Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

When I was in like 9th grade-ish, the two songs that were absolutely massive in my school, apart from the obv. Savage Garden, Spice Girls, etc. were "Barbie Girl" (by Aqua) and "Tubthumping" (by Chumbawamba). In the bus on the way to school, my friends and I would memorize the words to "Tubthumping" and sing it on the way there. I'm sure the driver was thrilled. Both still sound great to me today. Never heard another Chumbawamba song, though I'm kinda curious if they are any good. Aqua, I know, released a great followup single called "Lollipop (Candyman)", which I've seen Frank talk up and which my friends and I also loved. Anybody heard any other Chumbawama or Aqua know if they are any good?

Admittedly, I dunno if this is teenpop, but Frank on one of the Pazz & Jop Poptimist polls posted a link to Jimmy Ray's "Are You Jimmy Ray?", which I literally cannot stop listening to. Just wanted to post it here in case any of you missed it there and don't know it. The song almost defies description, but is great.

Xhuxk, you have to understand that the British charts now are terrible, so Amy comes on like a fresh breath of deliberately stale air. So far I find her singing way too mannered - and not mannered as "classy," but mannered as in she's trying to slur like Dorothy Parker. (Which may be exactly how she talks, but it still comes across as mannered.) But her Sade groove is, at least, a groove, in contrast with so many clompy British rock bands keeping it real by keeping it clompy. (Maybe one reason the Arctic Monkeys did so well is that they came on as good ole clompin' blokes but actually propelled the rhythm.)

You say this as though it were a bad thing! This line alone sold me the album. I'm grabbing a copy to listen to the first chance I get. Frank, I'm actually curious where you've heard Parker read -- I found a bunch of mp3s of her, but I'm always in the hunt for more. I love her voice. It sounds drenched in scotch and Lucky Strikes.

I liked the first Aqua album a lot- my little brother had a copy on tape and it used to get quite a lot of play in my mum's car on the way to/from school. There's a great song on there about a sort of fairytale princess who's generally making a mess of things.

I'm going to look up Toy Box now.

My hangover made me deeply confused as to what was going on with that Hilary Duff advert. Doesn't quite sound like there's a 'Come And Get It' in the air, to me but it does all sound rather promising, certainly.

Chumbawumba were horrible greasy agit-punks, e.g. they did an album called 'Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records', who occasionally did some rather sweet pop things -- I'm still fond of a song called 'Someone's Always Telling You How to Behave' which sounds a bit like Dubstar, or a more electronic Frazier Chorus.

i fucking hated chumbawamba. dreadful.

i have been recording the new record.

THERE! it was said. laugh you fools! curse you and your fists that shake and slam down on the table to disrupt my can of iced tea that sits on the table. i shant cower I say! i will rue the day! i might be your criminal. but at least im the one who calls you to remind you of the fact that everyone is jealous of you. if those calls mean nothing, dare i say, i will gladly withdraw and bend my head down as i count to three for the machete to come swopping over his head and slice into mine.

im scared of my brain.

I have yet to give Ms. Winehouse my full attention, knowing only two of her songs*. So far I like reading Moggy's description of her voice more than actually listening to the voice.

*Not counting her duet with Charlotte Church on "Beat It," which is a massive train wreck.

(Any Brits here want to make the case for "to"?)

Co-written with DioGuardi and whom else? So far Kara's always had someone helping with the music. (Maybe Hilary's helping with the music!) Thing is, Kara, appealing and ubiquitous as she is, has had almost all of her great moments with John Shanks on board. Great exceptions that jump to mind would be Kylie's "Spinning Around" (written with Paula Abdul and a couple more people), Kelly Clarkson's "Hear Me" (with Clif Magness, who seemed the key player on that one), Paris Hilton's "Jealousy" (w/ Scott Storch!), and Paris Hilton's "Not Leaving Without You" (w/ Greg Wells). In general, her work with Wells, while producing some good stuff (Lindsay's "Confessions of a Broken Heart" and "Who Loves You," for instance) isn't as good as the songs with Shanks (Lindsay's "First" and "Nobody 'Til You"). And of course, Kara's supreme moments with Hilary - "Come Clean" and "Fly," two of teenpop's supreme moments - are with Shanks producing and co-writing. Her own band, Platinum Weird*, has four songs with Shanks in on the writing credits, and those are four of the six tracks that are OK or better.

