Hilary Duff: Joy for pre-teens, not just Humbert Humbert

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[/writingrockist]

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 09:56 (sixteen years ago) link

Tom, any revolution eventually leads to evil, it's just enjoying the moment at the start of it before it all goes wrong. Surely that's true with pretty much all junctures of music/the arts?

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 09:56 (sixteen years ago) link

Yes, but then can you/should you go back again?

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 09:58 (sixteen years ago) link

Difference between the dilettante and the obsessive.

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 09:59 (sixteen years ago) link

I don't think so - is it even possible still to 'do' Smash Hits, whether you're a dilettante or obsessive or both? Doesn't it just become a pastiche?

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:04 (sixteen years ago) link

Well, surely that ties into the canon, the idea that you should return back to these "great" ideas and reference points over and over again, as if they're the base camp for music, rather than finding new areas to operate within.

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:05 (sixteen years ago) link

I mean, when you get older do you become less inclined to tear down the cathedrals, as it were?

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:09 (sixteen years ago) link

I don't think that's quite what FK's doing though - he's talking more about effects than techniques. "We need something to have the effects Smash Hits had" rather than "We need something that's like Smash Hits".

(I don't think the teenpop thread writing could have the effect SH had, by the way!)

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:10 (sixteen years ago) link

Do you think earnestness, on the whole, is a good thing?

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:13 (sixteen years ago) link

It's a good option to have!

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:14 (sixteen years ago) link

It always ends up a bit "we mean it, maaaaan" when put into practice, though.

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:15 (sixteen years ago) link

(Is the Teenpop thread the ILM equivalent of the TITTWIS threads I wonder?)

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:16 (sixteen years ago) link

i don't think the teenpop thread is particularly earnest. it can get earnest (like the music) and it's often very...precise and involved, but it's no more earnest than any other rolling thread which takes its particular genre seriously.

it IS earnest about the process of thinking about the music though, whereas some of the other genre threads are more "list songs you've been feeling recently" and little more

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:26 (sixteen years ago) link

does anyone on ilx *make* teenpop?

if not, why not?

― 696, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:27 (sixteen years ago) link

Is there any point whatsoever in me bothing to read any of the 600+ posts over the last three days?

― Scik Mouthy, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:43 (sixteen years ago) link

There's a picture of Talk Talk about 370 posts in.

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:46 (sixteen years ago) link

i tried, i failed.

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:46 (sixteen years ago) link

Nick: no. Read the last 50 and if there's anything that engages you join in with that.

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:47 (sixteen years ago) link

whatever happened to post busted british teenpop? is mcfly the only survivor? cos the lovebites and the faders where great!

― acrobat, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:50 (sixteen years ago) link

not so much the noise next door.

― acrobat, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:50 (sixteen years ago) link

http://popwatch.ew.com/photos/uncategorized/163327__warden_l.jpg

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:53 (sixteen years ago) link

Post Busted British teenpop is alive and well and called The View and The Fratellis, etcetera. It's grubbed up and pretended not to care about Kids TV, is all.

― Scik Mouthy, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:54 (sixteen years ago) link

hmmm. not sure i buy that. different business model, different marketing or a slightly differnt audience?

― acrobat, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:56 (sixteen years ago) link

666 NEW ANSWERS

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:56 (sixteen years ago) link

Slightly different on all fronts; if we're getting picky it really is politics of small differences. It's about choice of stylist. The Kooks have more in common with McFly then with... Led Zeppelin...

― Scik Mouthy, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:57 (sixteen years ago) link

"Earnestness" and "Humorlessness" and "corniness" on the teenpop thread (in relation to much of the rest of ilx), until somebody explains otherwise, seem to mean (1) People consistently write about music in actual full sentences and sometimes even paragraphs and try to spell words right and (2) No stupid overloading with photographic non-sequiturs in an inept attempt to be "funny." I don't buy it. There's as much humor there as anywhere else here.

