Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

I could see "Girlfriend" making a nice place for itself on the TRL countdown, actually, but I'm not sure how much life the show has left in it, either in terms of it sticking around or its power as a Top 40 crossover point. ...I'm also hoping that Skye didn't do anything remotely similar to this with Dr. Luke/Max -- ironic that by essentially moving closer to Skye (who was never actually Avril Lite), Avril might have put Skye in the position of seeming to be a copycat again!

Anyway, I liked that. But I haven't heard anything since then.

Or did Billboard suddenly decide to count Radio Disney plays in its Hot 100 formula? But then Hannah and Corbin and Vanessa would be up there, too.

"IT WAS A VERY GOOD 'YEAR': In 2003, the youthful U.K. band Busted had a No. 2 hit in Britain with "Year 3000," but the song, and the group, never crossed the pond to become a U.S. hit. Four years later, the song finally arrives on the Hot 100, but not by the defunct Busted.

This version of "Year 3000" is by the Jonas Brothers and is from their Columbia Records debut, "It's About Time," released in 2006. The act has already left the label and has signed with Disney's Hollywood Records. The brothers' Hot 100 debut at No. 40 is fueled by repeated broadcasts of the song's video on the Disney Channel. Only two songs have had higher debuts in 2007. Fall Out Boy holds the record, with a No. 2 bow for "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race." In second place is Corbin Bleu's "Push It to the Limit," which jumped on at No. 14.

The lyrics to "Year 3000" have been updated for the Jonas Brothers' version. A reference to Michael Jackson in the Busted original has been changed to Kelly Clarkson. "

Apparently not "Be Good to Me." Footage of Ashley recording that with Kara here. (There was a podcast? When? All my iTunes can find is some karaoke thing.)

There is a mystery of Kara. For me to say "Oh, she wants someone else to work through" seems too... I don't know... clichéd? And I doubt that working with Ashley Tisdale is much like working with someone like Ashlee Simpson, since with Ashley with a y there doesn't seem to be any persona or self-expression at issue, or even a vocalist's identity (though I find Tisdale pleasing as a vocalist). Kara's got a stronger personality with Platinum Weird.

(But then, I made the decision to deprive myself of TV in 1999, which means I've never seen the Ashlee Simpson Show, and never got a glimpse of how she, John, and Ashlee created the woman who sang Autobiography.)

One line in Nothing in This World stands out in my mind: "I can do what she can do so much better." That line would be ironic in its arrogance for anyone else, but for Paris it's sincere! She is overwhelmingly confident about her attractiveness, and this is in fact the REASON she's considered attractive by the mainstream (she's certainly not attractive from an physically objective standpoint)*. There's Paris-ness all over that record, and in a very frank and real way.

The Avril single is as invigorating as music gets. There may not be that much to sink your teeth into, but it's a wonderful opening salvo.

I like With Love, but to me it sounds like it could have been taken off any Cassius album. Hilary had seemed to be building a sound of her own, and that's gone from this song. And, more worryingly, I'm not sure Hilary's voice is up to the task of handling aggressive dancepop. The guitar fills on it are wonderful.

*This sort of media manipulation would have delighted Warhol, and will likely result in gay icon status for Paris, if she doesn't have it already.

Thanks to FT's Pete for pointing this out. Mind you, this Rubinoos song is itself sorta derived from The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", so maybe they won't have the cheek to sue.

I haven't noticed anything like that on the Paris album, but then again I don't know her persona well enough to know when she might be playing with it. I wouldn't mind if she were (depends on how she does it); I'm just not noticing.

You're quite right that irony does not imply a lack of sincerity, but I do feel it is a barrier to it. It's not so much a safety net as a mask.

I like a lot of soulless pop records, but Paris isn't one.

(I know Frank, but it's legit online audio - I think - hosted by the band's own site so I thought it would be OK)

I don't think Paris's album is insincere in the least. I still think though that she has enough self-consciousness to play a little with her identity. I wrote a long analysis of the lyrics of Stars are Blind in last year's thread to that affect. Which is to say: She could be sincere about her identity ("imperious and arrogant," though I wouldn't use those particular words) and still have a sense of humor about it. To wit: I consider myself an Orthodox Jew, but that doesn't stop me from making jokes about it, or playing with the meaning of that identity. (Or more exact: I can make fun of my character traits, beliefs, etc.) Actually, I think part of presenting a persona is being able to play with it. My problem with Paris is that I find her particular brand of wink-wink very soulless. I understand you disagree ("...but Paris isn't one") and I'm not sure I could, or would want to convince you otherwise.

