Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

"A song by a new band called the Gossip." This piece in the New York Times Magazine about Rick Rubin represents everything I hate about journalism. Has maybe three paragraphs about the supposed subject of the article (what Rubin hopes to do to save the record company, which is to promote subscription services and to get people to manipulate word of mouth by blogs among other things); the rest is just reams of rot, as she swabs the guy in sugar and cream.

(Actually, this type of puffball writing represents only half of what I hate about journalism. The contrasting style is just as bad: sneering snarky saracasm; ignorant toughies casting a cynical gaze and playing to the reader's prejudices while pretending to moral courage.)

Frank, I think what I bought into with Jordin was her innocence and her youth. Now, even after that particular revelation - she's still young and she's still just as (or not as) innocent. But it felt much more tainted by industry and inside-dealing than before the revelation. I guess the narrative of the aw-shucks big-voiced girl does more for me than the big contest winner who went in with the deck stacked. Of course, she's still aw-shucks, but it seems disingenuous now.

TapeStore, none of the New Pornographers tracks? I'd think Challengers would be up your alley.

Wonderful new DaHV track called "Suburbia Disturbia." Just as goofy, but DaHv is growing fangs (I think she's like fifteen now).

Suburbia disturbia
Suburbia disturbia

There once was a teen from suburbia who had a little case of disturbia
She pulled her shirt up for all of the boys in her classroom

There once was a man from suburbia who had a little case of disturbia
He came home drunk and drove his car into my bedroom

CHORUS:
These are the people in your neighborhood, most of them have kids
They babysit, they carpool and do pilates (5,6,7,8)
These are the people in your neighborhood, shopping at the GAP
They drive around in SUVs and are always full of crap

Starbucks is the place where divorcees and soccer moms stand on common ground
(Finally!)
There are mini-mansions in suburbia
But the mortgages are disturbia
Yet they always find a way to have a party

CHORUS

There once was a mom in suburbia, who had a little case of disturbia
She ran off with the pool guy and now lives in Brazil (real nice)

The Veronicas would like to be t.A.T.u. - y/n?

No: Endearing accent only occasional. Actual sisters. Not pretending to be in love with each other. Interested in men; this does not cause a great crisis in their relationship (a la "Loves Me Not").

Yes: Hair color now differs. There are two of them. Touchy-feely videos. Wrote a t.A.T.u. song.

I think "no" wins out.

I think the new Britney would be like the 8th best song on Dignity. I'm disappointed.

best of pop 2007 (so far):

1. R. Kelly feat. T.I. and T-Pain- I'm A Flirt
2. Rihanna feat. Jay-Z- Umbrella
3. Jordan Pruitt- Over It
4. Ashley Tisdale- Be Good To Me
5. Natasha Bedingfield- I Wanna Have Your Babies
6. Aly & A.J.- Potential Breakup Song
7. Amerie- Take Control
8. Ashley Tisdale- So Much For You
9. Ashley Tisdale- Goin' Crazy
10. Avril Lavigne- Girlfriend
11. Hilary Duff- Outside of You
12. Audio Club- Sumthin' Serious
13. Robin Thicke- Lost Without U
14. Musiq Soulchild- Buddy
15. Timbaland feat. Nelly Furtado and JT- Give It To Me
16. Ashley Tisdale- Over It
17. Sophie Ellis-Bextor- Catch You
18. Justin Timberlake- What Goes Around (a 2007 single, I believe)
19. Ashley Tisdale- Headstrong
20. Katherine McPhee- Over It
21. Fergie feat. Ludacris- Glamorous
22. Rihanna- Shut Up and Drive
23. Jordan Pruitt- Jump To The Rhythm
24. Enrique Iglesias- Do You Know
25. Gym Class Heroes- Clothes Off!

Dave: They dress in same girlschool clothes as t.A.T.u. And the touchy-feely stuff seems... I don't know... edgy? (Unlike, say, Aly & A.J.'s.)

ok if you're talking about "gimme more" this is wrong.

the production alone on "gimme more" runs circles around basically anything on dignity.

xpost
"Gimme More" gets stronger with every listen, brilliant, a work of art, though maybe I want something warmer and better than a work of art. The This Is A Sexy Dance Track attitude is irritating me under my skin; I can't say why I'm irritated, though, given that I've heard several million This Is A Sexy Dance Track tracks in my life and I have nothing in principle against sexy dance tracks or even sexy Britney Spears dance tracks. Also "irritating me under my skin" may not always be an aesthetic drawback. In fact, may have to do with the sexiness being in your face rather than seductive, and given that basically I wanted her to come back as a punk, this is may be her way. Lyrics (which the unreliable Wikipedia says she did not write) are exhibitionist and I hear an anger in it, "You want more, I'll give you more," but then I've been priming myself to hear anger from Britney so maybe I'm just hearing this the way I want to.

