Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread

Brie seriously needs to find this thread, guaranteed she'll take some pointers AND participate. This should be a two-way process. In case she googles her name impulsively: Brie Larson Henry Miller Bunnies and Traps (hey, they have a theme song).

Whom does she model herself on?

I imagine Ashlee models herself on Kara DioGuardi more than anyone else. Kara doesn't seem to be full of shit; her music (with Platinum Weird anyway) just isn't as good as her proteges'.

Fefe's new album, Sunday Love, was technically (accidentally) released before (or while) Island dropped her, but I haven't found a physical copy of it. Hopefully it will get properly released in 2007. A couple of the tracks are great, particularly "If I Was a Guy" and "As a Blonde." I have most of the album if anyone wants to hear it, or at least a couple of other tracks.

"The Math" got Radio Disney play (I think), which should probably be enough to count it as a "single," since they don't really operate on the same wavelength as Billboard...basically if they play it, it's a single.

Brie Larson isn't particulary earnest althought her latest songs have been. Hilary Duff is part earnest/part not earnest. But no more earnest that Britney or Xtina were. Ooh, Hope Partlow's "Crazy Summer Nights", you might like that Lex it's a totally non-earnest teen pop song. All about the fun! Although it does have guitars. Actually this is harder than I thought.

I hear it as "You will be desperate and dying inside." Lindsay does an amazing "I wanna see you CRAWLING." But basic point is right. "First" is incredibly funny, making a joke out of her self-involvement. (Of course, Kara and John wrote "First," but they did a great job of finding words to embody Lindsay's image. (Or, perhaps, to create that image in my mind in the first place, since that was the first notice I ever took of her.))

But anyway, dancepop is all over teenpop radio; problem is that most of it is mediocre dancepop, 'cept for stuff they pull in from outside the Disney orbit (Chris Brown, JoJo, Rihanna). There are some promising *NSync-like tendencies in Corbin Bleu and Jesse McCartney, but nowhere near *NSync's strength.

By the way, I'm not sure how to categorize Hannah Montana and High School Musical musically (I mean, other than as "teenpop").

Here's the Naked Brothers Band site on Nickelodeon. Two good songs out of four. "Cra-a-a-a-azy car, leads me nowhere."

Second: Is Taana Gardner teenpop? Obviously there are arguments why she isn't, but I hear teenpop in her music - and that sense of young exuberance that is especially in vogue in Disney. (btw; Frank, thanks for the recommendation - she's amazing.)

Third: There's a new High School musical out this year, right?

Kill Hannah "I Love You to Death"
Cartoons (?) "Witch Doctor"
Turtles "Happy Together"
Simple Minds "Don't You Forget About Me"
Cascada "Everytime We Touch"
Melody Club "Baby"
Richard Hell & The Voidoids "Blank Generation"
Paula DeAndra "Walk Away"
One had her song deleted by artist, but has McFly pics as her wallpaper (she's from Denver)
One just posted the lyrics to Evanescence's "Immortal" in a MySpace bulletin
One just posted how unhappy she was to be too young to go to the Fall Out Boys show.

Whatver--if she doesn't exnay te tabloid thing, she's fucked.

Btw, Luke hasn't scored a U.S. hit since "Behind These Hazel Eyes," though he's produced and co-written a number of great tracks (and some mediocrities and duds, too).

So where do those indie influences go?

Also -- Meg & Dia placed very high in Absolutepunk polls for 2006. AP is more open-minded than AlternativePress forums, but still, co-opting that album as a punk album is a stretch-and-a-half. So maybe there's a reverse influence we haven't noticed. Last year, the intro to this forum was talking about how pop-punk (like Bowling for Soup) was becoming teenpop. But what I missed was that pop was becoming pop-punk was becoming punk. (And now I see Absolutepunk.net posted the new Modest Mouse single, which just confuses everything.)

Looking forward to what Skye comes up with.

Impossible, because she's been trying to ixnay the tabloid thing. In fact, she's arguably been less successful by resisting them than Lindsay, who has for better or worse thrown herself into it and at least topped year-end lists for "Most Annoying" or whatever else. I mean, Lindsay could even go INDIE CRED at this point if she wanted to (which she very well might do with her film career). Ashlee will probably never have cred, since by all rights she should already have it (how much more "rock" could Ashlee even go?)

Unless you consider getting a nosejob "asking for it" in terms of tabloid coverage, I see Ashlee as a fairly resistant victim of tabloid culture who in her professional life (e.g. leading role in Chicago in London) is trying to gain "credibility" and very clearly shuns tabloid coverage (she never answers questions about the n'job).

As for UK teenpop, we have Lil Chris where Sweden has Amy Diamond and I think that pretty much says it all. Even teenage popstars have to get Jo Whiley's permission these days. I do think there might be a place for a pop group aiming at under-12s though, as High School Musical has been very successful here, and hideous childrens TV show theme songs (namely LazyTown, which I hadn't even heard of before I saw the music video) can still go top 5. I think Chipz should be launched here!

As for UK teenpop, we have Lil Chris where Sweden has Amy Diamond and I think that pretty much says it all. Even teenage popstars have to get Jo Whiley's permission these days. I do think there might be a place for a pop group aiming at under-12s though, as High School Musical has been very successful here, and hideous childrens TV show theme songs (namely LazyTown, which I hadn't even heard of before I saw the music video) can still go top 5. I think Chipz should be launched here!

