + Ur Hand," which was released seven months ago and is now up to number three in Top 40 airplay. ("Never Again" is number twenty-two.)

I would like "Never Again" to do really well, by the way.

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 May 2007 02:33 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, I've lost all touch with American Idol. Got too many other things to do. How's Jordin been the last couple of weeks? Anyone giving particularly interesting performances?

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 May 2007 02:35 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, according to the not-always-reliable Wikipedia, "Never Again" got its digital release on April 23. So if this has an impact on its Billboard ranking, we'll find out tomorrow.

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 May 2007 02:59 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, I've got to stop beginning sentences with "Oh."

― Frank Kogan, Thursday, 3 May 2007 02:59 (nineteen years ago)

Jordin messed up last night, but the judges loved her last week (see Rickey.org for all video clips).

Here are my top singles of the year so far:
1. R. Kelly feat. T.I., T. Pain - I'm a Flirt (Remix)
2. Rihanna feat. Jay-Z - Umbrella
3. Lil Mama - Lipgloss
4. Panda Bear - Bros
5. Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
6. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
7. Natasha Bedingfield - I Wanna Have Your Babies
8. Mims - This Is Why I'm Hot
9. Vanessa Hudgens - Come Back to Me
10. Robin Thicke - Lost Without U

― Tape Store, Thursday, 3 May 2007 03:08 (nineteen years ago)

I like the J:horror influence in "Never Again's" bathroom sequence and onward, but it just makes me wish they'd gone all Kiyoshi Kurosawa or Takashi Miike about things or hell, gone all AUDITION on the creep.

If nothing else, it would put a distinct period mark on the public view of her as teen mass-prod muffinette.

― i, grey, Thursday, 3 May 2007 07:53 (nineteen years ago)

(My bad--the exanguinated bathroom color scheme/water efx and so on owe more to Hideo Nakata pace Dark Water. Tho Miike and Clarkson would be an axtraordinary combo..and not nearly as outlandish as it might seem, seeing Miike's manga and J:pop-influenced films.)

― i, grey, Thursday, 3 May 2007 08:19 (nineteen years ago)

Miike+Clarkson is a great idea! Though I would want her to be the singing person from Izo.

― MRZBW, Thursday, 3 May 2007 10:08 (nineteen years ago)

Frank, I'll cross-post what I wrote on the American Idol thread (about last week's episode, Bon Jovi Night):

1. Lakisha ("This Ain't a Love Song") - First time she's had my fave performance of the night
2. Blake ("You Give Love a Bad Name") - He did something never done on AI before, gets props for that.
3. Melinda ("Have a Nice Day") - Quite good and still distinctly Melinda, as always.
4. Phil ("Blaze of Glory") - Still a good performance - This was a banner night for AI
5. Chris ("Wanted Dead of Alive") - meh
6. Jordin ("Living on a Prayer") - Really bad, and I think she was overrated for the past 2 weeks as well. She's still my favorite.

Nothing particularly notable for the past two weeks. The judges loved Jordin during country night ("Broken Wing") and inspirational music night ("You'll Never Walk Alone"); I thought both performances were overrated.

― Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 3 May 2007 12:02 (nineteen years ago)

"Never Again" debuts at number 8. Are Maroon 5 teen pop? They go to number one, anyways.

― Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 3 May 2007 12:03 (nineteen years ago)

the 'never again' video is AWESOME!

― lex pretend, Thursday, 3 May 2007 12:07 (nineteen years ago)

The Happiness of the Katakellies

― dabug, Thursday, 3 May 2007 12:48 (nineteen years ago)

"You'll Never Walk Alone" overrated? I know I'm supposed to be a tolerant fellow and have mad love and respect for all creatures great and small and their opinions too...but come on, now you're just being mental.

Plus Jordin's "badness" this week was massively overrated by everyone, her performance was fine. Better than Chris and Phil, anyway; she started out weak, but so does the song itself -- I thought she nailed the chorus and the long notes, and I don't mind "screechiness" on songs that are already pretty damned screechy.

Jordin 4 Ever, Beatles Never

― Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 3 May 2007 12:51 (nineteen years ago)

Btw, to those who can find it, "Umbrella" featuring Lil' Mama is about 20x better than "Umbrella" featuring Jay-Z.

― dabug, Thursday, 3 May 2007 12:56 (nineteen years ago)

This should make it easier to find

― dabug, Thursday, 3 May 2007 13:00 (nineteen years ago)

(Was it Jeff W who said that "Umbrella ella ella ey ey ey..." was like the Cranberries - Zombie ey ey ey ey? I thought that was worth mentioning anywhere possible. HAHAHAHA.)