Mediabase reports "Gimme More" getting 766 Top 40 spins in about 4 days, which isn't spectacular but she's getting many of 'em in major markets like NY and L.A. Will probably be somewhere in the 30s in airplay after the first seven days.

Look, someone has linked to a radio rip of the new Skye Sweetnam single.

Uh, did she just say "you're gonna get raped by what's surrounding you"???

Uh, this is pretty good! It's kind of missing a bit of the snarl and charm of the best Skye stuff. Perhaps my hand-wringing about an end-o'-the-decade teenpop lull (goin' up on Stylus on Friday) are premature tho.

"Brainwashed by what's surrounding you," possibly.

If this is missing snarl and charm, I may have to cave and finally listen to the rest of Skye's stuff.

The verse of "Human" isn't altogether un-Britney, is it?

Questions About 2007 Emo Songs:

1. If I hate Cute Is What We Aim For as much as I claim - why do I keep listening to "Curse of Curves"?

2. If I didn't like "Swing, Swing" the first time around, why do I like it when Boys Like Girls rewrites the lyrics and sings the song as "The Great Escape"?

3. If "Hey There, Delilah," came out 3 years ago, how come it's only become very popular this year? Can I count it on my list of favorite songs of the year?

1. Because they aimed for cuteness and got a train wreck? (Which might make it extra-irritating/interesting, because usually trainwrecks are the result of loftier aims. It'd be like watching Icarus indulge in a bunch of shitty wordplay and then just trip and drown because he sorta <i>looked</i> at the sun and couldn't see where he was going, because he's a MASSIVE UGLY TOOL...i.e. doesn't even earn its trainwreck.)

2. What, What? Who Like Who? The What What?

3. Yes.

1. Have you seen the video? It makes the song even more hatable.

2. What Dave said.

3. Yes.

If you're interested, I wrote about "Gimme More" in my column for the Las Vegas Weekly (and wrote also wrote about Britney a couple of months ago.

And I did columns about Ashlee here and here.

Tomorrow's the last installment of the Bluffer's Guide to post-2000 teenpop over at Stylus. All the mixes are up for a limited time at my blog as well if you wanted to hear some or all of the music.

Hey, I like my first Vanessa Hudgens song a little. Sort of. Maybe. I dunno. Let's Dance (not a cover).

<I>But, for the most part, teenpop only believes in the promise ring, believes in eternity, believes in heaven.</I>

I really liked that line!

"Don't Talk" is magic, Dave.

I'm eagerly watching this thread for its speculation on the Vanessa Hudgens' porn (well, naked photo) leak.

Well, now that it's been brought up, the naked photo leak is bad. Very bad. Is it "Drop her from High School Musical" bad? I dunno, 'specially since if they drop her there's a pretty good chance Zac Efron will drop out as well. And if there's no Vanessa and no Zac, that's HSM in name only. FWIW, I listened to Radio Diz for the first time in months this morning, and they played "Say OK" (which I still love).

I haven't seen the photos (photo?) and have no idea if they are real or whatnot, but apparently her reps aren't denying it.

I'm eagerly watching this thread for its speculation on the Vanessa Hudgens' porn (well, naked photo) leak.

What actually happened?

I've been waiting for the Disney stars to get sucked into the 'bloid circuit (while still popular with Disney audiences), but I wouldn't have guessed this would be the way. More likely partying/drugs on the part of some of the older stars. (I think they're all signed on for at least two more HSM's at this point, but (1) I can't imagine them getting through it without someone doing something bloidworthy and (2) I doubt HSM will still be a phenomenon by its 3rd and 4th time out, success of the sequel notwithstanding.)

Looking up "Don't Talk." Nia, for some Skye snarl, try "It Sucks" (my gf's favorite) and "Shot to Pieces." For charm try "Sharada" and maybe her "Heart of Glass" cover (or her "Wild World" cover).

(HOLY CRAP "Don't Talk" is awesome. Deserves a better singer/more distinctive personality, though. Well, I dunno. She's kind of like what a lot of people wrongly but kind of understandably claim Cassie is, which is just totally <i>nothing</i> vocally. Maybe it works for the song -- also a bonus track, I'm seeing a trend here.)

PS, I think Idolator has scooped the teenpop thread like thirty times in the last couple months. Pic is apparently real.

Yeah, rolling teenpop ain't the beacon of timeliness it once was (or beacon of much of anything else, as ilX goes from first stop to last stop to no stop on many people's Web journeys). Actually, was it ever a beacon of timeliness? Was basically me trying to catch up with 2004.

