Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

*Nothing against ILE, I just have to draw the line somewhere, and not stay online perpetually.

-- xhuxk (xedd...), May 15th, 2006.

Make that 3rd rate Michael McDonald hybrid...and I like his voice. He really should've done Brown Eyed Girl at some point. He will win, of course.

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Fuck that shit. I'll keep Metal Mike's ramblings here (and Ramon, it was Mike who called the grey-haired dork guy's voice horrible, not me; I only watched one half of one *Idol* episode this season).

"Teenage vulnerability is the official language of the Internet," it is claimed, by Greenwald. Asinine quotes are the basic phlogiston/hydrogen molecule of newspapers. This was no exception, but perfect for the article.

McFly was briefly on in the background of Ebert & Ropeman as they reviewed Lohan's new movie last night. Not enough to persuade me to buy it even though they are described as Beatle-esque in popularity in the UK.

But the music story I was most interested in over the weekend was the Dixie Chicks on "60 Minutes" which is not for here.

And I'm sticking a link to my Wolfmother hate here since they were on an iTunes/iPod commercial last week and I sort of know a teenager who had two of her iPods stolen which bugs her one parent to know end because he has to replace them.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/05/wolfmother-their-natural-seventies.html

"Teenage vulnerability is the official language of the Internet," it is claimed, by Greenwald. Asinine quotes are the basic phlogiston/hydrogen molecule of newspapers. This was no exception, but perfect for the article.

McFly was briefly on in the background of Ebert & Ropeman as they reviewed Lohan's new movie last night. Not enough to persuade me to buy it even though they are described as Beatle-esque in popularity in the UK.

But the music story I was most interested in over the weekend was the Dixie Chicks on "60 Minutes" which is not for here.

And I'm sticking a link to my Wolfmother hate here since they were on an iTunes/iPod commercial last week and I sort of know a teenager who had two of her iPods stolen which bugs her one parent to no end because he has to replace them.

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/05/wolfmother-their-natural-seventies.html

So, Kelly's D is radder because it's longer, BUT ... the Lillix song is a considerably more ballistic - approx. 148 BPM vs. 130 BPM - and the Lillix singer's hollering is pretty darn full-bodied sounding, though smaller sounding than Kelly's pretty extraordinary belting.

"if she/they hit a higher note right after "feet on the floor," like hitting the "on" note for "feel it..." as well, then it would be much closer to "4ever" et al. I don't know if that's exactly what they were going for, there's no climactic note/line in "Beat of My Heart" either, except maybe "Away away." Maybe it's all those shouting voices singing such a restrained chorus."

That was in response to this from Abby who originally linked to the song earlier:

"I've been listening to the Lillix a lot, and I have to say it's growing on me, especially the pacing. But I have managed to pinpoint my issue with that chorus: the sense of strain on the vocal range.

Ok, imagine Hilary Duff was singing it - think how much clearer, easier that "Get your feet on the floor" would be because of her voice. Now listen to the obvious trouble Tasha-Ray/Lacey-Lee has hitting that top part. For me, that's what brings it down, even though they've layered with lower shouting and volume and changed the feel of it, I still hear it and think "Not quite there, honey." And that's a shame, because the rest of it is really well written. It'll be interesting to hear the rest of the album and find out if she really can't make those notes, or if it was just this song that was written this way."

You make me wanna LA-la in the kitchen on THE floor
I'll be your FRENCH maid when I meet you at THE door
I'm like an ALLEY cat
Drinkin' milk up I WANT more

oh god nooo, someone brought back Real McCoy from the dead. is nothing sacred?

what next Bad Boys Blue?

they still have 5,000-10,000 12" singles in the 25 cent graveyard section of Rasputin's Newark, but i don't think there's been a good dump (even a couple handfuls is a goldmine) of 80's dance or Eurodance in onver a year. i do have some crazy good 80's euro 12" from that store.

the 15,000+ vinyl lps in the adjacent 25 cent album graveyard has been quiet for a while too...i loaded up a boxful in january, but i don't see any big influx.

they did have a brand new dump of about 15,000 into their 15/$10 cds...ha. a sealed copy of the SLEEPOVER soundtrack! (alexi vega movie i actually saw in the theatres). and a sealed Tangled Up In Me cd single. and i dunno, i filled up a plastic crate with 75 cds by the time i was done...including a dozen of the first two britney albums (and some other random things) to sell at our gigs for 50 cents each...music is for the people you dig.

but when you get down the serious music....it's all about the Kylie 12"ers. that and the occasional PWL 12" remix that actually doesn't suck.