Anyway, here is Metal Mike Saunders, certainly one teenpop-crit's patron saints for his 4000-word Voice examinations of Britney, Radio Disney, etc, a few years back, last week on (now relevant!)Dylan. "Humorless" my ass (and neither were Vom):

there's a loooong Dylan piece up on rocksbackpages that's pretty new and it must be by Ian MacDonald. if i pull it up to read it (meaing, whenever i have time since i dig through the weekly additions in sequence formthe e-mail lists, don't skip around) i'll try to remember to cut/paste it. he has some pretty new/interesting theories spanning "entire career" about mr Bob's modum operandi.

i have a theory no one else is insane enoguh to even imagine.

The Turtles rocked the fuck out of "It Ain't Me Babe" and bobby never got over it. the fuckin' Turtles man! stupid former surf band (the Crossfires) from the terminally unhip South
Bay! trumped johnny cash, trumped the Byrds' covers, jeeesus. to this day Bob goes meltdown if anyone even intimates they're goiong to say the forbidden "T" word -- Turtles. yeah, and their version really IS that good.

history eventually revealed that they had another Dylan song on the table to cover for the followup, but they decided to do P.F. Sloan (two straight two, ie Let It Be and You Baby) instead. oooh.

my theory is at least consistent with my preferences re recorded Bob-output. by a mile i'd rather hear the 1962-63-64 recordings (pre electric) than the 1965-66 crap (no band is >>> to horrible nashville rednecks dozing zzzzzz along cluelessly), and the 1964 band (Bringing It All Back Home), well, huh, that's not even really a band is it? just a ragtag bunch of pickup mooks. dylan's best electric vocals/tunes might be on that one, but that band is a real tough listen.

not to be confused with the most boring band ever, the BAND. man that bob knew how to pick his backing musicians. seriously, if the guy'd had any balls after the fake motorbike accident ( = a metaphor for his dopey marriage i guess) left him clueless and shoeless --

he'd have bought full on Marshall amps/stacks, worked up some old Stanley Brothers brothers songs for the "new sound, man" and played the Fillmore East doing same. power trio, bob and maybe the Vanilla Fudge rhythm section. hell yeah, i'd pay to hear the 18 minute version of "Man Of Constant Sorrow" with fuzz guitar sorrows. fuck this Visions of Johanna shit and songs about joan baez. stomp some fuzzbox onto some old Bill Monroe jams!

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 10:58 (sixteen years ago) link

does anyone on ilx *make* teenpop?

if not, why not?

The answer is likely "not". Because this is I Love (Rumination That's Been Triggered By Pop) Music; glorified couchpotatoland. Kogan pulled out a plum by coming up with parallels between a boomer icon and a contemporary youth-market celebrity; it's not far removed from those spooooky parallels between Abe Lincoln and JFK. (Well, maybe it is.) It's potentially commercial gold (relatively speaking) in rock-crit land, since both Dylan and Ashlee are recognizable to the lay audience.

Even rock-crits have to worry about commercial viability. Right?

― mark 0, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:06 (sixteen years ago) link

Mark why do you come here?

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:09 (sixteen years ago) link

To watch shuffleboard on the Titanic?

― mark 0, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:10 (sixteen years ago) link

when you knowww it makes things harrrd for meee

― Mark G, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:13 (sixteen years ago) link

I mean, if your basic position is "music criticism is worthless", which it seems to reduce to, then hanging out on a board full of people who like to do it seems an odd choice.

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:13 (sixteen years ago) link

That's not my basic position. I started posting around the time of Xgau's axing from the Voice, for instance; part of what makes something like the teenpop thread interesting is the issue of commercial viability for this class of writer that sprang up When Rock Was Fresh And New in a time when we've saturated the culture with pop music and "rock" represents a set of memes that are no longer fresh and new.

― mark 0, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:17 (sixteen years ago) link

y know what bugs me. i'm jealous of the teenpop thread. i occasionally look at it, like i do the rolling dance and hip hop thread and it's very interesting but i have little interest in the actual music so i can't exactly get "excited". yet everytime a thread is going on about something i have some knowledge / interest in it gets derailed in snark or geir; see that stone roses / 60s cannon thing that was just running. i think there is room for another rolling thread where one can talk about well european rock, indie and pop without it getting constantly derailed, also it would hopefully cut down all the two answers threads about aerogramme or whoever. in some ways it would be a very postive thing, just admit indie/rock whatever is just a genre amongst others and has no priviledge.