OK, so one complaint about the remix is that Mama raps over the really pretty bridge, but it's also the verse where she says "umbuberella" which is pretty great.

― dabug, Thursday, 3 May 2007 13:02 (nineteen years ago)

TS: Umbuberella vs. Peroxicide

― dabug, Thursday, 3 May 2007 13:04 (nineteen years ago)

Dimension, for what it's worth, Jordin is still my favorite this year, and I've even voted for her a couple times. I still think she stunk up the joint on "Living on a Prayer" and that "You'll Never Walk Alone" was boring.

― Greg Fanoe, Thursday, 3 May 2007 13:16 (nineteen years ago)

Oh I know
Greg Fanoe
I just think you're wrong

Jordin's take
on Hammerstein
I thought was very strong

― Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 3 May 2007 13:36 (nineteen years ago)

She was so off on that song I really couldn't watch it. She hits maybe three notes right the whole time. Every time she starts a phrase it's in a different key. Horrible. (Although it made me look for monitor speakers, and I didn't see any--that can't help.)

Love the video too. Idolator linked to a pretty good take on it:

http://obtusity.blogspot.com/2007/05/it-was-all-pretend-kelly-clarkson-never.html

I especially love the "trophy wife" shot, obvs. Compare and contrast with:

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2007-02/28036810.jpg

― Eppy, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

to paraphrase one of Simon's best moments, "Livin' on a Prayer" ate Jordin up. She never found a key, and seemed discombobulated by the bass player and guitarist. In general, it was a disaster. The reversals of fortune for lakisha and jordin week to week are pretty dramatic.

― Matt Armstrong, Thursday, 3 May 2007 18:16 (nineteen years ago)

yeah but i'm still right

― Dimension 5ive, Thursday, 3 May 2007 21:14 (nineteen years ago)

In April I said: Tiffany Evans, featured with Ciara on the Kids' Choice Awards and kinda sounds like mini-Ciara android-diva. Has a prude-pop track a la "Dignity" and "Not Like That" called "Girls Gone Wild.".

And here it is May and she has a (pretty good!) track with Ciara, "Promise Ring," who noo. (I wonder how long after I posted her MySpace she got rid of "GGW" and switched it with this one...)

I guess this one is prudey enough. Promise rings freak me out. Lex and/or other qualified British person, do they even have these things where y'all are?

...PS, this is late, but if my mom even suspected I was THINKING about singing along to muthafuckin princess in the car, I'd get my mouth washed out with soap = HEADPHONEZ ONLY (and I was probably too young to have headphones). Radiowise Avril wouldn't have gotten close to my ears until I was old enough to not care so much about cursing along to a song, i.e. when I actually had the headphones.

― dabug, Friday, 4 May 2007 02:30 (nineteen years ago)

Thx! I love "Promise Ring"! It has so many great, subtle things going on in it (especially the synths...not to mention the background vocals and those brief points where she starts morphing into Beyonce but then stops and falls back into the beat (as opposed to overpowering it))

― Tape Store, Friday, 4 May 2007 02:45 (nineteen years ago)

we've been talking about 'promise ring' on the r&b thread! i love it - as rtc said the genius is in how it gets all sincere and heartfelt in the verses before tiff abruptly perks up with "if u break your promise we're breaking up!"

i don't think we have promise rings here.

― lex pretend, Friday, 4 May 2007 06:14 (nineteen years ago)

Pop star KELLY CLARKSON has reportedly scrapped her new album after label bosses weren't impressed with the record. The 25-year-old singer suffered a scathing attack from Sony BMG chief Clive Davis after he heard the new tracks, reports British newspaper the Daily Star

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/clarkson%20scraps%20new%20album_1029971

lol

― MRZBW, Friday, 4 May 2007 07:29 (nineteen years ago)

(Forgot to mention that R&B thread tipped me to "Promise Ring." Fixed.)

Ah, but Popjustice just tipped me to an even bigger R&B sensation: HONEYSHOT, the new girl group created by the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising company. Bedbug readers might remember that I already named these gals THE LOVEMARKS because...

Lovemarks form a key pillar in what we believe. Lovemarks are super-developed brands that inspire loyalty beyond reason. The relationship Lovemarks have with the people who buy them is not built on function, but on emotion....and function.

So please, if Honeyshot ever comes up in conversation/the charts, call them by their proper name (since your mom will probably wash yr mouth out with soap if you talk to her about a band called HONEYSHOT anyway). --Lovemarks 4ever--

― dabug, Friday, 4 May 2007 12:49 (nineteen years ago)

From the Entertainment Weekly website:

Britain's Daily Star reported that Sony BMG chief Clive Davis found Kelly Clarkson's new album so vile, she's now forced to scrap it. I guess you could have stopped reading after the first three words of this sentence to assume this is bogus, even though the American blogs are all aflutter. But her publicist assures EW it's "not true."

