Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

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And two of the latter three having songs with Dr. Luke that either aren't quite as good as "Girlfriend" (arguably...I don't know if I prefer "U + Ur Hand," which is a fascinating mess, to "Girlfriend," which is less messy but also less interesting -- but then again as far as this kind of stuff being popular goes, "U + Ur Hand" has been a pretty enduring success, right?) or haven't been released yet. If "Girl Like Me" by SkyeMaxLuke sounds anything like "Girlfriend," I'll be kinda pissed, since Skye already went through her bratty cheerleader phase...when she was like fifteen. But whatever. (I doubt Brie will abandon the field entirely, but her main focus doesn't seem to be music at the moment. I'm already slating A&A's new one in my top ten, hope I'm not setting my expectations too high.)

― dabug, Friday, 11 May 2007 20:59 (nineteen years ago)

once again y'all forgot about Fefe Dobson who had some pretty damned good success with this style and was about to blow it up last year when Sunday Love was KEPT DOWN BY THE MAN

― Dimension 5ive, Friday, 11 May 2007 21:15 (nineteen years ago)

I really don't think any of these people will have much chart success apart from Radio Disney. But maybe I'll be wrong.

― Tape Store, Friday, 11 May 2007 22:34 (nineteen years ago)

And duh, of course there are people who can make it, but my question was talking about established pop artists (not saying those people aren't big, just not on the Hot 100)

― Tape Store, Friday, 11 May 2007 22:37 (nineteen years ago)

Personal top 10 singles and top 6 albums:

1) Natasha Bedingfield - "I Wanna Have Your Babies"
2) My Chemical Romance - "Famous Last Words"
3) Amerie - "Gotta Work"
4) Sophie Ellis-Bextor - "Catch You"
5) Vanessa Hudgens - "Say OK"
6) Fall Out Boy - "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race"
7) Toby Keith - "High Maintenance Woman"
8) Kelly Clarkson - "Never Again"
9) Tim Armstrong ft Skye Sweetnam - "Into Action"
10) Katharine McPhee - "Over It"

["The Best Damn Thing" would be number one if released].

Albums:
1. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
2. Jordan Pruitt - No Ordinary Girl
3. Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High
4. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
5. Hilary Duff - Dignity
6. Avril Lavigne - The Best Dam Thing

My guesses: "Babies" fends off comers to remain in the top 10, the other ones are extremely bumpable. All 6 of the albums will contend for top 10. My guess is that Miranda stays at number one all year.

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 12 May 2007 02:43 (nineteen years ago)

The other one, oddly enough, that may stay in the top 10 is "Catch You" which right now I don't like quite as much as MCR and Amerie but which has been slowly climbing my list all year.

I'm not a big fan of the new Luke sound. "Tap That", "U+Ur Hand", and "4ever" are all basically the same song, and it's not a bad song but I'm just getting bored with it. The Luke songs on the Avril album tend to be among my least favorites.

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 12 May 2007 02:48 (nineteen years ago)

Tape Store, I'd say that none of those singers (Marion Raven et al.) have a chance on Radio Disney anymore, and Disney's not going for that sound that I can hear. So Top 40 is their only chance - and the success of "Girlfriend" may give it to them, though actually I'm skeptical too as to whether the success will transfer, and as I said I don't necessarily think those performers should or will go for the new Luke sound; these days, when Marion isn't duetting with Meat Loaf she's trying to be Motley Crüe; but her Luke-y "Break You" and "End Of Me"* were terrific if quite soggy). Greg, I love love love "4ever," which didn't have the hard-rock overkill of "Girlfriend," I like "Tap That" a lot despite its overkill, and "U + Ur Hand" is an interesting mess and unlike "Tap That" (which has a Salt N Pepa style rap in it!) is simply "4ever" with the words changed and Pink clumsily trying to make it her own. If I'd not heard "4ever" I might love "U + Ur Hand."

*"End Of Me" is kinda like if some goth chick decided to half do Joni Mitchell while keeping the revved up SUBG production. And "Tap That" is a goth chick doing Luke 'n' Pepa.

