Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

My biggest surprise was, on 9/11, liking Animal Collective more than 50 Cent and both of them more than Kanye. I would've assumed the opposite order. Or maybe 50 at the bottom. Of course, I haven't heard any of them since so I can't really explain why, except that AC was catchy and weird, 50 was bangin', and Kanye gets progressively more annoying and less weird or bangin'.

Also, second being pleasantly surprised by Fall Out Boy.

I have all kinds of problems with that "Best Artist" category. I ended up voting for Fania Records because they were probably responsible for the most good music issued this year, even if none of it was actually created this year. Then The-Dream, because he wrote "Bed" and "Umbrella." Then T-Pain, Akon, and Wayne, because I typically liked whatever they did and they maybe affected the sound of the year more than anyone else? But it seems like a chump's game. I feel like a chump. But I'd feel more like a chump just voting for the top 5 from my album list.

xhuxk, Tiger Army placed 40 spots higher on my albums list :-P

Possibly under best artists we should have voted for painters (except I have a really poor eye - or anyway, poor attention span - when confronted by "the visual arts," so I wouldn't have known what to vote for).

My five were:

1. Britney Spears
2. Brie Larson
3. Antonina Armato and Tim James
4. Kelefa Sanneh
5. Danja

I voted for Britney partly based on her Website writing, and for Brie pretty much entirely based on her Website writing and the one short story of hers I read in her lit mag. (I just got the Hoot DVD from the library, but I haven't watched it yet. I've never seen her act.)

I voted for Kelefa Sanneh on the basis of his writing. And my votes for Armato & James and for Danja were based partly on their songwriting.

Actually, I was thinking of voting for Poptimists and for The Rolling Country Thread, but I decided against voting for anything I was involved in, or anyone I was friends with.

One of my artist slots went to OiNK. R.I.P., buddy.

This was Akon's year, for sure.

I tried to shy away from people who were involved in my albums/singles, although I did vote for Elias de Leon exec. produced about four of my favorite reggaeton albums of the year, and for the Clutch, but I added them to my ballot before I added "The Way I Are", and Autotune, which makes a few appearances here and there. So guess only Swizz Beatz and Danny Fornaris got away scott-free.

...de Leon who...

By the way, do we want to have a rolling teenpop thread next year? My basic feeling is that the spark is long gone and that the good pop convos are happening elsewhere, not on ilX. An argument in favor of keeping the thread going would be that some people post here whom I might not get to see otherwise, or info gets posted I don't know about, etc.

So, if someone else wants to start one I'll probably contribute, but I'm not going to be the one to start it.

I know a bunch of jerks joke about the seriousness of this thread, but it's been thought-provoking and fun to read all year. Thanks, dudes. You'll be missed if you go, Frank.

Of course there should be one.

I'd miss it if it weren't here. I see some of the stuff I think Frank's referring to elsewhere, Poptimists and whatnot, but I like to think of the yearly rolling threads--and the teenpop one interests me most of all despite my still not being that cozy with the term--as places to kind of round up some of what's being said elsewhere and just to find out about new tunes, etc. I guess this does happen on the livejournal pages and whatnot, but those don't feel like the sorts of places you just pop your head in to make a stray comment--the way it feels fine to do here--but that's probably just me. (Also, having an entire years worth of stuff to search on one screen is kinda swell.)

I've actually preferred this thread the past couple months, when it has seemed less insular; for most of this year, I couldn't follow the discussion at all. And Poptimists (and whatnot?) has never drawn me in, though if somehow can offer me a clue about how it might do so, I'm open to trying it in the '08...(I.e., does Potimists even have a teenpop thread? If not, what is the equivalent, exactly?)

(Basically, I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with Scott. If there's something better out there, I'm happy to move on. But if so, I've never seen it.)

How about carrying on in a broader "rolling pop" or "rolling U.S. charts" thread in 2008? The best discussions on this thread as far as I could see were the ones that weren't confined to just Radio Disney or stuff specifically aimed at teens/tweens but pop in general (also obviously I have always hated the "teenpop"-as-one-word thing).