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for about one week i have played Behind These Hazel Eyes and Since U Been Gone, with an occasional Because Of You and/or Walk Away (? the most recent hit) thrown into the cd-program, over and over and over at near-deafening volume. ok, at least once a day.

has year 2005 already started yet?

lesson again learned that you haven't really heard something until you throw it up onto a loud stereo system, even just mid-fi as opposed to high-fi or low-fi.

Dr/Max have great judgement in live studio drummers...the (two) guys who played on those tracks are awesome. from 1998 on out, i have loved Max Martin's percussion/rhythm section tracks.

If you're gonna buy records by those hippie singer-songwriters (below) then i have a few dozen early Cat Stevens albums i can get you for 25 cents/ea at the nearby Newark Rasputin's "graveyard store" (where's there's always 10,000-15,000 25 cent lps).

singers should just fucking sing and leave the writing to the professionals. two words = Eric Burdon & the Animals! bad things can happen when you let an act write "their original materia, man." ok, Miranda Lambert is allowed cause she's got skills. speaking of singers --

yes -- the Mylie Cyrus (billy ray's girl in real life and on the TV show) tune "Best of Both Worlds" being played on Radio Disney sounds awesome! didn't make much of an impression on my 3" TV speakers, but on the bathroom boombox her twangy accent really jumps out in a great way.

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why Skye Sweetnam is smarter than all of us:

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Lowdown/2006/04/25/1549941.html

good lord, d'you think she wrote enough songs in pre-production (for the album).
70? are you sure 70's enough? maybe 170 would do the trick.

70 songs sounds like a mercury/venus conjunct in Gemini (hers) to me. plus the Taurus sun for the hard work.

xpost that Metal Mike Real McCoy bit was in reference to the BWO video for "Temple of Love."

I think they made the right choice in holding off on the chorus until after the second verse on "Sweet Temptation," though. It would have sounded forced after the first verse (and that little run they do in place of the chorus after the verse is a nice "fakeout," as you say - building tension leading to the release after the second verse).

The Veronicas song really has two short verses before the chorus (four lines each), I would say.

The Lillix song is really no different compositionally, but they performed it and arranged it as New Wave music per se and that's why I'm hearing it as much more of a transcendent track. It transcends contempo teenpop by being New Wave and it transcends New Wave revivalism by being contempo teenpop!

I love the Lillix track but "4ever" feels like the better song, tighter, better sung, better hooks. Like they've set these (admittedly familiar) marks in the song and just nail them, production and vocals, whereas the Lillix single feels like it should be just a little sharper, especially in the chorus. It has other things going for it...the 1-2-3-4 bridge, the fakeout (which I like)...kind of a tough call.

(wld also b gd bandname)

It was I who wrote that hateful message.

Still unimpressed, but looking again, do agree with Frank on the crumpet factor.

Q: Was this year challenging?

A: yeah... very... not school but just what happens behind school...

O.K , so now I'm freaked out , I'm really scared . I know I shouldn't complain because everything seems to be going so well for me , but this is not my doing , all I did was sign a deal , put up a few songs on myspace , and everyones gotten all excited , I on the other hand am shitting myself . I've been hyped so much , i feel fucked . I feel like my live thing isn't living up to what people think it should , but I've only ever done two shows . People are giving me shit for being a mockney and denying my middle class roots , but the songs I sound mockney on I recorded when I was 18 and probably WAS pretending to be something I wasn't , the album gets progressively posher though , infact the last thing I redcorded I practically sound like camilla parker bowles on .Most of all , I feel like I'll be letting everyone down if I don't sell fuck loads of records , and that's not what I wen't into this for , it's meant to be fun , no ? I know take the highs with the lows and all that , but I'm on the rag , I have a huge spot on my chin and I feel like shit .

(Prose I'm talking about, though I have no problem with her lyrics. Not as rich or subtle as they'll get in the future.)

Finally saw the video for that big Panic! At The Disco song. The lead singer is very effeminate isn't he? I wonder how teenage boys are processing it. Is it some sort of Brandon Flowers thing taken to extremes?

frank

Amy Diamond's new single has hit the Swedish charts at #4, realplayer link on http://sr.se/p3/topplistor/hitlistan/ - it's not especially dis-similar to her other stuff...

