Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

Steve, they needed me more in Poptimists. (And truly, I have bad psychological blocks against doing the things I need to in order to write for money, so ilX being down is something of a reprieve.)

Need to run now before reading Dave's column or addressing the "indie" question; but no, I've never been "indie" (even though I've cavalierly called myself "the indie boy who hated indie"). Xgau's "semipopular" is a much more useful concept than "indie" is, actually, though not all indie is semipopular. There's an old Poptimists thread where I talk about this (which, livejournal being livejournal, I'm sure I'll never be able to find), but the crucial semipopular group was the Stooges, and what made them semipopular rather than indie, besides using the popular lexicon and being on a major, is that they reached out to the unknown audience. That's why ilX is semipopular while Pitchfork is only indie, even though Pitchfork is far more popular. (Don't know Pitchfork well, so maybe I'm way wrong, but I don't think so.)

Indie music fans, when at their best, are fans of the music. And that's what poptimists are too-- it's the actual music that interests them, not the packaging. So the crossover between the groups stems simply from liking music. I grew up on Sonic Youth, The Breeders and Pixies. But I also grew up on Madonna, Janet Jackson and Daft Punk. Then when I got in my 20s, out of nowhere, I got into hair metal and arena rock. I don't see any inconsistency; it's all excellent music.

The problem is the indie people who are fans of indie music for superficial reasons, or for reasons pertaining solely to the personality traits of the performer. These are the indie music fans who are reluctant to embrace a band because they're "corporate," or because the lead singer is a jerk. This is a hypocrisy I can't stand. After all, being indie is supposed to be a rejection of superficiality, right?

When reading reviews from poptimists, the music is always the thing. I've very rarely heard a serious discussion about pop music devolve into statements like "I'm sorry, I just can't get past how much i hate the singer as a person," but when discussing rock music, I hear it all the time.

I've very rarely heard a serious discussion about pop music devolve into statements like "I'm sorry, I just can't get past how much i hate the singer as a person,"

Heh, it's obvious you've never read poptimist discussions about Paris then.

paris was kind of the exception thoughm which was why i was kind of shocked that even poptimists were so blinded to paris's persona that they had that kneejerk hate.

Avril Lavigne - "Girlfriend" video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=e1Lg7OOgMzI

I was hoping this was from the video.

http://www.radosh.net/images/avril_lavigne_380_5-thumb.jpg

For anyone who needed a more illustrative guide to Lil' Mama's "Lip Gloss": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYjVnb3xdtY

For those, like me, having problems with links and 'no HTML' and such on nu-ILX, this from the FAQ may be worth noting:

What's this about "illegal link removed" when I try to post a link? There are a couple of bugs in that code right now. For the next few days, avoid using these punctuation marks in your links: < > ' " ` ! { } [ ]

-- Stet, Feb 23 2007.

JeffW

OK, after spending the entire weekend listening to the Jordan Pruitt album, I do concede that I've been underrating it. I think my problem is that after hearing "Outside Looking In" I wanted an entire album of that, and when I only got two comparable songs ("Waiting for You" and "When I Pretend") I was a bit disappointed. Another problem is that the second single "Teenager" seems to be a pretty bad choice to me. I, however, still don't like "Who Likes Who" (does have funny lyrics but music is still blah), but that and "My Reality" and "Over It" are the only three not-as-good songs on the album, which gives it a 75% hit rate. And, to be fair, all 3 of those are pretty good songs, so if you define "hit rate" by Poptimists style "any good at all", it'd have a 100% hit rate. I guess at least part of the reason that we disagree on "Who Likes Who" and "Over It" is that I have no ear for music theory at all. Once again, I am nearly tone deaf, and can't always hear when something is a standard chord progression or a truly original one. Neither sound like anything particularly original to me, but I'll take your word for it.

The album still lacks a truly excellent standout track ("Outside Looking In" and "No Ordinary Girl" and "Waiting for You" are my favorites, but none are higher than like 8/10) ("Outside Looking In" was my #34 single of the year in 2006). But Jordan is a truly excellent singer, and not just that she has a beautiful voice (which she does), but also that she gives genuinely great performances. She knows how to sell the drama of the lyrics. So the question is how to rate an album that consists almost entirely of 7/10 and 8/10 tracks, as opposed to an album that has more great hits, but more mediocre track as well (like Lillix, for example, or Carrie Underwood or Nelly Furtado). I tend to be more charitable towards the consistently good albums, so the album rates an 8/10 and may well contend for my year end top 10, if it ends up being a fairly weak year. It's my favorite album of 2007 so far, in any event.