― Frank Kogan, Saturday, 12 May 2007 13:24 (nineteen years ago)

Look what dabug found:

Hi, her name is Marble and she is the best thing that happened to POP music since 1178 AD

― Frank Kogan, Saturday, 12 May 2007 13:28 (nineteen years ago)

"4ever" was somewhere in my top 20 singles of the year last year, so I like it too, but my point is that I wanna hear something else from Luke other than just full on pushing rock. "Hard-rock overkill" is a good phrase. That overkill was the very reason I preferred (and still prefer) "Sweet Temptation" to any of the actual Luke or Martin/Luke songs. ("Behind These Hazel Eyes" is close.)

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 12 May 2007 13:55 (nineteen years ago)

And to correct a misstatement above, even the non-rock Luke songs ("Love Me Or Hate Me", "Nothing In This World", etc.), even the ones I really enjoy, I generally thing are going too far. I just think he needs to rein it in a bit.

― Greg Fanoe, Saturday, 12 May 2007 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

A few of these people should post here. I feel like this thread misses out on these sorts of perspectives, given this is probably more representative of the general audience for Aly and AJ et al ("Ajoe"!).

i dont feel as if they're songs are bad for kids. i mean the world is filled with bad - not butterflys and lollipops. and Aly & AJ are just trying to express that to us in song.

We don't analyze things in school for nothing. It actually takes brains to do that. We learn how to write persuasive essays with counter-arguments in order to see another view. I honestly give the person who wrote it thumbs up for taking meanings deeper than they really are. Although I condone people who make negative remarks, if their remarks are pointless one liners such as "They Suck" "I hate them" "I'm gonna sit and totally gossip" aren't worth reading. From a fan perspective, I probably wouldn't approve but I wouldn't be 'THAT PERSON MUST BE ON CRACK FOR WRITING SOMETHING I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BUT I'M JUST SAYING IT BECAUSE I SAY SO.'

^^Well see, I think it's just the writer trying to bad-mouth them. Sure, people change... even Aly & AJ, but I really don't see them changing to like, "Avril Lavgine" like the article said. Sure, in the "Chemicals React" music video I thought they were a little goth because they were wearing a lot of black and etc., but I realized it's Aly & AJ! : ] I wouldn't worry unless I saw it with my own eyes.

and Slow Down is not about "pre-marital sex (or at least some sort of physical relationship)" this article made me mad! I gave him a peice of my mind.

Whats pre-martil sex?

(Woops.) I don't know why they keep finding that ancient post and none of the other A&A ones.

― dabug, Saturday, 12 May 2007 19:05 (nineteen years ago)

(also, rossoflove found that Myspace before I did.)

― dabug, Saturday, 12 May 2007 19:05 (nineteen years ago)

Has anyone heard Bianca Ryan, of America's Got Talent fame? Here's her most notable performance off that show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYCCavxFqSU.

I have a feeling her album will feel very forced/generic, but I haven't listened.

― Tape Store, Sunday, 13 May 2007 06:00 (nineteen years ago)

(Interesting how many of these A&A fans don't think their lyrics are supposed to be "deep": Their target age group is teenagers and little kids, and their lyrics really don't have much of a deeper meaning than what they say. They can't be broken down much more from what they already are. Sure, they're not amazing lyricists, but they have good and developed positive songs that are catchy and kids are attracted to them. ...Actually, Aly and AJ are really good lyricists! But they have catchy netgative songs, or at least ambiguous, which was my whole point.)

― dabug, Sunday, 13 May 2007 16:37 (nineteen years ago)

re: Margaret Berger

Her voice is terrific, but I find the album largely dull and hookless apart from Robot Song, which manages to be delightfully silly and sincerely poignant.

― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, 13 May 2007 19:15 (nineteen years ago)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH. Speaking of reality show contestants, Season 5 Idol contestant Paris Bennett has a new album out...Her official website: http://www.msparisbennett.com/

This is probably really good...you can hear the whole thing on AOL Listening Party, but for some reason, it's not working for me.

― Tape Store, Monday, 14 May 2007 02:46 (nineteen years ago)

Sooo, did anybody else hear "Potential Break Up Song" on Pick it or Kick it?

Song was different than I expected. Was much more electro than any of their previous songs. No acoustic guitars, backed mostly by synths, etc. And a breakup song! Do A&A have any other break up songs? Was picked with a 89% approval rating: high, but not as high as it could be (below Jonas Bros. for example). I'm not sure what I think of the song itself, but I'm not very happy with it if it represents the style they are going with on their next album. I guess I can wait and see.