I was going to say something about Lil Chris, then wondered whether he wasn't really teenpop but pop for older people to think was teen? Either way, I agree wholly about the Whiley Factor. Good god, I hate that woman. Not quite as much as I hate that Sportacus git from Lazytown (which takes over TMF for TWO HOURS every morning) but still.

Also must give thanks to this thread for making me stop and check out Brie Larson finally - going by all the subcult trappings of her nonmusic activities I bet she won't be making teenpop much longer, for better or worse.

I'd like to see a heightened youth-Musical vibe to teen-pop actually. I was watching Camp again for the umpteenth time last week and my boyfriend pointed out that no-one really tends to put out songs like "Here's Where I Stand" anymore (when did they?). The closest is Christina Aguilera but her big numbers don't grapple with youth in the same way.

I guess I'm asking for more earnestness! Sorry Lex!

The teens I know here do indeed like, say, MCR, Marilyn Manson, AFI and maybe some emo bands.

Back to blindiningly obvious--when does it stop being teenpop, I mean, especially considering that most of the first wave are all growed up and all? Is it an age, a marketing idea, a concept of an age group or an aesthetic that's temprally bound or, um, what?

Kelly Clarkson - "Because of You" (January 6, 2006)
Fall Out Boy - "Dance, Dance" (January 17, 2006)
Mariah Carey - "Don't Forget About Us" (February 6, 2006)
Madonna - "Hung Up" (February 6, 2006)
Kelly Clarkson - "Walk Away" (June 1, 2006)
Fall Out Boy - "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"" (June 6, 2006)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Dani California" (July 10, 2006)
Fort Minor - "Where'd You Go" (July 17, 2006)
Christina Aguilera - "Ain't No Other Man" (September 26, 2006)
Justin Timberlake featuring Timbaland - "SexyBack" (October 10, 2006)
AFI - "Love Like Winter" (December 11, 2006)

Nothing too shocking here, Kelly Clarkson and Fall Out Boy are huge of course, as we all know. A bit surprised to see "Hung Up" and the Chilis here, but whatever, maybe it's just that the videos were great. And what's up with no Fergie-ferg. Screw you kids.

it is funny but - like a lot of their earnest material - it's funny precisely because it's over-earnest! and i love it but at heart it's a cathartic rock song which takes more cues from courtney love than anything else lohan has sung. essentially - i am fine with this being a key part of teenpop but it's ALL like this now.

I was going to say something about Lil Chris, then wondered whether he wasn't really teenpop but pop for older people to think was teen?

i think this is correct, he seems pitched very much at an older popjustice demographic. anyway don't get me started on lil fucking chris, everyone i know loves it but it just fills me with horror. more proof that pop has forgotten a key First Principle ie "we dance to disco and we DON'T. LIKE. ROCK."

I must say I don't really understand the rock/pop dichotomy Lex appears to use here much - at least not in relation to teenpop. "U + Ur Hand" is a good example of the murkiness of the divide at the moment: yes, the chorus is the big earnest rock soar, but it's simultaneously the big pop manoeuvre within the song (conversely the "mature" "Nobody Knows" is like Pink's rapprochement with Christina Aguilera).

Of course I'm sure no-one at this thread would be pleased if rocky teenpop came at the expense of stuff like, say, "A Public Affair", but as per Frank I don't think pop is currently so dominated by one idea that this could happen. The success of Fergie and Nelly Furtado last year show this - "Hollaback Girl" has become a pop sub-genre now in the same way that "Sk8ter Boi" became a pop sub-genre in 2003/4.

Lady Sovereign's "Love Me Or Hate Me" triumphed on TRL, but this didn't result in radio play; Pink's "U & Ur Hand" got only minor radio action; ditto Paris's "Nothing In This World."

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.)

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

See, this all just seems really diffuse to me, and makes the discussion even more closed, somehow. And confusing; I've probably never even seen most of the journals and blogs that Frank is referring to; I'm not even sure what most of them are. Which is probably why I never managed to get caught up in the discussions in those places, or to join in there. If somebody says something really smart in one of those places, why can't it just be quoted or linked to from Rolling Whatever? -- which, as even Frank seems to be admitting, seems to be the only place where all sorts of conversations can converge. (As for individual-album threads, like the Britney or Paris ones, I've never looked at those, and have no intention to; I can't really imagine caring that much about any particular album.) (Well, okay, I cared that much about a Big N Rich album once. But that was the exception that proves the rule I guess.) And anyway, what makes the rolling threads great is that they can go off on wide-ranging tangents -- except those rolling threads where idiots get upset when such tangents happen, which hasn't seemed to be a problem with the teenpop one.

Gotta run until '08 but:

Rolling Bubblegum Thread '08.

Seconded if someone else wants to start it.

rolling US charts 2008/talk about "pop" here

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

2008 isn't for another few hours. But if no one starts it before 12:01 AM EST tonight, I will.

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Bubblegummy goodness continues: Rolling Debutante Bubblegum Teenpop Thread 2008

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bye thread