Heh, I used the word truly about 3 times too many in that last post. Thesaurus please.

From country thread, below. (But my opinions are still evolving, which is to say "Girlfriend" may have passed up "Candyman" on my list by now. By the way, has anybody pointed out that Avril's cadences are frequently swiped straight out from the Red Hot Chili Peppers in that song? From "Give It Away," I think. Which is not one hundredth as good as "Girlfriend" is.)

Little Rachel ...is considerably more engaging and less offensive than, um, Cherry Poppin Daddies ... Meanwhile, on a related topic, "Candyman" by Christina Aguilera...

...turns out to be the song that mentions cherries poppin'. Decided I like it about equally with "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne, and more than "Bird Flu" by M.I.A. But it's more Bette Midler doing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" than Dr. Buzzard doing "Cherchez La Femme," I think. Which is to say: Not all that far from Little Rachel after all. Best thing about Christina's song is the "sippin on a bottle of vodka double wine" chant done by the soldiers in the video at the beginning and in the middle; they've got more punch than she does (which is not to suggest she's punchless.) Avril's song meanwhile is hey hey you you get off of my cloud get into my car Mickey you're so fine you blow my mind hey Mickey, but not nearly as good as that implies, and not as good as most of the songs on Skye Sweetnam's debut album, either. (Not that this has anything to do with country, I guess.) M.I.A.'s song is...a confusing mess. I dunno, maybe I need to hear it more. As of now, I'd say it doesn't rank with her best stuff. I guess I'd prefer if had more of a tune to it.

xhuxk on Sunday, 25 February 2007 02:04 (Yesterday)
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(Though to the Christina song's credit, its sound does seem to open up beyond retro kitsch as the song progresses. So yeah, it's better than Avril's, I guess. Which is probably the most reigned in of the three. M.I.A.'s song hits me as art grandstanding, basically. Albeit art grandstanding bombarding you with beats, which counts for a lot, obviously. I do like it, just don't love it. Though I can imagine I might if it catches me by surprise in some public setting.) (And yeah, this all belongs on the teenpop thread. But I lost that thread's plot ages ago, and every time I try to catch up, it loses me again.)

xhuxk on Sunday, 25 February 2007 02:24 (Yesterday)

more:

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Can't contribute to the country musings herein, and should probably just stay off this altogether (and WILL stay out of it after this, promise), but I feel like saying something about the Aguilera/M.I.A./Avril records Chuck discusses above (in part because I'm trying to properly "review" them and am struggling). "Candyman" is the sort of song I feel I should hate on principal, but in fact, I do like it. It's the first thing I've even been able to listen to by her since "Genie in a Bottle," probably because it does remind me so much of Bette's version of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (with funnier words), and I guess because, similarly, it sounds like a glam-by-assocation kind of song (though I guess you'd have to say glam-twice-removed-by-association) in that Midler made the Andrews Sisters seem like glam icons (Roxy Music's backup singers even dressed like them). It was like boogie woogie (as a sub-genre, I mean) very briefly became one of glam rock's many sideshow attractions, similar to how Cabaret made the Weimar Republic seem totally glam. (This would probably be a good place also to say something about Mika's "Grace Kelly" and the Killers's "Read My Mind," which fall into yet other wings of glitter rock--not to mention Fergie's wonderful "Glamorous"--but I digress). Like Chuck, I thought the M.I.A. was a complete mess at first, didn't hear any melody, etc., but now it's totally working for me. Chuck says, "Though I can imagine I might if it catches me by surprise in some public setting." This happened for me, sort of--the video actually provided that context in a way (not quite the same as hearing it outdoors amongst real people, granted), and it warmed me up to the song a lot. Not only is there almost no melody, there's also no chorus--it's a pretty outrageous song, all beats and artillery and bird sqwawks. I'm coming around to the Avril song, too, but don't have much to say about it--I think i just really like the delays on her voice in the chorus, and I imagine it'll be a pretty huge wedding anthem this year, and for me that's a very good thing.



sw00ds on Sunday, 25 February 2007 06:09 (Yesterday)
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It's the first thing I've even been able to listen to by her since "Genie in a Bottle,"

Me too! I liked "Ain't No Other Man" or whatever it was called last year "in theory" (i.e., the beats) (i.e., I totally understood why other people liked it), but really could've taken or leaven it myself. Didn't get "Beautiful" at all.