― Greg Fanoe, Monday, 14 May 2007 12:26 (nineteen years ago)

I dunno what Pick It or Kick It is (a US thang, I assume), but the song appears to have been upped to youtube already:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aly+aj+potential+break+up&search=Search

I won't be able to listen until tonight.

much more electro than any of their previous songs. No acoustic guitars, backed mostly by synths, etc
I'm sure A&A said at the beginning of the year that the next album would be 'a lot more rock'. But I for one will be happy if that isn't true.

― Jeff W, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:18 (nineteen years ago)

Uh-oh..."Yahoo! Answers - Is Aly and Aj's new song about fornication?"

Song's pretty great! Love the castanets + music box on the chorus. And they are officially funny without nudging me too hard about it: "Now all I want is just my stuff back/ Did you get that?/ Let me repeat that: I WANT MY STUFF BACK/ You can leave it in a box/ I don't care just drop it off."

― dabug, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:40 (nineteen years ago)

This isn't on their next album IIRC, it's a one-off for a Disney soundtrack. (Jeff, Pick It or Kick It is a weekly feature on Radio Disney where kids choose whether or not a new song should go into rotation. This one will probably show up on the Top 30 in a week or so, airplay to follow.)

― dabug, Monday, 14 May 2007 13:41 (nineteen years ago)

Upon further reflection/listening I DO like the song, I was just a bit thrown off by the sound of it.

― Greg Fanoe, Monday, 14 May 2007 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

PS - interesting that they're swiping from Ben Folds and the Spice Girls in the same song (whether they meant to or not).

― dabug, Monday, 14 May 2007 14:49 (nineteen years ago)

This isn't on their next album IIRC, it's a one-off for a Disney soundtrack.

Do you mean their upcoming MTV made for TV movie?

― Greg Fanoe, Monday, 14 May 2007 16:48 (nineteen years ago)

OK, call me utterly predictable, but "Potential..." is my single of the year so far. It sounds really European to me - there's a bit of ABBA in there, a bit of Madness... Wonderful.

― Jeff W, Monday, 14 May 2007 18:29 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe it is on their next album:

This is the potential breakup song
Our album needs just one
Oh baby, please -- please tell me

― dabug, Monday, 14 May 2007 19:22 (nineteen years ago)

Their previous soundtrack songs made it onto their album proper.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:11 (nineteen years ago)

And Aly & A.J.'s MySpace says that "Potential Break Up Song" is on Insomniatic. (They stream about a minute and a half of it.)

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

Jeff: I don't hear any ABBA in it (judging from the MySpace) but definitely some Madness, Squeeze (!), Stiff Records filtered through electropop. I liked it a lot until the "potential break-up song" bit when the extra percussion came in and everything suddenly got a bit overloaded and rickety: the "you're not winning" part is a strong enough hook in itself, for me.

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

Has anyone heard Bianca Ryan, of America's Got Talent fame?

Whoa, someone just showed me that clip the other day. Weird. I showed her an Amy Diamond performance and she wasn't as impressed. Even though Amy Diamond is America's most talented person. The person who showed me the clip was bummed that Bianca didn't seem to have a pop career forthcoming and seemed to be doing prestige benefit gigs etc.; problem is no one's in the market for another recorded version of "And I Am Telling You," unless it's on the Dream Girls soundtrack, which was a cheap shot anyway. (Singing "And I Am Telling You" is cheap, the talent show equivalent of "snowflake" babies. Does anyone remember the In Living Color skit with tips about how to win over the Apollo audience on amateur night, and singing "And I Am Telling You" was the punchline? Never heard the song the same way after that. Also never saw Dream Girls, but that's just because the video store doesn't believe us that they lost a movie we already returned.)

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:40 (nineteen years ago)

What I like about "Potential Break Up Song" (aside from getting "Spice Up Your Life" stuck in my head after I hear it) is that they can still deliver a line like "obviously my armor was cracked," one of those lines that sticks out like a sore thumb, the sort of overwrought, earnest anger/sadness they do in their other songs. So not only is this funny, but it has it both ways, which might have been (lyrically) what I wanted out of "Chemicals React" (I still probably underrate that one).

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:46 (nineteen years ago)

anyone heard the sophie ellis bextor album?

