Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

Also, the "I feel safe with you" part comes in the break, which has a sound - a slow and serious climbing up the notes - very different from the rest of the song. It's brief, but suggests something at stake (sex being about acceptance, self-acceptance), then the song goes back to the exuberant lala fuckaraound.

And then on I Am Me she's trying on a bunch of musical roles.

But anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about, really, because "Don't Save Me" is awesome and I'd put it all on Marit's shoulders. The way she sings it, phrases it - I'm willing to contemplate the possibility that "Don't turn the truth around/It reads the same way upside down" isn't the greatest lyric ever, but the way she sort of... there's not a word for it, but if there was it'd be in between snarl and smirk and snigger and sneer - the way she does that anyway, her voice gets redoubled for the punchline - fuckin' awesome. "House! Of! Cards!" And the way she lets "Don't you dare" out of her mouth, the last little "r" sound, I swear that when I sing along to that it makes the taste buds on the tongue ripple apart like velcro hooks gently unlacing themselves... it's rather bloody remarkable, really.

So, the words might belong to the category "Young Woman's Relationships Singer-Songwriter Pop" - I'll call it Tashpop for short, though I've actually so far paid no attention to the Tashbed's lyrics - but the sound isn't Tashpop at all. Anyway, I have no idea if her sound is new or if people in the know would be able to say, "Oh, her arranger is Blibbidy Blibsen, and this is what he always does." Or, "Yeah, that's the gatticky-glip-glip genre that's so popular in Denmark and Iceland these days." The Jukebox crew noticed all sorts of ABBA touches in "Don't Save Me" that passed me by (I've actually only heard a smattering of ABBA's biggest songs). To my ears, her musical elements aren't new, but she's fashioned them into something unique. So she's neither teenpop nor Tashpop, and on two songs at least she's found a way to sidestep a problem (a problem for me, anyway, if not for the performers) that Natasha and Alanis and KT Tunstall and Dido etc. have, which is that they do the "bright young woman with something to say" thing by flaunting a pseudosmart hard edge and vocal mastery and control, all of which tends to subdue the music. (Doesn't subdue it altogether, by a long shot, and I realize that these people sing this way because they like the way it sounds. But...)

Autobiography has variety too, in fact the song on it that I'm going to talk about later is a tour de force, drastically different styles of melody in the verse and chorus, Ashlee using two or three different types of vocal attack but holding the song so well together with her timbre that you hear it as a unity (I didn't notice its variety until I sat down and analyzed the thing). I'd say the difference on I Am Me - not on all the tracks, just a few of them - is that she's shifting timbre. I'll have to give this more thought. It isn't the variety per se but that she makes a few things feel like dressup: The hot disco-slut break in "Burnin' Up" is what I'm thinking of most, but also the sugar-pop chorus of "L.O.V.E." "Eyes Wide Open" feels like a mood piece - albeit hard rock. Being dark rather than a hoot, it doesn't have the feel of dressup, but it's still a change, her slow singing.

I agree that Missundaztood has a lot of variety, but once again the mood isn't dressup. Not that I'd call the overall mood of I Am Me dressup, either, but it has that element. I think. Autobiography probably has as much melodic variety - Shanks & DioGuardi are versatile - but the guitar sound and vocal timbre are more consistent.

(I've only heard a couple of tracks from Celebrity Skin. The styles on America's Sweetheart are all over the place.)

On the other hand, maybe it is. It's damn good. I hadn't even noticed it, as I was so amused, bemused, and fascinated by the sound.

No, never heard it.

I'll tell you, the other songs on here will have to be complete dogs for this album not to make my Pazz & Jop ballot. (Assuming I get to hear the album. Amazon doesn't yet know of it, at least in the U.S. Not that I could afford an import album.)

The album's title is Under the Surface.

anyway, another countertrend indicator could be (tho again, this was earlier than the current wave and also, sorta flopped maybe?) jewel's 0304.

what you heard as dress-up on the ashlee frank i more cynically heard as "trying lots of styles for singles to see what sticks" but then that's what we all do when we're growing up is see what styles stick with others and then that makes us as much as we made the styles to begin with.

the style question is less look and sound and more in song construction i feel, not that i'm going to listen to the whole album right now again and give a close reading, but the sense was just that the sorts of songs drew from lots of places, not that ashlee herself was going lots of places, or even singing about different identitiees so much as just borrowing lots of constructions along the way.

It may well be, or maybe it's "You said you were just kidding/And I say, this is no joke", though that might just be the incredible frigging popping noise she makes when she sings 'joke' - she does that with almost all those last words, and it never ever sounds forced or meta or whatever, just... wow. I'm trying to think of other modern popular singers who could do this, and struggling. Sophie Ellis-Bextor's the nearest one I could come up with, though it's hard to tell since her lyrics are almost always stunningly awful...

Need this album. Dammit.

Another name to throw out there - Hello Saferide, from Sweden. I am currently very much digging their "If I Don't Write This Song, Someone I Love Will Die" - not quite in Marit's league, but still very chirpy Scandipop with guitars and such.