Avril's bleacher beats sound more glam to me than Christina's bugles though.

xhuxk on Sunday, 25 February 2007 09:35 (Yesterday)

Rolling RD 2-27-07: Hilary's on the charts sans sis with "With Love," Frank points out that it's getting weak airplay on KDIS but it'll probably start climbing a la "Too Little Too Late" now that it's in the Top 30. Drew Sealy (sic) off the voting charts. In the incubator is Myxx, whom I haven't listened to yet. Landslide for Jonas Bros. new song, "Kids in the Future" (nee "Kids in America": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWigR3eKgsI, haven't gotten a chance to compare the lyrics yet but they definitely didn't ADD any three-breasted women), but all is not as it seems: At one point DJ Aaron K. questioned a caller “So basically you just love the Jonas Brothers and you’re gonna pick it even if the song is bad?” She replied, “Duh!”

I spoke more about it on my blog, but my 3 favorite songs on the Spring Awakening soundtrack:

Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind: Emo start - into dialogue - into really pretty duet. Though the emo section is inverted, it turns into something that includes a woman's input - which puts it way ahead of most emo I've heard, and makes it much more interesting.

Totally Fucked: Group song, very full of youth in tone and sound, but the lyrical content is abrasive and shocking (a bunch of junior high kids singing Totally Fucked), but their delivered well enough that it's believable. Closest thing to Hair, actually; where the content (How screwed up they are) feels very full of youth.

Whispering: Whichever girl sings this song, it's beautiful. I believe it happens when she's dying, and the song slowly becomes a whisper itself until it disappears. Broadway comparison = Fontene's Song from Les Miz, maybe. But in terms of teenpop, it seems far more appropriate to a young teenager's stream-of-consciousness than the kind of jaded death song found in other pieces of musical theater.

There's also Left Behind - which is a really pretty duet.

Well, I can't find a better thread to post it in, contrary to previous, so I'll just keep going here

Guys American Idol only marginally better than last week's screw the judges. I feel like Metal Mike, I disagreed with the judges tonight more than ever. I like AJ a lot, nice tone to his voice, though slight boringness. Chris Sligh is OK but he's had bad song choices two weeks in a row to me and I'm not sure what to think of him. I have a possibly irrational hatred for Chris Richardson who did a Jason Mraz song. Sickened by the overpraise there. Same with Sundance, who did "Mustang Sally", a song I don't like to begin with, and did nothing in particular with it. Don't see how it was substantively different than Rudy's "Free Ride". What's with Sanjaya? He still has the worst stage presence/least charisma ever. I still like Blake, his Jamiroquai was probably my favorite performance of the night.

Brandon WAS pretty boring (though underrated I think), but I was very troubled by Simon and Randy's comments to him. Which were along the lines of, unless you have an overpowering voice with lots of runs and gymanstics and melisma the performance is automatically not good. I have no problem with the powerful voiced divas and their male counterparts but the show's consistent inability, 6 season in now, to recognize great singing of any other variety is the major weak point to me, and causes more subtle and restrained singers to be consistently underrated. Also underrated are singers without huge voices who are great interpreters/performers.

Would send home: Chris R., Sanjaya
Will go home: Nick Pedro (who I kinda like, but is still boring), Jared (cannon fodder)

I really like Blake. (He's the beat-boxer, right?) He's probably my top-pick for male contestants right now. He seems to have the most personality and talent. It'll be interesting to see the girls tomorrow. I know Simon is in love with Lakisha, but I noticed, Greg, you rated her fairly low. I really love the song she delivered last week, but I think I'm with you. My favorite female contestant right now is Jordan Sparks. So I'm rooting for Sparks and Blake.

And I didn't mean Left Behind two posts ago. I meant Guilty Ones, which is the duet I really like the most on the soundtrack. (If all goes well, I'm getting students tickets to see the show on Thursday. Wish me luck!)