― groovemaaan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:48 (nineteen years ago)

"Potential Breakup Song"

They use vocoder! But they do it subtly, so that the vocoder just adds an extra glint to the vocals, as if you're hearing them from a couple different angles at once, the sound flashing from one angle to the other. And the vocals are reminding me of someone but I'm not sure who: there's an Alanis sharpness to their glints, as if their voice boxes were producing these brief sparkles of feedback, though fortunately they don't sound nearly as grating as Alanis. I'm also hearing a suggestion of the Andrews Sisters in the melody, something going back to swingpop. But again, not so blatant as to jab you in the ribs and say "1940s." Lucy Woodward (a singer who in 2003 was working with John Shanks, would do this, go a bit swing and put refraction into her voice, but by way of soul burrs rather than vocoder). And then when they sing "This is a potential breakup song" they're doing something else, also familiar and also something I can't put my finger on. Melissa Lefton? Not just in the self-consciousness but in the phrasing, a sharp-eyed precision, but with great joy in the way they're holding the guy and the situation at arm's length and giving him/it the eagle eye.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:21 (nineteen years ago)

the sort of overwrought, earnest anger/sadness they do in their other songs

The narrator doesn't really want him to go, necessarily. She still wants him, but different. But then she wants him to pick up his stuff. When she's not there.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

(Tom - possibly I was using "ABBA" as convenient shorthand for belted-out 70s europop in general)

Rather amusingly, I noticed last night that, in the latest "New Music" leaflet that HMV produces, Into The Rush is finally getting a UK release on 28 May. Keep up already, Brits!

Oh well, at least I've got an excuse now to include the LP in my year-end favourites list AGANE ;)

― Jeff W, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:28 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

Speaking of which, does anyone remember 2ge+her's "The Hardest Part of Breaking Up (Is Getting Back Your Stuff)"? That song actually made the Hot 100. 2ge+ther were a turn of the millennium MTV boyband parody that had several fairly good songs, my favorite being "U + Me = Us (Calculus)," which was deliberately vapid in its lyrics but quite winning in its melody.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:33 (nineteen years ago)

Frank, here's what I wrote about 2ge+her on my blog a couple months ago:

2gether - "The Hardest Part of Breaking Up"; 2gether - "U + Me = Us (Calculus)"

Review: 2-gether was the "fake" boy band produced by MTV. They starred in a TV movie that was all the rage when I was in high school. It was funny, or at least it seemed so at the time. In any event, they released two songs that were hits on MTV, in an example of blatant and shameless cross-promotion that far precedes the Disney Channel's exploitation of the same. Anyways, since they were in a movie that's a parody of boy bands, I guess that makes them a fake or parody boy band, but these both sound like pretty awesome boy band songs to me. The lyrics are just a bit sillier, but these would both fit pretty well in the Backstreet Boys catalogue, for example. Anyways, "U + Me = Us" is their ballad and "The Hardest Part of Breaking Up" is their uptempo tune, and both are good songs with funny lyrics! In any event, I can't think of another song about an ex-girlfriend stealing all of your stuff when she leaves, and it's a pretty good conceit that's handled in a funny way. They've got the boy band look and dance moves and looks down so pat, and they play it so straight faced that it begs the question of where the line between reality and parody is crossed. I guess they are a parody, but they had substantially the same audience as the actual boy bands, and it was pretty genius of MTV. Boybands dominated MTV to an almost nauseating degree at this time, and they capitalized on it. They made their own boy band, but they couched it in "parodying" or "making fun of" boybands, like they were too good for that whole boy band thing. That's a gesture I find inherently distateful, but when it works it works. [8] and [7] respectively

― Greg Fanoe, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:45 (nineteen years ago)

Is Miranda Lambert relevant to this thread? Well, her new album is great. Rocks harder than just about any country I've heard in a while, and has really great tunes and lyrics too! I'll be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't end up my album of the year. But the first two singles are only like the 7th and 8th best songs on the album though.

Similar situation with Avril too. I didn't think I'd be too into the album after hearing "Keep Holding On" and "Girlfriend" but neither of those are in my top 5 tracks on the album, and "Keep Holding On" is prolly my least fave of them all. Hilary Duff too! Bad year for teenpop singles, I think, because the teenpop artists are not releasing their best songs as singles. And Jordan Pruitt's next single is gonna be "Teenager" or "Miss Popularity"??? Come on!