Which is to say, I think she's being ironic. And that has nothing to do with the reason I dislike her. Actually, the irony is part of the reason I can deal with Stars are Blind, but find some of the rest of the album absolutely humorless. It's also why I really love the Avril Lavigne song. I think her use of identity is much more conscious, fluid, and fun. By comparison: I love Kafka, because I find he's hysterical, even when he's discussing alienation. I can't stand Coetzee because though he deals with similar themes of alienation, he is completely humorless about it.

"I'm Over It" by Everlife. This video is set to Hannah Montana clips oddly enough. Anyways, like I've found with most Everlife it's an OK pop song but nothing to intentionally listen to.

"Get Over It" by Avril. Though, the "I'm Over It" implication of all the previous and "Get Over It" meaning of this one are kinda opposite. Anyways, not one of the better Avril singles.

I've always liked her a lot on That's So Raven even though I hate the show.

No, I hate Zack and Cody too, though I do like Ashley Tisdale and Brenda song. I watch Hannah Montana and reruns of Phil of the Future, Lizzie McGuire, and Even Stevens.

OTM! OTM!

Does it effect the discourse here the idea that it's very likely that nobody actually making the Paris CD were thinking about anything being read into her CD and its suggested intent, what with the high liklihood that the main thing on everyone's agenda was to record a zillion takes of everything, and try to find ones usable enough to then run through ProTools and a mess of other gear so as to approxiamte a listenable vocal track (and then, to be on the safe side, multitrack that four or more times whenever possible)?

My other point with this is that this is the reason I find it 'souless'. I hear the machinery of a studio processed a weak voice. Lindsay, Avril, even Mandy Moore, the fact that they can sing isn't a rockist sort of elitism. The fact that they can, unassisted, make coherent vocal sounds makes their intention unmediated, something you can read by its own merits.

(There's a funny bit in the Bonus Materials for the Buffy musical. Joss Whedon wanted everyone to really sing. Allyson Hannigan was terrified, as she can't sing at all, and begged Whedon not to write any songs for her. We see her in the studio, she gestures at the gear, notes its ability to make a sow sound like caruso or the like, and laughs, "What was I WORRIED about??")

The singer, now quite famous, couldn't yet sing--especially in the studio.

So he in some cases the producer literally crafted a lead vocal track from 20-odd other take,, sometimes literally building the vocal word by word, and then running that through the computer for pitch correction.

The result is terrific. But really, the singer is nothing more than a tone producer--the artist, the creator of sound and intent, was the producer.

Saying this record was 'by' the singer seem like saying an Eno track is by Robert Moog. Is what I'm thinking.

If I hear a complete vocal track made up of a thousand individually recorded syllables and it moves me, why shouldn't I credit the producer of the voice, with whom I'm primarily identifying (as opposed to, say, the producer of the beat, which I might not care about nearly as much)? But then I don't hear the machinery in Paris's voice, or if I am, it's not hitting me as "machinery."

I mean, if it's assumed that we're talking about an imagined persona/product or whatever, sort of like the most visible part of a large co-production effort, then those arguments work, I guess.

I'm not being this asthetic scold--absolute artificiality is, I think, often the apogee of pop wonder, and the reason I visit this thread.

But I feel like there's all this (wonderfully crafted) discourse about 'Paris' and her manipulation of image, and ironic iconic play, and so on, while I strongly suspect there actually is no Paris there--either in intent or in actual reality (who/what created her CD).

Which doesn't meanone couldn't write reams about absence and the manufactured pop identity and the real person sandwiched between.

And, further, I can be moved by "artificiality," too -- Margaret Berger in "Robot Song" moves me as both Margaret and her robo-lover ("another time, another place, another world"....wait, isn't that Van Morrison?) and in fact I'm moved because she's playing the robot, enacting the other side of her love story. I wouldn't make that argument for Paris, but I would say that whatever vocal effects are being made through computer multi-tracking whatever are the same vocal effects that are engaging me as a listener, and it's within those effects that I do hear sadness, humor, irony, along with the words on the page. The sadness/humor/irony's in what she says and how she says it. Unless that's really Scott Storch's processed multi-tracked voice, in which case it's how he says it.