Checking 'em out on YouTube, is hard to get interested in any of the current AI contestants you mention (made it up to Amy Krebs on Greg's list, with Amy being a total hairball on a song whose original I love). All the women could be Joss Stone, for all I care, but I can quite easily imagine my having had a similar reaction to Kelly and Carrie if I'd been watching back on their run-through, and of course they've turned out extraordinarily well - prob'ly would have liked Carrie more, as she wasn't doing the big diva va-va-va-voom thing. Not that I'm against the va-va-va-voom, just that, like, someone belting out "Respect" in a talent show is just someone belting out "Respect" in a talent show. Would have been genuinely impressed if Kelly'd whispered it, found a way to bring an encapsulated, closed-off song back to life. Found Lakisha's the one intriguing performance, in that her raging gusts didn't lose the sense of the song; a disco-house-techno producer might be able to put her hurricane winds to interesting use. My favorite was probably Jordin - don't think she altogether found her way into the slow burn of "Turn My Ass Around" or whatever it's called ("Give Me One Reason"), but that's a style that moves me. Leslie Hunt's smoky throat was a snooze for me both onstage and on MySpace; can't really remember the others from last night when I was YouTubing; "All By Myself" is a good song, so I liked that. Melinda's the one with the three-year-old, right? Was interested in how "overcoming lack of confidence" is used as a selling point. Don't remember the actual sound, though, except that it wasn't soft. I'd just echo Greg on the subject of the narrowness of the apparent criteria for success. I'd wonder if Paula Abdul could have done well as a contestant if there'd been an Idol in '88. Voice too small and squeaky!

Look forward to your further reports.

Just spent half an hour searching and wondering why I couldn't find a link for the alleged FAQ, then found it linked in the middle of a thread. I presume there are technical problems with putting the link up on the board right now; fwiw I far preferred the old layout and old features, but apparently a lot of what I liked helped make the board vulnerable and also used up hunks of CPUs so will never come back.

This thread is so intimidating.

Well, the thread's length is the thread's length, but I think it's understood that few people will have read every post, that most people won't know, say, who Matthew Gerrard is (man who's co-produced and co-written much of the more boring Disney teenpop these days), etc., and I don't see the usual nastiness that you get on other threads along the lines of "don't you know how to use Search?" and so on. Also, I think people on this thread are remarkably articulate about why they like and dislike things, but those can lead to complexities because most people (emphatically including me) don't always know the sources of their likes and dislikes, and so the reasons they/I give often raise more questions, provoke further thought. (I find that ilX goes dull when people don't give reasons for their likes and dislikes, or don't realize that their reasons need further reasons.)

Briefly on AI, girls night:

I feel really anti-consensus this season and it's starting to bug me. I liked Gina Glocksen ("Alone"), though it was not as good as Carrie Underwood. Lakisha ("Midnight Train to Georgia") was meh yet again. I REALLY liked Leslie's performance ("Feeling Good") tonight though, I think she's got a great touch to her voice and very nice interpretation/performance skills. I'm still not sure how much of my Leslie love is due to her actual performance and how much is due to finding her attractive and liking her personality and the "something different" factor . I also like Alaina ("Not Ready to Make Nice") a lot, except that she can't seem to give a good performance. But I like her phrasing and I like the tone to her voice. I wish she could stay on pitch. I hate Sabrina ("All the Man I Need"), I think she has no control over her vocal runs. Haley ("The Queen of the Night") just such an odd performance. Jordin Sparks ("Reflection") very disappointing. For the guys, I like AJ ("Feeling Good") a lot and I HATE Chris Richardson ("Geek in the Pink"). Sanjaya ("Steppin Out With My Baby") was one of the weirdest performances I've ever seen. A Tony Bennett classic, with a mid 80's Michael Jackson fashion sense, and a performance style that basically amounts to whispering. Blake ("Virtual Insanity") good, though a bit of a step down from "Somewhere Only We Know". I liked the beatboxing/scatting/whatever it was. Phil ("Missing You") has a really good and pretty AM radio voice, but is somewhat boring. And I have yet to hear any real originality from him. I'm not feeling this season and it really bugs me that they've stacked the females with all similar singers. Dream scenario for me would be maybe a couple belters, a more restrained, jazzy type singer, a country girl, a rock girl, etc. It now seems likely all 5 of the big belters will make the finals which is just gonna be so boring.