My interest is more that Idolator is skewing more teenpop than the teenpop thread these days!

And crap, I'm gonna probably buy the Baby V album for that bonus track. Or, uh, buy the bonus track. Or see if someone left it by the side of the road somewhere (ding ding ding ding).

Over the last seven days - basically its first week - Mediabase reported Britney's "Gimmme More" getting 1,575 spins on Top 40, including lots of play in major markets like New York, Dallas, and DC, putting her in 31st place; also 316 spins on rhythmic stations, massive play in Norfolk, also good results in my spiritual home of Las Vegas (I call it "spiritual" because I've never been there, except in spirit), 60th place; and 79 spins on adult contemporary, 185th place. Strong though not spectacular results; lots of play on the two satellite stations, which won't give her many listeners but will often foreshadow heavy action when the track becomes available for legal download. These numbers aren't spectacular (compare to Timbo's 15,461 in Top 40, rhythmic, and urban combined), but "Gimme More" had by far the strongest takeoff and strongest jump of the week on Top 40. We'll see if it builds.

I endorse the comments above about Vanessa Hudgens' "Don't Talk" (which has been around for a long while without my knowing about it, right?). Really fetching the way her blankly sweet voice does the melodic rise when she sings "oh boy"; the song is a nice bit of lite freestyle. I didn't think there could be lite freestyle - it being such a drenched and dramatic genre - until last year's great "About Us" from Brooke Hogan, which was Cynthia lite as opposed to "Don't Talk"'s Cover Girls lite.

Let me know when it falls off a truck.

(Oh yeah, as for her recent public exposure, I never remotely had a sense of Vanessa's personality, except that she very much doesn't want it to be Gabriella's. Waiting for her to attack an SUV with an umbrella before I start caring. But let's speculate that the photo leak is deliberate. Maybe she looked at her nonexistent crossover numbers and decided that she and Disney had no long-term future. (Not that I think she's behind the leak.))

Here's an OK YouTube stream of "Don't Talk."

Given the fact that she and her reps didn't even try to deny it, when they could have claimed it was a photoshop or whatever, I am a bit curious as to whether it was an intentional leak or not.

In the epic battle between Bruce Springsteen and Journey, Aly & AJ have chosen Journey.

What is this about?

(An interviewer asked them "Bruce Springsteen or Journey?" as a warm-up question and they both answered "Journey" without hesitation. I meant to link to the interview, wooooops.)

Bruce is to Journey as

Dylan is to... ?

Huh, apparently Emily Osment (Haley Joel's sister, Hannah's best friend in "Hannah Montana") has some sort of music video packaged with a one-off Disney movie she's doing.

OMG she's the attempted reincarnation of Leslie Carter!!! I Don't Think About It.

(Attempted. It's pretty lame.)

Bruce is to Journey as

Dylan is to... ?

Guns N' Roses, maybe.

Lifeless? (That may be understating the problem, but I've only seen this once and may not have time today to return for the discussion.)

Bruce is to Journey as

Dylan is to... ?

The Young Rascals? The Grass Roots?

Uh...Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" is now playing on Radio Disney. (Not clear whether or not it's a "Radio Disney edit"...doesn't say it is!) I can't hear it because I don't have Internet Explorer.

Had the Corbin Bleu album playing in the background while I did the dishes, and background is where it stayed, pretty much. "Push It To The Limit" is *NSync Lite and is always nice to hear when it shows up on Radio Disney. A couple other tracks seemed almost as good ("Deal With It" and "Mixed Up," the latter of which Corbin co-wrote), but most were a lot of blah. The basic style goes back to the Jackson 5 and New Edition - the vocal tradition of the black gospel and secular quartets, worked into somewhat funky settings. Can be good when the material is good, obviously, which not enough of this is. Disappointed me, even though I had fairly low expectations. "Push It To The Limit" is a Gerrard and Nevil song and is good enough that I can't totally dismiss those guys, even though I blame them more than anyone else for turning Disney pop to dullness.

I had a chance to download HSM 2 but forgot to. What am I missing?

turning Disney pop to dullness

I agree, though some of their best stuff is pretty good -- a few Hannah Montana songs and "Your New Girlfriend" by Hayden Planeteer. (I think we already had this convo, but have they written anything of any significance that wasn't for Disney?

Gerrard co-wrote JoJo's "The High Road" with the generally good J.R. Rotem; which is below average for that album, but rather good; co-wrote Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway" with Avril Lavigne (again, below average for that album but good, though contains line about spreading one's wings and flying, which I usually take as an invitation to get out my skeet shooter).

Is it just me, or is J.R. Rotem the Trackmasters of the oughties?

My interview with Brie Larson is up now at Stylus.