"Never Again"'s jump to number 8 is fueled by digital downloads (where it's number 4 for the week). The song is still only at number 22 in top 40 airplay, and its relatively small rise in spins doesn't bode well (517 in the last seven days, compared to 1,114 for Daughtry's "Home" and 1,000 for "Girlfriend" and 637 for "U + Ur Hand," which as I said has been around for months and months), though maybe it'll take off. My guess is that her album sales this time will be less dependent on radio support than the last two were. By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if Carrie Underwood's Some Hearts ends up outselling Breakaway.

― Frank Kogan, Saturday, 5 May 2007 03:01 (nineteen years ago)

Happy 19th, Skye...

― dabug, Saturday, 5 May 2007 17:44 (nineteen years ago)

So, wait, 'Lovemarks' is supposed to be less dirty than 'Honeyshot'?

― Nia, Sunday, 6 May 2007 01:49 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I think they did that on purpose.

― dabug, Sunday, 6 May 2007 03:41 (nineteen years ago)

I haven't been looking at the ILM front page much, so don't know if there is a thread on the worst song of the year, a song that I believe should be retitled "I Touched Her Perfect Body With My Mind, Except I Don't Have One". Hazel celebrates its horribleness here, and a group of us maul it to death here, though it is shaking off its demise and getting played on radio stations, especially in the dark woods of upstate New York.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 6 May 2007 03:41 (nineteen years ago)

I like the J:horror influence in "Never Again's" bathroom sequence and onward

I'm not in touch with J:horror. I thought of Les Diaboliques.

― Frank Kogan, Sunday, 6 May 2007 03:58 (nineteen years ago)

The J:Horror 'look' has, of course, been dumbed down to a few images, lighting and editing styles and iconic elements. There's the overlit, chromtically exsanguinated thing, the jittery jump cut, water as a ominous thing, bathrooms and restrooms as omnious places and so on.

Anyway, I think "Never Again" as a sogn is prime B side material. Everything there is enjoyable and immaculately crafted, but there really isn't an ear worm hook.

The form of the chorus is a central problem as a single. The main repeating melody is hard to sing to say nothig of remember due to it being a sort of bent fifth that resolves but also flirts with what some might thing atonal--or a least feel that way for precious milleseconds.

Then there's the other element of the chorus, Clarkson vamping on her words, which leads to a listerner not quite sure what to sing along *with*.

You out them together and although it works, it's miles away from "Since U Been Gone" or the P!nk song.

The middle eight is terrific, as middle eights tend to be, as they're a break from what comes before and follow many fewer rules, but, you know, we're two minutes into the song before a totally coherent melody asserts itself, and that can't be good.

Speaking of P!nk, I think she's vastly more intreresting than any of the teenpop phenoms so far. Really, she's everything Madonna has been ramming down our throats for decades to believe she is--except P!nk really is a whole mess of things--and all of them incredibly savvy. And God, what a great lyric writer. She makes me think of the Margaret Cho of pop in alot of ways it's too late to explain (although the video for "God is a DJ" helps locate what I'm suggesting.). I almost never agree with Xgau but he has a pithy line of her that I'm too lazy to locate right now that sums her up elegantly.

― i, grey, Sunday, 6 May 2007 08:24 (nineteen years ago)

And my apologies for late night typing.

― i, grey, Sunday, 6 May 2007 08:25 (nineteen years ago)

Speaking as a parent (or not), I have to say I really love the line where Jordan Pruitt dreads to make her bed (and doesn't want to clean her room because she doesn't want to leave friends waiting) in "Teenager." Very nifty Chic-like bassline, too.

Also, this is from the rolling country thread:

Also listening this weekend to Jimmy Ray's bizarre post-George Michael-doing-"Faith" pompadoured fake funkabilly self-titled album from ten years ago (which produced the top 40 hit "Are You Jimmy Ray"); for some reason, a copy ended up on the free table at work Friday. What an odd, fun, record. As close to Rednex as to the Stray Cats, really, yet not really techno at all. I'm not sure WHAT to compare it to. (Where was he from again? And, related question, didn't the UK have a cheesy fake rockabilly revival in the '80s? How much did Culture Club/Bow Wow Wow/whatever style "new pop" influences fit into that? Hopefully a whole lot.)
-- xhuxk, Sunday, May 6, 2007 9:10 AM (3 hours ago)
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Maybe Jimmy Ray could be compared to "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by Queen, or "Delerious" and/or "Horny Toad" by Prince? But he's maybe less rockabilly than the former, more than the latter. ("Tired of Toein' the Line" by Rocky Burnette??)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, May 6, 2007 9:17 AM (2 hours ago)
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Also in the tradition of early '60s teenybopper fakeabilly by...I dunno, Bobby Rydell I guess? (How rockabilly were Fabian and Frankie Avalon at the time?) (Ricky Nelson is too authentic a comparison!)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, May 6, 2007 9:21 AM (2 hours ago)
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Ha ha, "Way Low" on the Jimmy Ray album sounds kinda like if some semi-dancehall reggae guy like Shinehead attempted a rockabilly number with lots of Elvis hiccups in it. (Man, if the Wyclef song on the new Big'N'Rich sounded this cool, I'd be happy.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, May 6, 2007 9:34 AM (2 hours ago)
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And hmmm, Ray's "Look Inside Your Love" is either a BLATANT "Mmmbop" rip, or vice versa (they were both the same year, 1997! Anybody know which came first?)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, May 6, 2007 9:44 AM (2 hours ago)
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And okay, I just figured something else out (when I should have been cooking chicken in the kitchen instead): Track 10 of Jimmy Ray's CD, "Free At Last," more "You Can't Hurry Love" and teenpop than rockabilly is on (actually, probably half of his tracks are rockabilly-free, especially the sort of miniature George Michael blue eyed soul numbers, like "Trippin On Baby Blue" etc), and I realized the real precedent for his bubblebilly is probably early '80s Brit pop stars Westworld, of "Sonic Boom Boy" fleeting fame. I liked them a lot, too! (Though sadly, I don't have their album anymore.)

AMG on Jimmy Ray:

Fusing a neo-rockabilly image with contemporary dance-pop rhythms, singer Jimmy Ray was born and raised in East London, where he grew up on a steady diet of classic Elvis, Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele singles. He later surfaced in a techno duo called A.V., recording an album which went unreleased; upon mounting a solo career, Ray was signed by manager Simon Fuller, the same impresario who launched the Spice Girls to superstardom. His debut single, "Are You Jimmy Ray?," was issued in the UK in late 1997, becoming a hit both at home and in the U.S.; a self-titled LP followed the next year.

AMG on Westworld:

Led by the other one from Generation X (not Billy Idol or Tony James, but guitarist Bob "Derwood" Andrews), Westworld also included American vocalist Elizabeth Westwood and drummer Nick Burton. Named after the 1973 Disneyland disaster film, the trio applied pop sensibilities to the punk and post-punk forms Andrews had been immersed in, and hit number 11 on the British charts with their 1987 single "Sonic Boom Boy." The group's only subsequent Top 40 success was "Ba-Na-Na-Bam-Boo," later that year, another single from the Westworld debut album Rockulator. Second album Beat Box Rock 'N' Roll followed in 1988, but 1991's Movers & Shakers was the trio's last.

-- xhuxk, Sunday, May 6, 2007 11:32 AM (44 minutes ago)
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And beyond that of course there's the whole dang rockabilly-party-on-saturday-night '50s revival coursing back through Brit TOTP pop at least as far back as glam rock, duh. (This is having less and less to do with "country" as I go on, isn't it? Sorry.) Hey kids summertime blues jump up and down in your blue suede shoes. (Wow, I just realized I don't think I've ever heard a Shakin' Stevens song.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, May 6, 2007 12:00 PM (16 minutes ago)

Plus I just noticed that Jimmy's "Goin to Vegas" contains references to both "White Lines" by Grandmaster Flash (via "Let's Dance" by Bowie?) and whatever jump-blues song said "take it right back to the track, Jack" ("Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" by Louis Jordan, I think?) (So the mid '90s Cherry Poppin Daddies "swing revival" might figure here as well.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 6 May 2007 17:40 (nineteen years ago)

Don Allred from country thread:

One thing that helped his popology, liked it helped mine: he also managed a record store, I think, but didn't recruit his clerks for his band, unlike Hungry Chuck Cleaver or Whatchamacallit that ran The Coolies. What I like best about the song is that his chorus girls ask him, "Are you Link Wray? Are you Johnnie Ray?" or anyway drop their names, and he's somewhere in between those two (although not as intense as either), who are fave raves of mine.And both had something to do with country, in dif ways. Mentions a bunch of other Rays, but leaves out Barry Hannah's Ray, which is quite possibly the greatest novel ever written about or set in Tuscaloosa(how's that for classical qualified hyperbole)

-- dow, Sunday, May 6, 2007 12:49 PM (3 minutes ago)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 6 May 2007 17:55 (nineteen years ago)

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