Other main problem with AI (not just confined ot this season): almost no singers attempt to give their own interprations of the songs. Even the really good singers this year, like Melinda ("My Funny Valentine") just do pretty much copies of the originals. Jon Peter Lewis from season 3 tried to change up interpretations of songs somewhat, which I always appreciated. But I'd love to see someone do a ballad as a rave up or vice versa. This was a really weak slate of girls' and guys' performances. I'm considering giving up entirely, but I'll give em another shot.

Dream World Top 12: Leslie, Melinda, Jordin, Gina, Stephanie, LaKisha; Blake, AJ, Phil, Chris S, Brandon, Nick (if not fixed to 6 guys/6 girls I'd swap in Alaina for Nick).
Predicted Top 12: For the guys, Sundance, Sanjaya, Blake, and Chris S. seem like locks. Phil and Chris R are near locks as well at this point.
For the girls, Melinda and LaKisha are the only two I'm certain about. Stephanie and Jordin seem like good bets. I'm gonna guess Gina and Antonella for the last two slots. I hope that Leslie sneaks in.

Girlies top to bottom:
1. Melinda Dolittle - "My Funny Valentine"
2. Leslie Hunt - "Feeling Good"
3. Gina Glocksen - "Alone"
----Good/Bad Line (more accurately interesting/boring line)----
4. LaKisha Jones - "Midnight Train to Georgia"
5. Alaina Alexander - "Not Ready to Make Nice"
6. Jordin Sparks - "Reflection"
7. Haley Scarnato - "The Queen of the Night"
8. Stephanie Edwards - "Dangerously In Love" (the more I think about this the more I think the great fireworks at the end don't overcome the bad actual vocals)
9. Sabrina Sloan - "All The Man I Need"
10. Antonella Barba - "Because You Loved Me"

Heh, clearly I need to redefine "briefly". Brainwasher, if you jump in I think you'll find the thread a lot less intimidating than it seems on the surface.

Sligh needs to take this whole thing home. Just because he's the only personality (outside Sparks and Blake) that I have any interest in whatsoever. And though he's done some unconventional song choices, he's never done a performance that's made me cringe (a company that includes Gina, Lakisha, and once again - Sparks + Blake). Does it seem like a lot of Aretha songs this year?

AI: Gina is extremely likeable, but I don't think she has the ammunition to go all the way. Simon was right about her not hitting the note in week 1, and she had similar problems last night.

I really enjoy Sligh's voice, and he's my favorite at this point. Doolittle has potential, but I have a feeling that we're going to have week after week of her pleasant but limited style of lounge singing.

The Pruitt album is excellent. I'm gonna stick up for Who Likes Who; it's not one of the top 4 songs on the album, but it's very enjoyable, and lyrically I find it amusing. I also enjoy that the spoken word intro paints the singer as as much of a gossip as anyone she's singing about!

AI: Curse of Nina Simone last night. I'm disappointed there are no Country singers this season-- first time since season one? Sing Dixie Chicks, lose votes of surge lovers. There was a promising country singer in the auditions (forget her name) who was highlighted but somehow cut in Hollywood. I'm also not seeing the Great White Hope who usually (excepting season 3, and if you wanna be technical season 2) knocks off the heavily favored African American singer in the last few weeks of the competition. Still too fuzzy on names, and won't bother to learn them until there's a final 12, but is Powder GI Joe really much of a threat? Or Chris Sligh (I do know one name) with the over rehearsed, Bob Jones University punchlines? I like Beatbox but he was totally outdone at his own game by Justin Timber-fake this week. He should sing the New Radicals.

I keep meaning to link to the following article by Alan T in Freaky Trigger, which is pertinent to this thread:
http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/wedge/comics/2007/02/its-hot-and-tepid-celebrity-comic-strips/

(click on the images for larger, i.e. legible, versions of the comic strips featuring McFly, Lil Chris, etc.)

Oh, and Greg - I did read your last post directed at me. I think we largely agree about JP. (And I wouldn't worry about the music theory stuff. It's by no means a badge of quality in and of itself, it's more an extra hook for me to get into a song.)

