Hilary Duff: Joy for pre-teens, not just Humbert Humbert

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (876 of them)
what would a thread about the people posting about bob dylan involve, i wonder.

Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:00 (nineteen years ago)

(Also, what scott said...I was responding directly to the comparison that was made on this thread)

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

the right of bob dylan boosters to exist

No one questioned the right of anyone to exist!

Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

What do TV on the Radio sound like, incidentally?

i only ever heard the first album but from what i recall the answer is "an unlistenable mess, all things thrown into the mix at the excat same pitch with little to no regard for how they sound together; a singer who sounds like he's being tortured; like muse but without any of the tunes"

lex pretend, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

"blah, indie rock!" is a perfectly valid reason to listen to stuff that isn't indie rock!

Of course it is! But it's not a very good criticism.

jaymc, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

*meaning Hilary sounded like pre-Sam's Town Killers. I didn't actually like Sam's Town very much.

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

weird no one's admitting this is all contextual to ilm.

Eppy, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:02 (nineteen years ago)

maybe that goes without saying.

Eppy, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:03 (nineteen years ago)

i think the non-teenpop people are the defensive ones. they are suspicious and don't like to be tricked! chuck eddy made them buy a big & rich album once and they have never gotten over it!

scott seward, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:03 (nineteen years ago)

I was sort of hoping a TV on the Radio fan would answer that Lex!

Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:03 (nineteen years ago)

And, again, people on the teenpop thread don't WRITE things like "TV on the Radio is way worse than Hilary Duff"! I wrote it here because I'm all agitated by this thread (and specifically by you bringing up the AF review, which was kind of annoying AND misrepresented what I actually wrote about that -- off-topic -- subject, no offense) and bored at work.

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

tom they sound like ar kane X american indie rock essentially

strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

hilary duff is better than nas

Eppy, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

feedback melodies + looped mechnical drums (though more live drums on the newer stuff) + falsetto singing

strongohulkington, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:05 (nineteen years ago)

scott, that's reducing things, no? it's not at all about "i heard this ashlee simpson song and i just don't understand WHYYYYYY?"

Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:06 (nineteen years ago)

i just thought people had gotten beyond the whole "you REALLY like that, seriously??? why???" attitude that normal people have. especially on ilm where frothy pop has never been a four letter word. but there seem to be many reasons why people have a problem with that thread.

scott seward, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

If Hilary sounds anything like the first Killers album (which had three pretty amazing singles), I'd love to hear more of her stuff.

Dave, I don't doubt that Hilary Duff and TV on the Radio may have certain things in common (I mean, they're both essentially making pop/rock music), but I hope you'll agree that that point is not obvious (if it were more obvious, I would think that their demographics would overlap more), and since that's the case, the statement "Hilary is better than TVOTR" on its own, without further explanation, seems intentionally provocative.

jaymc, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:10 (nineteen years ago)

Jay is the statement "TVOTR is better than Hilary Duff" also intentionally provocative? Obviously on ILM it is!

Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

well, i mean, honestly, have you yourself gotten over it? why WOULD someone get over it? (or is it just a question of not vocalizing it out of a sense of decorum?) seems like a natural process of trying to understand other people.

2xp

Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

(And also DM, I apologize for bringing up the Arcade Fire review. It's possible I'm completely misremembering, because what I recall is a paragraph-long post where you said "Ick, this is dull, why did I ever like them? All right, moving on...")

jaymc, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:12 (nineteen years ago)

If Hilary sounds anything like the first Killers album (which had three pretty amazing singles), I'd love to hear more of her stuff.

i don't actually hear too much of it myself but i know others, esp abby, argue that early hilary is basically modelled on the killers' sound

(i think early hilary is untethered and light and breezy where the killers plod)

lex pretend, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:12 (nineteen years ago)

Jay is the statement "TVOTR is better than Hilary Duff" also intentionally provocative? Obviously on ILM it is!

Yes, I said upthread that the reverse irritates me, too.

jaymc, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

we could go back to the question i asked at the start of this! jaymc check out 'beat of my heart', 'wake up', 'the math' and 'come clean' ASAP

lex pretend, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

OK, sorry, the thread was moving fast at that point!

Groke, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

hey why is there a separate hip-hop thread when everyone knows that's not real music anyway lolol. that's like creepy white negro shit huh?

Eppy, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:15 (nineteen years ago)

8,004,327 posts and I still don't know if I should get the new Hilary. But I want to thank the Miranda Lambert claque for boosting the album of the year.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:16 (nineteen years ago)

Is anyone on this thread trying to understand the teenpop thread posters? Like, I haven't seen the actual thread quoted once, most of the arguments coming from "what's wrong with the teenpop thread" are coming from knee-jerky comments in THIS discussion, e.g. "TVOTR is a million times suckier than Hilary Duff, who is a goddess and better than Bob Dylan."

xpost (ha, pedophilia's nuthin, if you really want me to get defensive, just mention AF...think I overreacted upthread tho so sorry bout that. FWIW, that post was about me remembering why I liked them in the first place -- and still do -- and comparing that reaction to what (I thought) they were doing on their new album. And I know I'm right, so there's no reason to argue further on this point.)

