Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

(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.

Jessica P and the American public scooped me on Lucy Walsh, "So Uncool." Not great, but a few weird things happening in it, esp. at the end with an arbitrary spelling out of "UNCOOL" followed by "I've got him mad, mad as hell." "Always Something There to Remind Me" sample in "Crash." Huh. Meh.

Keke Palmer's new album (also So Uncool, but no title track)...actually sounds like it might be pretty good! Only heard the first track. Lite R&B unafraid of lots of music box & cheeze. Did "Keep It Workin'" end up anywhere on the charts? Because if not it's an unwisely timed summer jam.

OMG she has a song about a VIDEO GAME STEALING HER BOYFRIEND!

Chorus: "Put down that joystick / Messed around and took my boyfriend / Them games make me so sick / Because I can't compete / It's either me or that TV / That's why I...I hate Madden / that's why I...I hate Madden."

"How you gonna worry 'bout first and ten? / All I'm sayin' is you really shoulda put this 10 first" ...

Good song about growing up in the hood, Music Box, nice layered harmonies come in about halfway through.

Will probably post more about this.

"How you gonna worry 'bout first and ten? / All I'm sayin' is you really shoulda put this 10 first" ...

That's a hilarious line if I've ever seen one.

Bottoms Up pretty good, too, big blocky synths, references Kelis, Shakira, hyphy, probably a few other things I'm missing. ("Bottoms up" = literal.)

And I think that the chorus of the Lucy Walsh song above is kinda sorta modeled after "Sweet Child O' Mine." Something about it sticks out anyway.

Lucy Walsh seems to have a hard Avril glint in her voice, even though her song and look are the opposite of hard. I like the idea of a cute song about being uncute (which is what the uncoolness does to her) and the idea of sounding sweet as she describes her descent into neediness and anger, the hard glint mitigating the cuteness and the cuteness making a celebration out of her travails; except ultimately she doesn't mitigate the cuteness. The chorus is too much candy and the candy gets boring.

The '90s were something of a lost decade for me, and I had to go to Wikipedia to find the Trackmasters song list. One of 'em, "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It," made my P&J, but looking at the list I'm not sure if I'm seeing a musical pattern. Or is that your point about Rotem? Versatility? Poppish r&b [or vice versa] in a number of different modes?

Aly & A.J. interview reveals that they weren't necessarily preferring Journey to Springsteen the human being (or even musician) but were preferring Journey T-shirts. Of course, superiority of T-shirt might well be a synecdoche for a general superiority, the shirt encompassing the song. Only album info other than blather ("we've been able to take risks which is really important when you're making new music cause you want to be able to reinvent a little bit without totally you know straying from your other records") was that they wrote "Potential Breakup Song" from a beat, not from a guitar or piano.

J.R. Rotem describing stars he's worked with:

Britney Spears: Amazing. She is such a veteran, and has one of the most unique personalities on the mic. Also, very humble, and open to direction.

Christina Milian: So much fun. Really goofy and funny. She is very down to earth.

Jennifer Lopez: An elegant yet real person. She is also funny, confident, and classy. A real star!

LeToya Luckett: Very soulful, real, sexy down south vibe. Great singer.

Lil Kim: One of the dopest female MCs of all time. Loved working with her.

Mya: Good musical connection together.

Rihanna: Very unique voice and style. Huge star, very cute.

(Has also worked with Lucy Walsh and Keke Palmer.)

Jennifer Lopez: An elegant yet real person.

No one's allowed to write anything about Jennifer Lopez ever again.

Lucy Walsh was Ashlee Simpson's keyboardist. I expected something different/better. Can't put my finger on what's wrong with her yet--somehow the voice and lyrics and instruments all feel like they're coming from different songs.

Keke Palmer album free streaming (not sure how long) here.

It's kind of growing on me, probably a 50-60% success ratio, but some really really interesting stuff happening in almost all of the songs. I'm interested in how Vanessa Hudgens' album works to convey a sorta middle schoolish romantic mindset that (at 20something) seems relatable but totally distant and bizarre ("you can meet me at the movies but pretend like we're not going out around my friends, OK?"), in part because it's totally sexless. A friend of mine claimed she knew tons of relationships between people in college (Vanessa's 18, old enough to be in college) who had "secret relationships," but her examples were all based on sex first, relationship later (and the relationship part usually = everyone finding out about the sex anyway). Whereas Vanessa really is talking about, like, going to a movie. I remember girls who did things like this to me in middle school. Was traumatic. Still bitter. (Still very good friends with some of them, too.)