― acrobat, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:20 (sixteen years ago) link

it might be interesting to try make a teenpop style record

im not that comfortable with blanket criticism of a genre, by someone who hasnt tried it out for themselves

its not really a direction id thought about, but it might be interesting to try it out

― 696, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:22 (sixteen years ago) link

I often think about making pop records.

― Tim F, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:24 (sixteen years ago) link

ie it kind of weirds me out, people talking about inauthenticity, unmusicality, music-as-produce, if they havent had a try at a genre themselves

im not saying people shouldnt be able to judge or criticize artists. artists need criticism, because criticism means people are noticing and profile is upped. but an entire genre, dismissing the rules of the game as *wrong*?

― 696, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:25 (sixteen years ago) link

have a go tim!

― 696, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:26 (sixteen years ago) link

teenpop artists don't need criticism, or they don't receive it anyway -- this isn't even white noise, it simply doesn't exist for them. the profile of hilary duff is not raised by ilm or poptimism. this is just people talking, on a messageboard.

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:28 (sixteen years ago) link

i dont really think its talking as such. im at work, my mouth is closed

― 696, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:34 (sixteen years ago) link

Honestly, fuck, let me open a big old can of worms here, the other rolling threads could afford to be a lot more like the teenpop thread, in a lot of ways. People on most of them just seem fucking lazy to me: Constant "XXX rekkid is awesome," or "[NAME OF SONG] [NAME OF ARTIST] LOL" and that's it, with almot no attempt to explain why. (Have the snap or punk or drone ones gotten any less boring lately? I haven't checked in a while. Last time I checked out the snap one I was trying to figure out why nobody seemed to like the Rich Boy album, which sounds pretty good to me, and my hands wound up empty. (Last year's hip-hop thread was better because there were actually people arguing about how this is a really shitty time for hip-hop, though some posters thought such arguments should be off limits. Interestingly, when the same questions were raised on last year's teenpop thread -- that this is actually a really shitty time for teenpop, compared with past eras -- the response seemed a lot more reasoned. Those sort of discussions should be part of all the threads, really.) And last year I actually quit the metal thread for a while because it never seemed like a conversation, just a list. It's gotten somewhat better this year I guess, but it's still missing something that the teen-pop one has.) (I still love the country one, though; sue me.)

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:37 (sixteen years ago) link

people find it hard to believe the people on teenpop threads are for real; or, if they are real, what their deal is.

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:39 (sixteen years ago) link

ie gershy otm

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:39 (sixteen years ago) link

Do you honestly believe that Enrique?

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:40 (sixteen years ago) link

though um maybe different people approach music in different ways. some will suit you some won't? my favourite rolling thread is the pick of the pops one. that was great for a while.

― acrobat, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:41 (sixteen years ago) link

the other two rolling threads i frequent are both great and full of good people, but the minimal house one really is

poster 1: name of record
poster 2: name of diff record
poster 3: name of diff record

sometimes. the r&b one is brill because it's actually dormant most of the time, it works in flurries, there are recommendations but not an overwhelming number of them, there's interesting and funny thought but not as dense or involved as on teenpop, and there's never any sense that you're working overtime just to keep up.

people find it hard to believe the people on teenpop threads are for real; or, if they are real, what their deal is.

1) why 2) surely the problem is with the people who can't grasp a fairly simple fact rather than with the teenpop people?

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 11:43 (sixteen years ago) link

I think that there have been so many naval gazing debates on minimal that simple record recommendations is about all anyone can manage now.

― Tim F, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 12:40 (sixteen years ago) link

does anyone on ilx *make* teenpop?

FWIW, I have several songs written and ready to go just as soon as I can find some teenage diabetics to do 'em up like Lillix (is anyone in Lillix diabetic? No response yet from Nick Jonas).

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 12:53 (sixteen years ago) link

craigslist?

― 696, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 12:57 (sixteen years ago) link

I'm probably going to go through the ADA or something.

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 12:59 (sixteen years ago) link

Or a diabetic summer camp (that's where Skye Sweetnam got started...pop star camp, not diabetes camp, obv.), which is where the now-defunct (apparently since their website disappeared) Pump Girls got their start.

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 13:00 (sixteen years ago) link

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