AI: For the first time since Jessica Sierra was eliminated in Season 4, I have no favorites to root for now (well I have mini-favorites like Blake and Gina), so it'll be kind of refreshing to be able to hear the show from a more objective standpoint. It does seem pretty much inevitable that a white girl will win. If Sligh or Blake prove to be more likeable and enduring than I've given em credit for, they might have a chance. But this is a diva season. And oh yeah, Pickler gave a good performance.

Non-AI: Anybody heard the Everlife album? I haven't liked any of their Radio Disney singles so probably won't bother to check it out unless I hear good things about it.
I noticed that Mika was added to Tommy2's upcoming releases chart. I never thought of him as teenpop but I guess it makes sense. From that chart, March looks like it's gonna be a pretty slow month . Things pick up in April with (scheduled) new releases by Hilary Duff and Avril and Corbin.

And by "It does seem pretty much inevitable a white girl will win" I do of course mean "It does seem pretty much inevitable a black girl will win". Whoops, that kind of changes things.

Just posted this on the country thread:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/hollybeth2

There is nothing audibly country about Holly Beth Vincent's new solo album, but she recorded five tracks of it with musicians in Nashville, and she's not metal, and she hasn't been a teen in years (though, okay, Holly and the Italians were sort of from the Go-Gos/Tony Basil era which might connect them to the current Avril Lavigne single but who cares since everybody always ignores what I write on the teenpop thread anyway), so I guess this is the best place to talk about it. What's standing in my way from liking it more, strangely, is Holly's voice, which seems to have become much smaller and more quiet and held-back over the last quarter-century. The singing doesn't especially bug me, but it never really seems to grab me either, and I wish it was more in the forefront. What keeps me listening anyway is the abundant variety of lively dance-pop backing: dancehall days wang-chunging ("Behind 4 Walls"), straight-up Paula Abdul ("Sparkle," where Holly's voice sort of does an squeaky little A'Me Lorain thing inasmuch as I remember what A'Me Lorain sang like), Hombres letting it all hang out ("Arlington"), Nirvana smelling like teen spirit ("I Hate You"), smooth jazz getting lite-funky ("King of Fat"), Roxette doing whatever Roxette did (other places). It's not bad. Maybe the goal is to appeal to Gwen Stefani or Goldfrapp fans or something? But I keep wishing it was hitting me more.

On the other hand, some of you small-voice fans might like it more than I do.

Hey, "Stewy" is still gr8!

Kelly Clarkson on her new album: My cd is finished!! We’re now starting to schedule all the promo stuff and photo shoots and I’m so pumped! I can’t wait for y’all to hear the album! The album is called “My December” and a few words to describe it : intimate, raw, personal, rock (although some are very sweet and soft), and I can’t wait to perform every song on it! i really hope y’all dig it!

Radosh.net posted a video of a single by Krystal Meyers, whom he refers to as the Christian Avril Lavigne. I thought I'd heard something by her before, but I guess not...video for "Anti-Conformity" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BhAwFpNjNI

And what the heck: The Xtian Kelly Clarkson: http://youtube.com/watch?v=nh1Gh10-QjA and the Xtian Hilary Duff: http://www.myspace.com/tiffanygiardina.

I like the Krystal a lot, even if she can't get around to telling us what she's not conforming to; Jessie Daniels has the Clarkson look and the SUBG guitar but a voice that's washed-out Ashley Tisdale (which makes her pale pale pale); might be OK - if anonymous - if she had good material, which this isn't. Tiffany has promise for a little 'un (though at 13 she's a year older than when the young, alienated, outcast Taylor Swift wrote the far superior "A Place In This World"), and I'm glad she's not sounding like Jessie's little girl whine.

I was ignoring Holly and the Italians back then too, since I can't tell you what they sounded like - though I remember their being classified as "new wave." Always got them confused with Katrina and the Waves, a similar And The band.

Tanya Headon would approve of Holly Beth's record company.

Of course, "wrote 'A Place In This World'" probably means "wrote the original version before various Nashville song doctors reworked it."

Frank, you should have mixed up Holly and the Italians with Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, instead! (Katrina and the Waves were later, I think.)