Don't know if "dance" is her strength (isn't Shanks's strength, either); I don't really think Kara's done a lot in that direction, other than her four with Paris (the other two are "Screwed" (w/ Wells) and "I Want You" (w/ Rotem, Gibb, and Bogart)). Mike Spencer was the producer on "Spinning Around." If you want to count Gwen Stefani's "Rich Girl" as dance - and why shouldn't you? - she's one of the cast of thousands in the writing credits, but I don't think she had a lot to do with the overall sound on that one. Her writing for Celine Dion has been OK but not amazing. (Um, there's been some good stuff with Anastasia too; don't remember how dancey it is.)

*On the regular Platinum Weird album, that is, not on the pseudo-throwback album w/ "Erin Grace," which I haven't heard.

Hilary has been co-writing every song with Kara Dioguardi ( Gwen Stefani, Pussycat Dolls , Kelly Clarkson...) so each song is very personal to her. She has been working with some excitng producers and mixers such as Richard "Humpty" Vission (The Killers, Sting, Usher), Tim and Bob (Madonna, Destiny's Child, Will Smith) and 4 time Grammy winner, Manny Marroquin (John Mayer, Alicia Keys, kanye West.

No idea where the production input is coming from yet ("Play with Fire" is Vission, I think?). But my impression so far is that the writing credits are all Duff/DioGuardi...has a nice ring to it, too. DuffGuardi...

"With Love" goes for official ads to mainstream radio February 6th 2007. With Love was recently released to Radio Disney on the week of January 15 sometime.

According to Wiki, the forthcoming album is called Confessions of Love. And the RD bit is accurate, "With Love" was surreptitiously slipped into voting eligibility some time in the last week or two. ("Play with Fire" was never made eligible through voting or otherwise.)

So maybe the post-Paris DioGuardi gets dance? And Hilary Duff has an edge of being ultra-adaptable -- she's got a kind of charming anonymity that I think might fit this kind of music nicely (and I like what I've heard so far). The fact that her voice fits songs like "Fly" and "Come Clean" so well actually seems a little counter-intuitive to me, and maybe effective in part because you're not expecting to be moved by a performer who's most striking trait is, arguably, being such an excellent chameleon.

They've got a very strong Chicago punk sound (The Academy Is..., Plain White T's) which makes their TRL status (or whatever status now that TRL is gone) more a coincidence. Or a broad appeal. Except that there is something very teenpop about their sound - the rushed delivery of super-articulate lyrics, the pop hooks. They remind of a highschooler I know who is quite intelligent, and very precocious, but comes off as a little precious because of it. There's something similar with Fallout Boy. Plus, they've got the word 'Boy' in their name. ;) Anyway, obviously this isn't traditional teenpop, though are they that far off from Meg&Dia, Avril (new album coming out!), or Duff?

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0037,eddy,18135,22.html

(I'd reviewed Tubthumping in the Voice a couple years earlier, but I can't find it in the web archives.)

They stand out from a lot of the rest of emo by actually being quite funny (MCR, for instance, take themselves more seriously than it's possible to believe) and also being a lot more normal-looking than most bands (MCR again) and, well, they got Babyface to produce their most recent album on the basis Pete Wentz (bassist/lyricist) liked the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack. The new album is very ace, on that note- it's extremely pop with lots of clapping and sing-a-long moments etc. and as one of my friends pointed out, the single sounds like *NSync.