(also presuming the Eurovision thread is the place to be discussing Kate Ryan's "Je T'Adore"?)

It took me a few weeks to adjust to all the New Pornographers records after the first one. Agreed about the words, but when he uses 'em well in the chorus it really kills, like on "Sing Me Spanish Techno" on the new one. Who knows what that's about, but. And on the second album, Bejar's "Ballad of the Comeback Kid" had one of the pop moments of the year for me when he yells "Like a bat out of hell..."

Obviously they're not particularly teenpop, because of the words and all (which arguably makes 'em not even very pop) but they did cover a power-pop song, here, and it's interesting to see how the style fits with the song.

Bizarre, my neanderthal downloadaphobia is starting to make me feel months behind on TEEN-POP, of all things. (Though it's not really phobia; it's just that I have so many CDs piled up I can hold in my hands that I don't get *around* to downloading, and anyway, I don't trust my judgement when I listen to music that way. It's too sterile, too much like going to a listening session where I'm not allowed to hold the record, too fucking transitory, sorry. Music is meant to be lived with, and that's just not how I live. So who knows, maybe I'll try to BUY the Marit Larsen and Aly & AJ albums someday, just like the last Toby Keith album and the Akon album and Ha-Ash and Reggaeton Ninos other stuff I still haven't gotten around to. Or maybe I won't.)

not from country thread:

Speaking of Reggaeton Ninos, I noticed in Billboard this week that there is one other album (*La Pluma Negra* by El Chichiuilte -- sounds Mexican, right?) that is both on the "Top Kid Audio Albums" chart and the "Top Latin Albums" chart, always a good sign. Anybody know anything about it or them? (Also in Billboard: "Love of My Life," a duet with Reina off the Louis Prata guido-disco album I mention above, is at #16 on the "Dance Airplay" chart. Good for him!)

* -- I DID download the Kidz Bop version of "Axel F," however. If it was a single, it'd have an outside shot at my 2006 singles ballot.

is it because it has the word daddy?

I wouldn't be surprised if some of this stuff ends up drifitng towards the hyper-production approach of the second Garbage album.

First-spin favourite apart from DSM is "This Time Tomorrow", which is a quirky, strangely-structured song that keeps shifting dynamics and has a lovely chorus.

Wonderfuly, the wholet hign sounds expensive and glossy. Hurrah.

Let me guess, "Endless Sleep" on the Nagg album is the one you thought was most Quatro-like. Digital copies don't come with credits or lyrics, so I'm guessing.

-- George 'the Animal' Steele (georg...), March 11th, 2006.

Nope -- Well, maybe, but the one I meant was "She's in Love With You," which is an actual Suzi Quatro cover. (Liner Notes to Suzi's Razor & Tie *The Wild One* comp say she took it #41 in the US and #11 in the UK in 1979 -- I'm assuming as the followup to "Stumblin' In.")
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 11th, 2006.

Didn't realize that. But the one you mention really has zing, too. "Sleep" is a thumping pop boogie, like you'd find on the first two SQ LPs. Maybe. Anyway, it's a good Nagg song and that album shoulda went further than local.
-- George 'the Animal' Steele (georg...), March 11th, 2006.

They've apparently got no qualms (in the great tradition of Girlschool, Joan Jett, and the Sirens) of doing loud shouting glam rock cover versions. Not sure who if anybody did all of these first, but these songs on the Nagg CD do not get Ward and/or Turner writing credits:
Beauty of the Bitch (Craig/Kinsley/Coates/Cashin)
Endless Sleep (Nance/Reynolds)
She's in Love With You (Chin/Chapman)
So What If I Am? (Murray/Callander)
We're Really Gonna Raise the Roof (Holder/Lea -- so Slade, obviously)
Little Boy Sad (Walker)
All I Need (Herrewig/Paliselli/Cooper/Cox)

And it is now back in my CD changer (replacing Juvenille, who I'll get around to eventually.)

-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 11th, 2006.

(And interestingly, one of my favorite Joan Jett songs has always been the one CALLED "Nag," originally apparently done I believe by a group called the Halos, who judging from her version -- I've never heard theirs -- sure must have sounded an awful lot like the Coasters.)
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 11th, 2006.

All I Need is Artful Dodger, a Virginia or Maryland glam rock band I saw open for Kiss and others in Pennsy a lot. They had a few albums on Columbia, the two best being the first s/t and Honor Among Thieves. I don't remember this song. Naggs are reminding me of The Sirens.
Endless Sleep was some kind of rockabilly hit in the late Fifties. "So What If I Am" is a song by Paper Lace I never heard, PL being the "Billy Don't Be A Hero" single act.

-- George 'the Animal' Steele (georg...), March 11th, 2006.