Jimmy Draper on the new, reinvented (but not running for President) Hillary:

i got the 5-song sampler of duff's upcoming 'Digni ty'today. actually
just 3 new songs since i have the single, "with love" (#1 on TRL this
wk), and the genius "P:lay with Fire". this is gonna be her best CD by
FAR if the rest is Kylie-esque like this. these tracks are the new
ones, all listed as unmastered on the promo:

"stranger" is is def not the same song as the "stranger (instrumental)"
that leaked last wk. if they're the same, it went thru a major
revision. this one is very mid-eastern-tinged (in vein of mandy's "in
my pocket')and is gonna sound killer in club remixes. anyway, so now
i'm even more excited to hear what vocals she adds to the mystery
instrumental i have--it's a fab dance track.

"Danger" is kinda too '80s for my tastes, it woulda fit on the latter
1/2 of Gwen's L.A.M.B.; my least fave of the sampler(very repetitive)--
good but a tad forgettable. the chorus is "danger danger danger in your
eyes/in disguise" which is essentially the same message as :"stranger".

"burn" has a minimal beat that i could sing "My humps" over. it'sgot
the same kinda bump to it, but more '80s-y. (im prob the only one who
will ever make the connection tho..since it doesnt really SOUND like my
humps) it's a more low-key dance-pop song. again, mid-eastern kinda
vibe.

can't wait til the whole thing!

Oddly, I gave the five-song sampler a couple spins myself a couple weeks ago, and couldn't hear the Kylie connection (also made by somebody I work with), and the songs in general kinda made me shrug. Maybe I should have listened closer? Though then again, it's not like I'm a huge Kylie fan either.

You're right. I was confusing Holly and the Italians with Pearl Harbor and the Explosions, not with Katrina and the Waves - which means that yesterday I was confusing Pearl Harbor and the Explosions with Katrina and the Waves. (I also can't remember what Pearl Harbor and the Explosions sound like, 'cept once again I assume it's "new wave.")

The Hilary-Kylie connection would be to stuff like "I'm Spinnin' Around," which was Kylie's neodisco comeback record (co-written by Kara DioGuardi, though I don't think Kara had anything to do with producing it; but not only did that track revive Kylie's career, it was DioGuardi's first big hit; also co-written by Paula Abdul, originally intended for an Abdul comeback LP that never materialized), rather than to Kylie's earlier Stock-Aiken-Waterman music. Anyway, "Play With Fire" does go for both disco and Kylie-like lightness; don't know if it's a DioGuardi composition/production, though people have been saying that pretty much everything on the new Duff is. And it is (or was, if the album doesn't follow through) a different direction for Hilary, though interestingly enough Kara had a hand in Hilary's early music, most notably "Come Clean" and "Fly." But those were much more in the style that producer and co-writer John Shanks had created on Michelle Branch's "Everywhere." Also, while I like "Play With Fire," I don't love it the way I love "Come Clean" or (for that matter) Britney's "And Then We Kiss," which was her neodisco move.

Anyway, "Play With Fire" does go for both disco and Kylie-like lightness; don't know if it's a DioGuardi composition/production, though people have been saying that pretty much everything on the new Duff is.

I don't know about production, but it is a DioGuardi (co-)composition. She's credited on 9 of the album's 14 tracks so far; the final 5 haven't shown up on BMI or ASCAP yet.

Checked out [Removed Illegal Link] to see what her actual "Christian" stuff is like; sound is basically rock going from softness to loudness to quasi-Ramonesness, depending on the song, none of the three as good as "Anti-Conformity"; Krystal's not got the near-feedback that Avril can put into her voice; the lyrics to "Beauty of Grace" vague out as much as the lyrics to "Anti-Conformity" do - though if you're gonna say "The mistakes that you made: forgiven!/The memory's erased" then I guess you won't dwell too much on the mistakes; but detailing mistakes sure made Montgomery Gentry's "Some People Change" and Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take The Wheel" far more touching than this song is. Choosing not to turn one's back on the past is far more interesting than undergoing a memory wipe.

"Collide" has more emotion: "Collide, crash into me/Collide, I want to be broken by you." "Bring your storm to me." The romantic sublime Christianized. But if you want divine collisions that really sound shattering, you're better off listening to Flyleaf.