Like--you're recording line after line of takes into your hard drive. Eventually, you composite the best versions, whether word by word, or whatever. At a certain point, the vocal becomes, like, nobody's vocal, or to look at it another way, as an archetypical vocal, a finessed version of an emotion--very distanced from direct expression.

Which i guess begs the question of what 'direct' means, and why it might be better than something else. It also applies to sampling--which is, I think, the most accurate way to think of her vocals. When does a james brown sample, after being cut and effected and EQed and so on, stop being a signifier of something else--James Brown--and an integral part of a new text? It varies.

I totally agree that one can be moved by 'artificicialty'. I'm not arguing against that. I especially like it when artificiality becomes part of the text, like with The Knife or "O Superman" (obvious instances.)

But I think there's diminishing returns. Or at least, what you end up with is very, well, mediated. (This is *really* hard for me to explain.) Really, if only to be contrarian, I wanted to find the Paris CD brilliant--instead, I just sort of get the wiggins listening to it. And of course, that's just me.

But if by indirect you mean it sounds like a sample...I guess I have two arguments, one being that there are ways to create new meaning in vocal samples even when the effect seems to be "disembodying" or "objectifying" a voice, or divorcing it from signifying the original person -- like in a French house song, which, depending on the song, might turn a gorgeous vocal into wallpaper or draw attention to a very specific vocal phrase, giving it new meaning through repetition (some are ambiguous, like Hi Tack's "Say Say Say," which kind of has it both ways -- you get Michael Jackson as wallpaper). And sometimes the song is so extended that over time you have both reactions alternately. So sampling someone's voice might make his or her voice just as human, or "more human," as it was in its original context (like improving an old song and making an old performance even stronger by giving the vocals a new context, though I agree with you that this all of this varies).

The other argument specific to Paris is that I don't think that her voice comes across as a "sample," though I wouldn't necessarily disagree with this sort impression in another context -- like Iggy's vocals in "Punkrocker," where I do kind of get that feeling. Actually, Eppy makes a similar argument convincingly re: "Fighting Over Me," which I've previously described (Paris's performance) as "wallpaper." Paris also doesn't come across (to me) as "android," which is a description I might use for Hilary Duff or Cassie, and here I mean a kind of impersonal effect of a voice in the spotlight (not necessarily a mechanically processed effect), not the same as an impersonal effect of a voice denied the spotlight (Basement Jaxx does this sometimes). I actually get a very (directly) personal effect from Paris's vocals -- precisely because they're so stacked-up and meticulous. (And I'm definitely not arguing that the album is brilliant, in the American sense of the word, but that there's genuine feeling in it.)

Ian, I'm really not grasping your point. I don't think how the vocals were recorded and how many takes there were and how it was pieced together has anything to do one way or another with whether someone's being ironic. The question of how it was made and the question of whether it's ironic are completely separate. Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice is one of the most wonderfully ironic characters in all of literature, and he's fictional. And Jane Austen started the book when she was twenty or twenty-one or something and and finished a draft a year later and then put it aside and came back to it, and it wasn't published until she was thirty-seven, and we have no idea how many times she reworked and reworded the scenes featuring Mr. Bennet, and nonetheless he's being ironic all through the book.

I sometimes revise my pieces several times, and editors can be involved in the process and make suggestions and provide wording, but nonetheless that doesn't have any bearing one way or another as to whether my tone is being ironic. It might have some bearing on whether we should call it "my" tone or "our" tone, but it's still the writer's tone, despite the writer being something of a collectivity; and there's no reason that the collectivity that helps create "Frank Kogan" can't be ironic, and if there's a collectivity that helps create "Paris Hilton," there's no reason that that collectivity can't be ironic and can't play with her image. For what it's worth, even when I'm writing all by my little lonesome I'm busy filching ironic devices from Chris Cook and Phil Dellio and Luc Sante. And nonetheless, when reading me, you need to be attuned to when I'm being ironic, no matter how many hands went into constructing that "I." So I'm not seeing an issue here.