Also, Magnus Carlsson and Andreas Lundstedt - the two blokes from Alcazar - have solo singles in the top five. Neither is especially stunning.

Throughout dinner -- where we're joined by the girls' dad, Mark, who owns a successful contracting company -- kidnapping comes up in coversation. Carrie says that hen the girls were invited to a party Elton John was giving, she sent a body guard with them, because "if they got in someone else's care, I could never see them again." Hollywood, mom and daughters agree, is "full of freaks." Later on, Aly pets her big black dog Saint vigorously (they're about to get two puggle pups, too), and says he's there to protect them from "perverts."

You're home-schooled girls in a gated suburb -- why are you so afraid of kidnapping?

"It's not a fear of ours, Aly says."We just want people to be aware. You could live in a nice neighborhood and there could be some perv there. You never know."

Later, re: home-schooling:

Given the pronounced Christian overtones in the home-schooling movement, we can't help but ask the girls for their thoughts on that cultural hot potato, intellgient design.

Do you believe in evolution?

"No," AJ says, shaking her head and frowning.

"Wait, Aly says," bolting forward. "Are they teaching that in schools now?"

They've ben teaching it for the beter part of a century.

"I think that's kind of disrespeectful," Aly says. "Anything that has to do with anybody's beliefs on religions, that should stay out of the classroom. I mean, I think people should be able to pray in schol, if people were into that. Everybody should just do their own gig."

"Evolution is silly," AJ adds. "Monkeys? Um, no."

Clarkson uses them more as texture/orchestration. "Beautiful Disaster" is a great example of an implied higher third harmony that just begs to be properly sung tight with the main melody, but instead, and very cleverly, as it adds an element of teasing frustration of sound desire, is sung by a whole mess of Kellys, panned hard left and right like a keyboard.

The Veronicas tend to go for that tight harmony thing straight-out, which might explain why people seem to react to them being more 'real' or something. Whatever, the combination of the crazy-perfect production and the very human two part singing is terrific.

But that leads to some Dead Ringers weirdness: They're identical twins. So do they have identically toned voices? Who's singing what? Are they two identities or a human doubling machine?

"sos" on vh1 (#3 on top 20) right now. seriously, that song keeps getting
better. which is amazng since i got a leaked mp3 back in late Jan...4
montgs later it's still fave song of 06. too bad the album sux. current
single (ballad) is just ok. the sean paul song is good tho. butr it's
basically just a choruis sung like 18x in a row.

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METAL MIKE SUNDERS VIA EMAIL:
i've never liked a single tune i've heard by A&A, so i know absolutely nothing them except that they suck. honest, i don't even know which Disney cable TV show they come from...since i did notice/see part of the lame TV movie.

on the other hand i LOVE love love Mylie Cyrus's voice...man, does she have a whopper of an accent. y'all.

A&A can kiss Mylie's ass.

Jimmy Draper CD-R'd me all the Max Martin-related cuts of the Bo Bice, Pink, and Marion Raven albums. i totally dug the Pink and Bo tunes and productions. only one of the Marion tunes made much an impression. the CD-R also had five of the Marie (Sernekolt of the A*Teens) album cuts and i REALLY liked them...they sounded just like a tamer more Adult AC version of the A*Teens style. the Veronicas, marit Larsen, West End Kids, and Amy Diamond cuts on the back half of the CD-R made no impression.

there's a small truckload of Girls Aloud CD-singles/UK over at Dublin tower (marked down to) $2.99 or $3.99 and i'm trying to remember if they ever had a good song. I brought home "Love Machine" because it had the best sleeve but haven't opened it yet. Best find in that rack (CD-singles) was Rachel Stevens' best single "I Said never Again" for $2.99 sealed.

i brought home a sealed SLEEPOVER soundtrack CD from the 15/$10 bin (of about 15,000 cds...or 14,925 after i was finished) and would like to point out -- Brie Larson was one of the MEAN girls in that movie, i'm pretty sure. i liked it a lot and wanted to see it again but it vanished even quicker than Mean Girls itself buried New York Minute. which i liked (in the movie theatre) and i'm about to run a sealed $1 VHS tape of same any night now as the featured home movie attraction. one of the hated Olsens as surly "chick rocker" (w/guitar)...too much.