(I put "Christian" in quotes not because I doubt Krystal's Christianity but because I don't like how evangelicals have tried to appropriate the term "Christian" for their sole use. Not that this is my issue.)

Oh, poo, I guess they're still not letting ilX link to MySpace. Go here for Krystal Meyers' MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/krystalmeyers.

(I wonder if the similarity between Krystal Meyers and Bristol Myers helps get Krystal name recognition.)

Experimenting with links, to see if I can get this to work:

http://www.myspace.com/krystalmeyers

http://www.myspace.com/krystalmeyers[/link]

OK, so is it that for some reason MySpace and YouTube links (unlike some others I've done) are "illegal" when you try to give them some link title other than the URL, but not when you make the URL itself the title?

Maybe some Teenpop thread-ers would like Swedish singer Maia Hirasawa. Here is the video for her new song "And I Found This Boy":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRIyb8Sqol8

(Though obviously it seems more like contemporary retro UK indie pop. Pipettes just signed to a major in U.S., by the way.)

I think there's a great audience for good indie pop with U.S. kids, but no one in radio or anywhere wants to take a chance.

Quick point about the Britney headshave and "pop." Thing is, if a high-school punk girl did a headshave, it would certainly be a meaningful act for her, and there's no way that a girl's going bald in a high school (even if she's in Berkeley or some place like that) doesn't put her at risk and doesn't make her a target. But nonetheless, its public meaning is already pretty much defined and encapsulated: "Punk Girl shaves head, punk girl acts punk, dog bites man, we know what this means." So in effect whatever might have gone into the individual act (her shaving her head) can't travel far without being "understood" hence not thought about.

Now, I'm not saying that the tabs are necessarily doing great thinking about Britney. (Frankly I've only looked at the 'bloids' covers so I don't know in detail what they're thinking.) They seem to be trying for a mental illness angle - "SNAPPED!" - and then are taking the thing to "What will happen to the children? Can Britney be a good mother?" And of course to the alcoholism and/or drug addiction. But there's some way that Britney's act is not computing, is still open to interpretation, its public meaning not finished. A friend of mine - a woman my age - says, "It's a big loud FUCK YOU" - which seems right to me, though maybe that over focuses it. According to a customer in the tattoo parlor, "She didn't want anybody to touch her. She said she was tired of people touching her and that sort of thing." A "No!," a denial, tired of being sexy. Something. The thing is, as a personal last-straw desperate act, it actually conveys whatever impulses punk girls might have had for shaving their heads in the first place. And my point then is that within punk "shave your head" is curtailed and limited as to what it can do, whereas within pop it's more potent.

This is somewhat in response to Matt A. above ("The problem is the indie people who are fans of indie music for superficial reasons, or for reasons pertaining solely to the personality traits of the performer"). My problem with indie - and this dates back to about 1980, with my first published rant on this subject being in 1985 - isn't that as individuals indie people aren't sufficiently curious and open in their listening (some are, some aren't), but that the postpunk environment that punk/postpunk/indie types like me had created has long since gotten to the point where it can shut down the effectiveness of any of the music it embraces, whether it's blues or movie soundtracks or country or anything else. I mean, shuts it down in the indie environment. Anyway, I don't want to get dogmatic about this, and maybe what I should just be saying is that the postpunk indie-alternative world has shut down the effectiveness of punk moves, whereas in pop similar moves can still have impact. (Pop may shut down moves of its own, just not the same ones, and not with indie's deadening effect on the music.)

This is also in response to Dave Bedbug's most recent blog post (March 03, 2007), my realizing I ought to write this down before Dave writes it for me.

Pop may shut down moves of its own, just not the same ones, and not with indie's deadening effect on the music.

This is so incredibly black and white. No moves that have been shut down in pop have had a deadening effect on the music? Isn't every mediocre or bad pop record actually an example of this?

I think you're right about the shutting down of the effectiveness of punk moves in the postpunk indie-alternative world, but not 100%. Some moves that might be considered "punk" in some sense have continued to be transcendent. I have no idea why you're arguing that the postpunk indie-alternative world by nature shuts down the effectiveness of other aesthetics it embraces.

Isn't every mediocre or bad pop record actually an example of this?

OK, I take that back, but surely there are examples of it and I don't really know why indie is a greater example of THE MUSIC DYING.