Anyway, those kindsa moments are all over the Keke album, from novelty ("Game Song") to a dumb ballad much better than Rihanna's ultra-dumb ballad with Ne-Yo ("First Crush") to sappy social commentary that reads like it was written by a (precocious) 13-year-old (don't know if it was, haven't looked up writing credits but I'll be really surprised if she's not co-writer on many of these tracks) ("Music Box") and surprisingly not-sappy social commentary ("Hood Anthem"). And her reference points are kind of refreshingly in touch with the outside world, despite her most regular support coming from Disney (n.b. this isn't a Hollywood Recs album).

OK, Allmusic does have the writing credits (and a pretty good review of it, too)...interestingly, Palmer's credited on the exact opposite tracks I would have expected her to be credited on. Rotem's only credited (I think) on "Footwurkin'," which is just OK. (No flat-out bad tracks on the album as far as I can tell, definitely hits harder than anything in the Disney orbit except Aly & AJ this year, unless Hilary still counts, which I guess she does.)

re Rotem: Habit of building songs around big, obvious hooks from songs everyone knows.

So the Rabbi at the synagogue I went to on Yom Kippur referenced Hannah Montana's "Nobody's Perfect" (his daughter got all excited when a song came on the radio when they were driving somewhere) and then quoted the lyrics as part of his sermon. Oh how my 13-year-old son hates anything Disney though.

The Rabbi's pre-teen daughter got so excited when he he went into that spiel.

Frank Kogan must be away. He hasn't posted on this thread in awhile.

I don't post on here much (mostly a Country fan) but I have to admit that "The Best Damn Thing" is my favorite album so far this year, even better than the beloved "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." That is my say.

Bruce is to Journey as

Dylan is to... ?

Rush, right?

I think that's the definitive answer, finefinemusic.

Today on Dr. Phil: "Nineteen-year-old Megan says her mom, Tracy, is nothing but her egg donor. Megan has been singing since she was a child and is now a rising star in the music industry, but she says all she wants is for her pushy stage mom to butt out of her life. Tracy says Megan's record deal is the worst thing that ever happened because it turned her sweet daughter into a stereotypical rock-and-roll singer who's into sex, booze, drugs and rebellion. Can this relationship be saved?"

Megan McCauley MySpace. Note third song, "I'll Pay You To Shoot Him." Megan really gets along well with her parents.

Mulla, what do you think of Megan's "Tap That"? Apparently, she's repudiated it, but it's up on her MySpace, and it's going to be on her album. Produced by Dr. Luke.

New in the Radio Disney incubator is (former?) Reggaeton Nino P-Star. Haven't heard anything by her yet, but if it's anything like the Ninos I'll probably like it. (Got their album recently, and I like how faithful their arrangements are.)

Newish on the charts there is the first crossover from Hannah Montana's "B" album (by Miley Cyrus) -- and it's not "See You Again" (it's one of the ones I don't like, "G.N.O. (Girls' Night Out)"). No sense in trying to find a logic in how Disney "releases" these songs, of course.

New Britney video: said on Poptimists that it reminded me a bit too much of that Nicolas Cage movie 8mm, supposed to be "in your face" but comes across as trying too hard (uncomfortable mix of gloss and grit), and winds up mostly pathetic (in an interesting but unpleasant way). But I do think that this is going to be a more interesting chapter in her story with hindsight, whether it leads to the end of her career or an eventual rebound. I hope there's a rebound, only so this whole mess isn't turned into some dumbass spiral into oblivion parable. (Even if it's true, it makes a shitty parable.)

So I saw the Aly and AJ video for potential breakup song yesterday. Its funny how the video seems all about the freewheeling creativity of the girls, seen playing guitars and apparently mixing the album themselves in a weird spinning control room. Even when dancing, piles of paint splashes from their hair. I think its part of a trend that includes early Avril, recent Pink etc where the "artificiality" of production has somehow become something pop musicians have to be ashamed of in some way. Now instead of the song projecting the personality of the singer, it seems as though the singer must also project themselves as the traditional auteur of the song. Just a thought.

Well, I think the "artificial" vs. auteur binary is a fake issue (meaning that I think that even the people who set "artificial" and "auteur" as opposites actually have other issues eating at them, such as whether they approve of the class of people who make or consume the music and generally whether or not they think the music kowtows to authority or to the listener); but yes, for a while there teenpop was home of the rock confessional, and it's not just recent Pink but anything from Missundaztood (which precedes Avril) onward, and Missundaztood was preceded by Michelle Branch and Nelly Furtado, and before either of them there was M2M - though M2M only had one minor hit in the U.S. so are more precursors than trendsetters; but Michelle Branch's "Everywhere" was the breakthrough, Michelle wielding her acoustic guitar prominently and appearing confessional. The song sounded great (co-written and produced by John Shanks), though to my mind Michelle didn't have anything particularly interesting to say. But Pink and Avril did, and subsequently so did Ashlee and Kelly C. and Lindsay and Brie and Aly & A.J. and maybe even Hilary.