METAL MIKE SAUNDERS VIA EMAIL:

oh god i haate fuckin Rooney.
> i'm a very picky old man you gotta realize.
> i'd like to shave their dopey heads with a Marine buzzsaw
> induction barbershop blade, for sure.

> pop puppet = a grand tradition. Fabian actually had about a
> dozen sides during 1959-1961 that rocked like hell and he sang like
> a howling punk rock future with none whatsoever (future). all
> over, within 18 months. that's how i prefer my "artistic
> credibility." set it to zero and i'm a happy man. people thinking
> they're as talented as the Beatles...that's what gets my blood
> boiling.

> haven't heard any Ashley Parker A except what excerpts were on
> the TV show, and the live TRL slot of the single.

i grew up in the era of 1965-66 garage bands, and saw firsthand (in highschool) the hippie mentality take over by the end of the 60's (and beyond till this day) of "we only play original material, man" which i think ruined rock and roll forever. (as compared to its high point in the mid-60's, for rock bands anyway). even bands that don't have this "i'm a muuusian, man" fuckhead attitude (from the punk/new wave days) still suffered from hippie-fallout in their basic orientation re material.

for every talented writing team like Holder-Lea (Slade), there's idiots like the Sweet who had NO BUSINESS thinking they could write anything but B-sides (ok, and the revised version of "Fox On The Run" that became the 45 side).

instead, since the start of the 70's you have writers becoming singers-songwriters in order to get their tunes heard (when they'd be better off spending 100% of their time writing), and strong performers/bands whose writing output usually goes bad pretty quickly. even an all time great band like Black Sabbath only had 2 good albums of material in them! (their 2nd and 3rd lps). bands like AC/DC or Kiss that had 6 whole albums of material (before they started to suck) are by far the rarity.

i'm a big fan of the Motown division of labor -- producer / writer / performer -- and always will be. no one expects acts to produce or engineer their own recordings in order to have "credibility," so why should songwriting be any different?

Elvis (through the early 60's) and Frank Sinatra functioned brilliantly as their own A&R men (choosing their own material) (in Elvis' case from stacks of acetates of song-demos, ha many of the early 60's west coast ones sung by PJ Proby)....sure didn't seem to hurt them re putting their personal stamp on their sound/recordings. (if there's a better 2-sided #1 hit than "Marie's The Name / Little Sister," i sure never heard it. .

if i were in a big national rock band, the very first thing i would do is put out a cattle call for MATERIAL WANTED. you never know what great tune in your genre might be stuck out in Nebraska somewhere without a connection to ever get it heard anywhere except in demo form on its myspace page.

bands with their own in-house "lyricist" (ie ALL lyrics, by a non-band member re performance or recordings) like Procol Harum or the Grateful Dead (altho their music sure sucked) were a curious phenomenon of the late 60's.

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JIMMY DRAPER VIA EMAIL:

not-so-good girls aloud = anything on 1st album

great girls aloud= everytrhing else (when Xenomania took control!).
particularly the girl-power song "no good advice" and "models", which
is
like a manic muppets theme song. but the BEST GA song EVER is the
recent
b-side "i dont really hate you" ("...i just dont want to date you"),
which i
once worked out at the Y for 8 days straight listening to only that
song on
repeat. which is excessive even for me,..

GA's "love machine" sux, as does the arctic monkey's cover of it.
sugababes'
cover of AM's "...dance floor" is brilliant, tho. sugas' cover of that
metal/rock/classic rock band (i don't ev en know what counts as WHAT
anymroe) about "living 4 the weekend" something or other is trash tho!
(hard
lesson? hard-fi? i forget which band...probs hard-fi cuz U.K.)

Has anybody else heard Meg and Dia? Teen-emo sisters (twins maybe?) from Utah, album out later this summer. Also they have two boys in their band, which makes them look like the A*Teens, and I was hoping they'd at least sound like the Veronicas, but sadly they do not. More like the Cranberries, I guess, yuck. (If you're gonna be a pop-hating teenager, better to go the route of this 17-year-old guitar prodigy girl from Long Island, who prefers Nektar and Gentle Giant):

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=4182039

http://www.myspace.com/megdia

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1776732,00.html

Elsewhere in the mag. they're big up a forthcoming best music books ever feature and say: "A surprise early contender? Chuck Eddy's Stairway to Hell"