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

New Hilary's great! Two or three dull tracks (but not bad), try "Gypsy Woman" for wtfness, "Dignity" for dance-pop goodness, and "Happy" for freestyle-inflected dance-pop goodness, then go from there.

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

And "Outside of Me" for P!nk-penned half-dance half-confessional (Hilary gap-bridger) goodness.

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

every time I start to see someone's point, they rep for something like "Beat Of My Heart," which is one of the worst songs I've ever heard. although it's kind of fun to sing along with the horrible "AWAAY AWAAAAY" part.

Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

i dig "with love". i haven't heard it on the dancey/top40 station here yet, but i could definitely hear it on there.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhgLoanz1b4

scott seward, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

even jess might like "with love"!

scott seward, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

ew Hilary's great! Two or three dull tracks (but not bad), try "Gypsy Woman" for wtfness,

not Crystal Waters...

thanks, dabug and scott!

"With Love" is ok, but it's got a Gwen Stefani "Crash" vibe to it.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:23 (nineteen years ago)

that song reminds me of the mall.

Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:24 (nineteen years ago)

No, much more wtf than Crystal Waters (tho maybe she out-wtf's it in her own special way)...the gypsy is "bringing down the family name"!!! WTF cartoon racism!!

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:25 (nineteen years ago)

"She can swallow knives/ She can swallow lives/ Golden black stare/ But the night of your demise"!!!! Also, bookended with a totally out of context Churchill quote: "The battle of France is over" w/ Hilary comment.

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

I guess my issue is often that the songs/singers being talked about just sound really feeble to me, no "pop transcendence" or big hooks or much of anything. I understand why labels sign and market teenage singers, but unless they can sing better than "good for a 15-year-old" or whatever, I'm usually not interested. Same reason I'm happy that no under 18 contestants on American Idol go the distance, unless they've clearly got professional-level skills like Jordin Sparks.

Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

which brings us back to Hilary Duff being Sanjaya Skeletor

Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

Every time someone wants hooks, I refer them to that Lester Bangs essay...

Even better than a big hook, "Girlfriend"'s got personality. It's also the cleverest Stones rip I've heard in years.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:28 (nineteen years ago)

yeah, with the talk about good voices in this genre, i just think jeez, i REALLY saw a good singer when i saw lavender diamond play the other day. always comin' back to indie as the pwnage!

Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:28 (nineteen years ago)

which bangs essay are you talking about alfred?

Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

("Beat of My Heart" does what, say, "Mr. Brightside" wants but doesn't have the guts to do -- economically pares the lyrics down to four to six manageable words plus a smattering of simple verses, delivers the hook with a sledgehammer -- which Killers are doing, too, but they're like the people at the "ring the bell" carnival game who act like they don't REALLY care to hide the fact that THEY CAN'T RING THE BELL. Hilary doesn't worry so much about the narrative, though there's some strange conflict happening...if she's listening to her heartbeat, learning to dance, up from her down, etc., why is the same beat also "tearing them apart"? What the hell does "away away" mean? Is she doomed?)

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:30 (nineteen years ago)

unless they've clearly got professional-level skills like Jordin Sparks

I like Jordin too, but she could use some Autotune.

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:30 (nineteen years ago)

Alfred: much cleverer and maybe better (direct) Stones rip is Fefe Dobson's (unreleased) "Get You Off." "Hey! Hey! You! You! Get off of my baaaaaack..." preceded by "I'll do anything to get you off! To get you OFF MY BACK!"

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

which bangs essay are you talking about alfred?

The one about his ambivalence towards Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes."

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:32 (nineteen years ago)

Hilary doesn't worry so much about the narrative, though there's some strange conflict happening...if she's listening to her heartbeat, learning to dance, up from her down, etc., why is the same beat also "tearing them apart"? What the hell does "away away" mean? Is she doomed?

see, this is kind of what I've been talking about, these kinds of enthusiastic attempts to pin down the logic in a boring heart/start/apart rhyme scheme, painting the lack of narrative or any sense at all as an asset. I guess this is a good example of how the teenpop thread tends to exert a lot of evergy asking questions with very simple or at least not particularly interesting answers.

Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

ugh, evergy=energy

Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:38 (nineteen years ago)

yeah alex otm, i just feel like saying 'you know dudes, sometimes an apple is just an apple' about a lot of this stuff

deej, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:40 (nineteen years ago)

(I threw in "is she doomed" especially for this thread, it was like a cherry on top.)

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

(not an apple on top)

dabug, Tuesday, 15 May 2007 17:41 (nineteen years ago)


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.