But the thing is, it's true: these performers (except early Hilary) did at least co-write many or all of their songs, and I'm sure Aly & A.J. were totally involved in the production. In itself, all these girls writing the material wouldn't have meant anything one way or another except that it did mean a lot, because it changed the character of the music, generally for the better (which I wouldn't necessarily have predicted, my prejudice circa 2000 being that most music of value was going to come from hip-hop and dance). If you want adolescent content, a good way to get it is to find an adolescent to give it to you. And what we had for several years there, and still have with Aly & A.J., is something for which I don't think there was any precedent: girls in their teens and early twenties collaborating on the songwriting with adults in their mid thirties. Worked well, for whatever reason, better than when those same adults were working with adult performers.

We talked about this a lot on last year's thread, some of which I reiterated in the LVW.

Don't know if shame is much of an issue with Aly & A.J. (I mean, shame in relation to songwriting, which they've been doing from the get-go; shame in relation to bullies and in relation to sex, on the other hand...). For Pink, the issue wasn't just that she wanted in on the songwriting and the sound but that she wanted the "personality of the singer" to be chosen by her, not by L.A. and Babyface. She didn't want to be an r&b vixen. Ashlee didn't want to be a Hilary doll. So you got lyrics from these girls that were about identity, and therefore about conflict with record companies, conflict with family, conflict with boyfriends - and therefore about trying to reject and embrace people at the same time. (Classic Ashlee: "Shut up/Come back/No I didn't really mean to say that/I'm mixed up/So what/Yeah you want me so you're messed up too.") But the Ashlee reality show, for instance, wasn't reticent about showing that the record company had veto power and that producer, co-writer, and main musician John Shanks had a big part in creating the album. The show tended to emphasize drama over anything else, but that means that you get to hear Ashlee promising original collaborator Steve Fox that she'll fight for him, then you see her not doing so (at least not on camera) when she meets with Geffen guy Jordan Schur. After the Fox-Frazier demos have been rejected it seems as if no one knows what the alb is going to sound like, and Schur is sending Ashlee off to meet with a lot of producers to, he says, help her find out who she is. I can't really tell much from the few Fox-Frazier scraps I've heard, but my guess is that w/ those two she was going for Green Day/No Doubt pop-punk. In contrast, the album she ended up doing w/ Shanks was like Hole and Alanis, though cuter, smarter, and dancier than Courtney or Alanis, and w/ Gwen scampiness left in.

I just looked again at the video for "Pieces Of Me," and the basic setup is Ashlee (hair dyed black) in the studio recording the track backed by what I assume is her touring band - which of course isn't how it was actually recorded. But the video also intersperses lots of scenes from the show (and briefly, a tantalizing shot of Stan Frazier's drum set) including her - back when she was blonde - working with John Shanks in his studio, Shanks being the guy who actually played most of the instruments on the song.

I haven't gone looking for many Aly & A.J. interviews and docs, so don't know if Antonina Armato & Tim James (their current producers and sometimes co-writers) get much mention.

smarter... than Courtney

Well, I think Courtney can sometimes be very smart, but she allows herself too much inarticulateness.

I mean, shame in relation to songwriting

I think "Not This Year" touches on this, but undermines an argument about songwriting (as opposed to just sort of "expressing yourself" because it's by far one of their best songs! But it's very much about your words coming out as garbage no matter what you do -- and admittedly they might just be talking about the falseness of trying to fake happy and cheerful when you're really sad.

NPR review of Aly & AJ: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14290554

I thought it was pretty interesting.

Specifically: The reviewer does a lot of lyrical analysis, likes the wordplay in the lyrics, and the depth in the lyrics, and talks about their feminism.

Only problem is where he says that it's OK to listen to it 'cause the girls wrote or co-wrote every song on the album. (and implies that it's not OK to listen to music which the artist did not write or co-write)

And he gets Antonina Armato's name wrong, and he thinks of the early Michael Jackson '80s as an "innocent" time (sometimes you wonder how it is that culture critics managed to graduate kindergarten), but he's got a good ear for the music and the lyrics. Ken Tucker is a long-time smart guy; the "not record-company puppets" thing is a lazy way to say that, look, Aly & A.J. had a lot to do with what this album is about. I'd assume his thoughts on the issue are smarter than that line makes him seem, but he should be smarter still, smart enough not to take that line at all.

(Also, feminism is a stretch.)