Wow. Those guys are record collectors! (Paper Lace actually hit in the States with "The Night Chicago Died," the opening of which -- "daddy was a cop/on the east side of Chicago/back in the USA/back in the bad old days" -- might be the first example of gansta rap ever to top US charts. Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, who also covered "Teenage Rampage" by the Sweet, had the US hit with their cover of Paper Lace's apparent Brit hit "Billy Don't Be a Hero." Which makes me wonder what connection, if any, Paper Lace and Bo Donaldson may have had to glam rock in England. Though I guess in the early Sweet/Bolan years, "glam rock" and "Top 40 teenybop singles pop" may have been one and the same there? Limeys please explain.)
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 11th, 2006.

I love I Am Me and want to know if I should invest in Lindsay. Help me ILX!

I doubt that there's a particular album that can be cited as "this is what the teenpoppers take after," but note that most of the teenpop songwriters and producers are also regular pop songwriters and producers, Magness having worked with Ballard who worked with Alanis, Shanks having worked a lot with Sheryl Crow and some with Morissette (not to mention SheDaisy, Urban, Bon Jovi, Celine, etc.) DioGuardi with Celine and Gwen, Wells with Celine, etc. etc. etc. etc.

When I first heard Garbage, I thought that Shirley was taking after Courtney (and thought this was a good thing). When I first heard Alanis I thought that she was more or less in Sheryl's genre (and that this was a good thing).

My guess from the sound and words of "Break You" and "End of Me" is that Marion's listened to Alanis. M2M once opened for Jewel, for what that's worth. Over on Poptimists Martin said that Marit's cited Alanis and Oasis as faves. Ashlee told Elle that "Let It Be" was her favorite song and that Alanis's "You Learn" was crucial to her when she was a ten year old, implying that it's still crucial to her - this makes sense given her attempts to wrench moral and intellectual insights from her problems.

You've already done scads of songs that are better than "Let It Be" and "You Learn."

Sincerely,

A Fan

Ashlee does seem to shove that cereal bowl awfully hard.

THE FRAY - Who have a song with the intriguing title "Over My Head (Cable Car)" at #64 on the singles chart, so maybe they're from San Francisco? Also their album is at #110.

PLUMB -- "One woman rock act Tiffany Arbuckle," #177 on album chart.

FLYLEAF - #140 on album chart, and, judging from a photo elsehwere in the issue, they have a female singer.

Has anybody out there heard any of these bands? What sound they like?

Not as consistently beautiful as Lacuna Coil, not as consistently tuneful as Kelly, but definitely worth listening to.

From a miniscule town in Texas.

And Britney's from neighboring Louisiana.

(Lindsay's from Long Island! I mention that because my general name for the "attractive demanding needy vocal style" is "Long Island bar-bitch vocals," by which I'm imagining a '70s Long Island bar band that comes to CBGB to display its original material, the lead singer always being a rock chick putting on tough sassy vocals. Chantal Claret of Morningwood sounds like this, the Slunt singer sounds like this, and Debora Iyall of Romeo Void singing "I might like you better if we slept together" is what they all wish they sounded like. Probably none of these people are from Long Island [and in the little contact I had in real life with Debora she seemed to be real sweetheart]. But anyway, Lindsay doesn't sound like this at all. She's more like the four-year-old with her little plastic shovel and bucket at the beach, romping around and splattering all over.)(And I wouldn't say that Lacey really sounds like the Long Island bar bitch - Jess and Lisa of the Veronicas sometimes do, however. Lacey's got more of the neediness and less of the demand in her voice.)

Legends can be true; what makes them legends is that they fit a story that cultures like to tell themselves. The Legend of Cassie is that she descended into drugs and despair and pulled herself out through Christianity, and when her life was on the line she stood by her belief. (The song has it, "The question asked in order/To save her life or take it/The answer no to avoid death/The answer yes would make it," but I don't believe that during the massacre it was clear what would save you and what wouldn't. I'm not going to research that issue, either.)

(And no I don't worked for her label, or anyone else's.)

Aren't the Veronicas from Australia (which isn't to say they aren't trying to sound like they're from Long Island, except the speak/sing track where the accent slips out)? How about New Jersey brats...Daphne and Celeste, more recently the Jonas Brothers...

"Come Closer" - Now this for sure has a banjo, but it isn't country, or if it is, a little bit, the voice is a noncountry sprite, it hops aboard the harmonica keys and jumps about. If you slowed this track to half-speed and gave it a violin section instead of a banjo, it'd be 1950s "sophisticated" lounge music, but here it's another tour of the monkey bars. In the lyrics she's inviting a guy to come closer, but what he wants is not coming in clear.

(xpost - Yes, Veronicas are from Brisbane, which is why Finney had a line on them before the rest of us upthread)

Every time I think I've had enough of you
I take you back again
Not just because I need a friend
Just because I can't pretend
Like the others do

You think you're really serious
Clever and mysterious
Talking like you're dangerous
Talking like a fool

It's possible that Avril and the various Matrices never heard that song (it was an album track, not a single), but not only does it foreshadow "Complicated," it's a hell of a lot more complicated besides, and completely assured in both its flow and its sanity.