I like the idea of a more broad "rolling pop" thread myself, but I'm game for whatever people decide. As long as there's something. (I do kind of like the genre-specificy of some of the rolling threads, too, so I can see both arguments.)

"Rolling pop", yes.

I wonder if RT2k7 just needs a slight makeover. Instead of being genre heavy (and let's be honest, though we mainly touch on young teenager pop, we also touch on a whole lot of over kinds of music here) maybe we need some title that gives us the freedom to talk about all kinds of music. And maybe something that holds the promise of what RT2H* holds: Intelligent, thoughtful, and considered discussion about a wide swath of music.

So: Rolling Debutante's Ball 2008, anyone?

"I regret not listing Fergie (or anyone) on my Idolator ballot as "artist of the year," which I didn't have time to think about."

Scott, I had a similar epiphany w/r/t Fergie this year as well. She pretty much dominated radio in Australia ("Big Girls Don't Cry" probably the biggest radio hit of the year, give or take "Beautiful Girls" - the version of the former with Sean Kingston on guest vocals kinda triangulates the choice). That and "Glamorous" and in the last few months "Clumsy" really warmed up the radio - "Clumsy" in particular is the kind of song that is so interesting as a radio hit. I had to vote for three artists of the year in my local rag, and chose her for precisely that reason.

xpost

Excuse me Al Shipley, but I don't particularly give a fuck what you want or don't want, because if you're on a thread I'm likely to stay off it for that reason alone.

Whoa.

I like both Al and Frank, and I'm in favor of a "rolling pop" thread.

Alright, then.

Who is 'Al Shipley'?

I like teenpop. I mean, there's a minimal thread, why not a teenpop one?

This is seriously the best thread on ilm, the one I'm way too intimidated to post on ever really.

Who is 'Al Shipley'?

-- Mordechai Shinefield, Monday, December 31, 2007 1:41 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

That'd be me. I always thought it was somehow less rude or antagonistic to criticize this thread from the outside, perhaps other people felt the opposite. Either way, I probably did cross a line somewhere and don't fault Frank for feeling a certain way about it, so I'll try and stop posting on this thread right now.

i'd be v. much in favor of "rolling pop 2008" which i guess is basically what we did on the rolling 2007 charts thread and that was pretty cool when it was revived.

i'd imagine that rolling pop 2008 would just evolve into rolling us charts thread 2008 anyway, and that would be a good thread.

Yeah the "teen" disctinction isn't really needed, I'd rather it was just "Rolling Pop" - it's more inclusive.

Yeah, I guess that would be the only question: whether to separate out the charts thread for those who didn't care about the charts. But if you're interested in pop, you're probably interested in the charts at least a little, I'm guessing.

tbh there should be a rolling teenpop thread 2008 bcuz there is a pretty big distinction between talking about aly & aj and radio disney spins and playaz circle, finger eleven or shop boyz.

THAN playaz circle etc.*

anyway you dudes do what you want

My basic feeling is that the spark is long gone and that the good pop convos are happening elsewhere, not on ilX.

Where? And I really, really hate posting on Livejournal.

yeah, where? certainly not that awful poptimist LJ community..

The community is fine, Brainwasher. It's just the format that bugs me. I don't like the posts - comments setup. I love one long rolling forum for discussion. It feels much less confined.

Agreed.

And I hope the sour note I struck with that last post doesn't undermine what I'm about to say further, but Tim F., I'm really glad you're well and healthy.

I'd think a "rolling pop thread" would be too broad and blah, but since I'm not the one who's going to be starting the thread, I won't protest whatever decision you guys make (and it does seem that some people want to keep on, so go for it). An advantage of the "teenpop" moniker is that it seems like kid stuff, which gives it both the positive and negative energy that comes from most of the world assuming it's too childish for the serious attention we give it. Of course, some of it is too childish, which is why we keep veering towards other music. But in fact I don't think the title has been a restraint on what we talk about. I've been veering wherever I wanted to, and one reason I started the teenpop thread was so that I'd stop talking about Lohan and Duff et al. on the rolling country thread. (Go back to December 2005 on rolling country to see the shenanigans I was pulling. I once brought in Madonna on the pretext that she'd worn a cowboy hat on the cover of a previous album.) And part of my method in talking about things is talking about the negative space that surrounds it, competing genres, the reaction of kids who'd find the "kid" role oppressive, etc., which also opens us up pretty well.