New Skye: <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=1XRbsb2RbpU";>Music Is My Boyfriend</a>. This album's gonna be all over the place and 1x total mess, but I'm still pretty excited for it.

Bah, Music Is My Boyfriend

Another thing about Aly & A.J.'s video strategy for "Potential Breakup Song" and "Chemicals React": By choosing to make the subject of those vids the girls' performance and creativity, the video makers [which I assume include Aly & A.J.] keep boys off the screen - in other words, they keep the objects of their own sexual desire out, evade the issue that the songs like "Chemicals React" and "Blush" are specifically about, and that "Potential Breakup Song" suggests subterraneously (the narrator sneaks in the point at the end that she really doesn't want a breakup): it's the girls own chemicals that are doing a big part of the reacting.

I suspect their evangelical Christianity has something to do with this evasion, but the term "evangelical Christianity" covers (up?) a whole range of nonmonolithic doctrine and behavior, and I don't want to stereotype the girls, especially given that the songs themselves aren't evasive ("we cannot deny how we feel inside"). I talk about some of this in my column this week.

Hey hey hey, Amy Diamond has a new single out "Is It Love?". This single was released almost a month ago and I just found out about it now! If this thread was like last year's, I would have known about it instantly :(.

Anyways, it's only OK, a bit of a disappointment, though I've only heard it once or twice so maybe it'll be a grower. I like the bridge. The full album is out in November.

The Veronicas are definitely twins, possibly poor video editors.

Speaking of the Veronicas, they played "4ever" in the gym as I was working out yesterday. Weird.

Music Is My Boyfriend, now with excellent <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=pQ20JosnbwQ";>batshit video</a>.

Gah, BATSHIT VIDEO.

Brie Larson is sick of Myspace. She is now on Blogspot.

MAN UNKIND

The new Carrie Underwood was underwhelming on first listen, but I'll certainly try again, since I like her.

The Veronicas' new alb, Hook Me Up, has no "4ever" but overall is vastly better than their first. Same probs as always (their two basic vocal styles are (1) a thin piercing wail and (2) a thin subdued wail, and lyrics add nothing interesting to the themes of wanting sex, wanting a man, wanting to get rid of the man, and hating the man) but melodies are good and arrangements even better, baroquely restless, confessional synth-rock dance, and the twins actually do break vocal patterns a few times: some nominal metal moves where they go Lita Fordish and a great, totally unexpected moment of angry agonized Kelly Clarkson phlegm-shrieking vengeance in "This Is How It Feels" where, damn, they're gonna tell the fucker how it feels. And a great Ciara-worthy line in "Popular": "My name is my credit card."

In livejournal news, the following interchange took place on poptimists in regard to Roxette:

zenith:
Not enough love for 'Sleeping In My Car', which features my favourite euphemistic use of the word "bless" ever (and pre-dates the same usage in hip hop?):

Sleeping in my car, I will undress you
Sleeping in my car, certainly bless you

Roxette were oddly obsessed with cars and driving.

offensive_mango:
Maybe the person sneezes when they get undressed because they catch a cold.

stevem78:
i thought it was 'suddenly press' you. she is talking to the trousers he's just taken off.

Off-topic, maybe I should bring this to Poptimists, but I like raising things here better. This relates a bit to the lengthy ILX thread on Sasha Frere-Jones recent New Yorker article

http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/461829.html">Poptimists-http://community.livejournal.com/poptimists/461829.html

Frank Kogan--I'd say that the basic split is the old one of boho versus mainstream, but in this instance the mainstream - the U.S. Top 40 (incl. Fergie and Justin, for instance) - is crawling w/ "miscegenation," and to the extent that what SFJ is pointing out is even true, it's the indie guys who are resisting the commandment to dance. But my point is that this split isn't necessarily upper-middle vs. others, but rather upper-middle-niche-bohos-who-are-rapidly-being-accepted vs. mainstream, and the mainstream itself has its divisions between preps (who I'm guessing - emphasize the word "guess" - are veering emo and indie these days) and skaters etc. (who I'm guessing are going pretty emo these days)(mmm). Btw, the social reasons to resist the commandment to dance are kind of understandable.)”

Frank, do you think today's indie rock kids who are not into dancing are any greater in percentage than in 1976 or 1981 or 1993 or whatever kids that we could analogize are their boho equivalent? And why, if so? And do you think bohos always more adverse to dancing than teenpoppers (in whatever era be they preps or skater kids, American top 40 radio listeners--painting here in a broad brush stroke ala Sasha's indie-rockers that includes both beat-using LCD and non-funky beat using groups)? I haven't really researched this but am curious what you and others think.

do the bump