I mean, to me, the difference between them and Aly and AJ is that Fall Out Boy sound slightly more pop (Aly and AJ have some metallic moments, imo) and neither A nor A has ever got her cock out on the internet.

But I thought "Another Dumb Blonde" is THEE Cher cyborg effect Hoku song? Idolator even said so.

It's a teasing slice of kiss-off pop, and its smart-chick spirit isn't even marred by the vocoder drops that plagued so much of Billboard's Hot 100 during the post-"Believe" era.

Thing with that M2M line, "may not have the blonde hair you like," is that at the time Marit was the (smart) blonde! So the question is whether or not Marion sings that line. Actually, I think they BOTH sing it. (Although their wording kind of ruins my argument, because Marit could very well have blond hair without having the blond hair "that you like.")

And of course by the time Ashlee comes along, she needs to HIDE her (naturally) blond hair for fear of being tagged "light n' frivolous" (Stephen Thomas Erlewine called I Am Me "going goth by going blonde," except he follows that up with a totally dumb (not blonde) line like "no matter how hard Simpson tries, no matter how foreboding the surface, beneath it all she's still light and frivolous.") I can't figure out whether or not Marit is naturally light- or dark-haired, but if it's the former that's another example of blonde self-hatred.

Anyway, the song can be streamed here, apparently (though I'm not positive that E-40 is on this version, since I haven't listened):

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=43383393

Ashlee Wants Robert Smith from the Cure

When she returns to recording pop, Ashlee says she want the Cure's Robert Smith to help with her comeback. After he came to her last performance as Roxie Hart in 'Chicago', she says,"Robert Smith from the Cure came to my last show in London, and I don't know if I was more excited about him or that it was the last show! "To work with Robert Smith would be an honour."

Seems to me that it'd be Ashlee who could give him sophistication in his lyrics (though honestly I don't know many Cure lyrics, but what in the world is unsophisticated about Ashlee's "Say Goodbye," for instance)?

http://www.myspace.com/katenashmusic

Being hyped as the next Lily Allen. Teen enough for this thread, if perhaps not pop enough. Interesting though.

Her song "Shake Your Pants" ("All my girls grab a boy and take him by the hand/ drag him to the dancefloor and make him shake his pants!") was written by none other than Drew Seeley. Shades of P!nk-to-be (or Fergie-to-be?) in "Girlfriend"...which made me finally check out Stacy Fergie Ferguson on Kids Inc.. Hadn't seen it since the show was actually on the air.

There's also some strange feature on her page where a buncha fans call in, say hello, and occasionally submit demos by phone.

"Oh i miss the kiss of treachery the aching kiss
Before i feed the stench of a love for a younger
Meat and the sound that it makes when it cuts
In deep the holding up on bended knees the
Addiction of duplicities as bit by bit it starts
The need to just let go my party piece"

Obviously that won't do it for everyone. But hard verbs and nouns - solid words - do it for me far more than vaguer lyrics where your pointing at something, but lack the words for it. "Maybe you don't
Love me / Like I love you baby / Cause the broken in you doesn't make me run / There is beauty / In the dark side." Even as I write this, I'm not sure there's anything objectively better about the Cure song than the Ashlee song. Obviously a Springsteen song where everything is so specific - that's the height for me. And I feel like the Cure is somewhere in between. Like; let's get some synonyms for love, or at least an explanation of what makes this love more special than any other love.

(I don't think this is aimed at people like Jeff, who isn't comparing Kate to Lily but just mentioning that others are doing so.)

The Ashlee line ("Maybe you don't love me/Like I love you, baby/'Cause the broken in you doesn't make me run") tells as complex a story as any stand-alone line I've ever come across, from anyone, song lyric, novel, play, poem, aphorism. Shakespeare, Austen, Berry. And generous and sad, the story. You don't need the rest of the song, even. You get everything: the situation, her attitude towards it, her feelings. On last year's thread Tim illuminated those lyrics better than I could possibly do, so I'll just paste in what he wrote.