Frank, now that you said all that (plus what I emailed you), why won't you start the new thread?

Al, you did cross a line ("I don't honestly think that Frank or anyone else on the thread is a paedophile, but you have to admit that at the very least, something like this is ripe for ridicule"), but it isn't for me to keep you off a thread, especially since the thread should be more what you guys want than what I want. And I haven't in general thought "Here's a guy with nothing to say" when I read you, just that you have your dangerous moments, hence I'm wary.

Mordy, 'cause it shouldn't be my thread. If I think it's losing its spark, then it really should be more in the hands of people who want to give it their own spark.

rolling US charts 2008/talk about "pop" here

I don't know if saying something leaves itself open to ridicule is as bad or worse than actually ridiculing that thing (not to saying I never ridiculed to any extent, just that I criticized seriously more often than jokingly), but point taken.

("not to saying" ugh please to ridicule my own garbled diction)

OK. Peace. And sorry I was so intemperate in the way I expressed myself, and thanks for not responding in kind.

I find livejournal really frustrating too, plus with poptimists you've got to get up at like 6 in the morning Mountain Time or most of the conversations are over. Freaky Trigger coulda worked, maybe, except the print is too small. So it isn't like there's another specific gathering place for "teenpop" (or whatever) other than here. Things'll hop from Nia's journal to bedbugs to Freaky Trigger to this thread to Will's blog to Hazel's journal to Lex's journal to poptimists to Mike's blog to Cis's journal to Kat's journal to Dave's journal etc. And people will often put a discussion under lock and key, which frustrates me because I can't then tell my friends to go look at it. But those various places had what was for me the real Paris and Britney and Aly & A.J. convos (plus Girls Aloud and Kylie and Cascada etc.), plus a line on a whole landscapes and cave's worth of music I barely know.

I think ilX really lost something when Tom and Mark and a lot of those people basically decamped (I mean, they still pop in occasionally, but...).

(But not sure that putting "charts" in your threads title will get you what you want. Narrows it in a different way. As I said, up to you guys. Is J0rdan's thread the one you want?)

Is it worth stressing the minutiae?

rev otm but i put charts in the title because the 07 charts thread is where we talked about pop(ular) music without only talking about itunes sales and shit. i would like ppl to post links to new songs and stuff but whatever we'll see where it goes.

an all encompassing pop thread would make my head explode esp. in a world where people say with a straight-face that battles are a "pop" band

The teenpop thread has to keep going because the battle to integrate the genre into a discussion of pop music in general hasn't been won. Sure, Britney's album got its own thread, but we couldn't have discussed Ashley Tisdale's album on a general pop thread and gotten a good discussion out of it. The teenpop thread exists for a good reason: it's a real genre, with real depth and complex songs, that is completely dismissed by the majority of pop music fans on ILM. The Paris Hilton album comes to mind-- Lex started a thread about it that became a continued series of people mocking him for starting it, and on the teenpop thread the album got the serious discussion it deserved.

"Pop" sounds way more bland and chickenshit and compromised than "teenpop" to me; it's too all-encompassing (plus just wait until it gets overrun by Big Star and Blue Ash and Badfinger fans.) (Not that they should be shut out or anything. Sometimes I'm even one of those myself.)

And my problem with "U.S. charts" is, uh, what about teenpop that doesn't make the U.S. charts (like, say Skye Sweetnam and Hope Partlow and the Veronicas and Pretty Donkey and fill-in-the-Europop-star-I-never-heard-of in the past few years)? Where does that go?

I suggest: Rolling Bubblegum Thread '08. (But it's too late now, maybe.)