― Greg Fanoe, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:50 (nineteen years ago)

Jeff W is utterly predictable.

― Greg Fanoe, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

Bianca Ryan: Got an impressive speedball but the batters know just where she's going to throw it, so she needs to move the ball around more and maybe add a changeup.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:53 (nineteen years ago)

2ge+her's "The Hardest Part of Breaking Up (Is Getting Back Your Stuff)"?

Whoa (again), this very song just came on Pandora the other day and I remembered how GREAT it was. They were really good!

The problem with finding em on Pandora is that they are actually 2ge+her, but Pandora lists them as "Together," so I think I either had to go song by song (or maybe they added them to their playlist late in the game).

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:59 (nineteen years ago)

(And yes, 2ge+her is closer...when I said "Ben Folds" I was actually thinking of a ballad I wrote called "Give Me My Stuff Back," which all my friends compared to a dumb song by Ben Folds.)

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:01 (nineteen years ago)

I think "Miss Popularity" and "Teenager" would be pretty good singles choices, esp. the former (the lyrics are old hat but the tune and singing are ace). And "Stranger" may be my favorite on the Hilary alb (though I'm not in love with either it or the album). And I don't agree that the two Miranda singles are 7th and 8th best. They're 6th and 7th best. Or 6th and 8th.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

So, inspired by that other thread discussing this thread, I decided to check out Aly & A.J. on youtube (my 13-year-old son does not listen to them and I had not so far). I watched the videos for their covers of "Walking on Sunshine" and "Do You Believe in Magic." Not bad, but they just seemed merely competent. I gather from some of the posts on the other thread and what I've read here, that I must not have picked out the finest examples of their work.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

Correct.

― Frank Kogan, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:16 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

curmudgeon - You picked their two covers, which are not representative of their overall best work. I'd recommend "Rush" or "Not This Year" or "Speak for Myself" or "Chemicals React", etc., etc.

Frank - "Miss Popularity" and "Teenager" are ace, but in my opinion there are about 5 acer songs among the non-singles. ("Later", "Waiting for You", "No Ordinary Girl", "When I Pretend"...rats! that's only 4 that are better than "Miss Popularity"! Though "My Reality" is also better than "Teenager")

― Greg Fanoe, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:17 (nineteen years ago)

Ha, you totally picked the wrong singles!!!

Try "Rush," "I Am One of Them" (about child kidnapping, a total 180 from Walking on Sunshine!), and "Not This Year" on YouTube. Also check out their (great) new single "Potential Breakup Song," which is also quite different. "Shine" is pretty good, too.

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:18 (nineteen years ago)

curmudgeon - What is "that other thread"?

― Greg Fanoe, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:18 (nineteen years ago)

(That ha isn't directed at you btw, I'm glad that thread actually led to something productive. It's just that when Aly and AJ first came out, those were the only two singles that got major airplay on Radio Disney, so discovering their other stuff was a very strange experience for me! That is to say, your reaction takes me back to 2005, when I had that exact reaction to them!)

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:19 (nineteen years ago)

What is "that other thread"?

You have been warned.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:21 (nineteen years ago)

OK, now we've mentioned the "thread that must not be mentioned" here (joke), I hope Abby Poptext won't mind me copying and pasting something she said there that might otherwise get lost:

...Aly & AJ’s new ‘potential break-up song’ is vocoder-heavy and relatively guitar-free (plus is has a bridge straight from ‘Spice Up Your Life’). With Hilary long since having abandoned her pop-rock style, Ashlee lined up to more in more a synth direction (plus emo if Pete has anything to do with it) and Lindsay out of the game, is the 2005-2006 heyday of Max Martin’s chord refrain over? What does Avril's brat-pop sound 'mean' in terms of the teenpop trend - both in terms of commercial success, the core audience that I would have expected to have graduated from her sound by now, radio airplay or lack thereof. Does it 'mean' anything?

Questions worth further teasing out here, I think.

As to Avril, my own view is that she just wanted to make an album that sounded like Sum 41. The fact that it has been as successful as it has (or at least that "Girlfriend" has been so successful, haven't seen any LP sales figures) is no doubt exercising minds in music industry boardrooms even as I type.

― Jeff W, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:25 (nineteen years ago)

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