"Maybe/you don't/love me/like I/love you/baby/'cos the broken in you doesn't make me run"

Something about that line is so ace, maybe it's that it drags out the simple first part so much, then all the meaning is actually so tightly compressed in the second half.

Then he elaborated a couple of weeks later:

Thinking of that line in "Say Goodbye", I think one of the things that makes it work so well is that, yeah, at first glance it sounds pretty straightforward, but actually it's almost encoded. A straightforward line would be something like: "You can't handle me 'cos I'm complicated" or "You only like me when I make you look good." But instead she says:

"Maybe you don't love me like I love you, baby, cos the broken in you doesn't make me run. There is beauty in the darkness. I'm not frightened - without it I could never feel the sun."

It's a lot less judgmental and, I guess, more reflective, this way: like she's just coming to understand the difference in the way that she and her (soon to be?) ex approach questions of love and relationships. And she's not sure which is right or wrong (if right and wrong there is) but she's not sorry for being the way she is. And then on another level she's telling him that it's okay to be damaged.

And then, in response to something Don said:

I think Ashlee is saying "we're both broken (damaged, not heartbroken), but you want someone unbroken (maybe because you can't handle your own brokenness). Whereas because I know that I'm broken I'm willing to accept that dealing with your brokenness is the only way I could make this arrangement work. You disagree, so this relationship isn't gonna work."

Wrapped up in this is the belief that the notion of a "fairweather friend" being a bad thing holds doubly true for relationships: that it's only by understanding someone in all their complexity and difficulty (rather than some seemingly unblemished pedestal perfection) that you can make love really meaningful.

I think Tim's on the money, and that Ashlee* does all this in 19 clear words, not quite conversational ("the broken in you doesn't make me run" would be a little odd in casual speech), but straightforward, not dressed in poetry.

I am a bit puzzled how such a simply worded line pulled off so much. I ruminated a bit about this last year (linked here, if you want to ruminate with me).

(*or Ashlee-Kara, or Ashlee-Kara-John)

When the rain comes tumbling, tumbling down, will you be around?

Nicely sounded "tumblings," but the idea is clichéd.

Then you'll see my greatest gift
Is fallin' down and takin' it
'Cause everything is better when it hurts
My biggest thirst
Is happiness in all kinds of weather
For worse or for better
I have it anyway
But happiness can't last forever
You know there's never pleasure without the pain
Here it comes again

Now this doesn't pull together into any stories, and I'm not feeling its pleasure or pain. Given that Kara's a veteran songsmith, and Ashlee a youngster, one would have expected that Ashlee provided raw ideas, and Kara provided the craft and wisdom that turned them into art. But maybe Ashlee provided a whole hunk of the craft and wisdom as well, with Kara providing some of the ideas, or drawing them forth from Ashlee.

Really, there are some bad lines - way worse than these - on the Platinum Weird album.

Think it's better because in "Come Clean" Kara isn't using "rain" as a simple stand-in for "adversity," which is such a dead metaphor. Instead, rain buffets and cleanses. But actually, my listening to "Come Clean" is now enriched by knowing those Platinum Weird songs, since "adversity" adds something as subtext. E.g.,

Let the rain fall down and wake my dreams
Let it wash away my sanity
'Cause I wanna feel the thunder, I wanna scream
Let the rain fall down, I'm coming clean.

Imagine that the real first line is accompanied by a silent, alternate one:

Let the PAIN come down and wake my dreams

- which might even be what Kara had in mind.

(By the way, I think of Kara as the prime lyricist here, while she and John Shanks combine on the music; but I have no idea if that's true; in Lucy Woodward's account of working with Shanks and with Shelly Pelkin [Dave linked this on last year's thread], everyone seems to be throwing in ideas about everything.)

In general, it wouldn't be a bad idea for most songwriters to stop using weather imagery.