Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

NO more FREE donuts when the light is on!!!!!!!
We drove to South Carolina tonight.
On our way to stop to eat dinner, we see a Krispy Kreme across the street.
The Light was on!
So I told the guys that you get free donuts when the light is on, because we always used to do that!
They didn't believe me.
So I told them to pull over and I will prove it to them.
We all walk in.
They lady looks at me like I'm crazy when I ask her to tell them that we get FREE donuts because the light is on.
GEEEEZZ!
They definitely think I'm a loser.
AND I'm sad to say that this Krispy Kreme is no longer giving away free donuts when they are fresh and hot! Hopefully other Krispy Kremes have not conformed to this absurd craziness.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=23896606&blogID=57756512&MyToken=378e44d1-a8d4-464e-979f-9ca0f8f204ba

And they also have the best taste in music ever:

Influences Jump5, Reo speed wagon, Pussycat Dolls,gwen stefani, green day, click 5, Mcfly, Ludacris, DHT, The all American Rejects, Martina Mcbride, Rebecca Lynn Howard, Carrie Underwood, Meredith Edwards, Brittany Hargest, Deanna Carter,Christina Aguilera, Gretchen Wilson, Big and Rich, Kenny Chesney, Leann Rimes, Janet Jackson, Britney Spears,gunz n roses, Hanson, Charlotte Church, Josh Groban, Zoegirl, Kimberly Perry, Skillet, Pillar, casting crowns,TheNcrowd, OUT OF KILTER, Korn, Manson,Kenny Chesney, Tim Mcgraw, Faith Hill, Trisha Yearwood, Garth brooks, Emma Bunton, spice girls, ashlee simpson, aly and aj, Jesse McCartney, Evanescense, Skye Sweetnam, Usher, Raven, Metillica, NIN, The Donna's, Aaliyah, fat joe, Ciara, OZZY, Janet Jackson, Cher, Hilary Duff, Rascal Flatts, Jodee Messina, Billy Gilman, lil Kim, Victoria Beckham, 80's music, Cinderella, Tesla, Twizted sister, whitesnake, JOURNEY, Steve Perry, ICP, Kelly Clarkson, Jackson5, Mariah Carey, Pillar, Lita Ford, Leann Rimes,BEN FOLDS (Thanks Cali), Todd Agnew, THE RIDE HOME, FATTY HAZE, Punk music, Goth, Rave,techno, BLUEGRASS, The Starting line, My chemical Romance, Ac/dc, Good Charlotte, Cold Play, Dashboard Confessionals, Yellowcard, Death Cab, MegaDeath, Rob Zombie, Whitesnake, Posion, ALICE COOPER, Charlie Daniels Band, Daniel and Jonna's band (name tba), Michael Gungor, Kirk Franklin, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Cheetah Girls, Josh Gracin, Tiffany, Kelly Osbourne, Haylie Duff, Leann Womack, Dolly Parton, Allison Krauss, and the Union station, Prime Suspect, Elysium, Jim Parrinello (my adopted Dad), Toby Keith, Keith Anderson, Loretta Lynn, Switch foot, Mandy Moore, Rachael Lampa, Meredith Edwards, Sister Hazel, hoobastank,Katy Rose,Hanson,brooks and dunn, Cowboy Troy,Howie Day, Max a million C, Red hot Chili peppers, Looking glass, Reba,Gavin Degraw, Hope Partlow, Kaci Brown, John Mayer, (Plenty more)
Go

She has music on her site, too:

http://www.myspace.com/bnicole

(And I suck because I forgot to say thanks, but thank Chuck--before I'd just sorta liked The Gathering from afar but now am turning downright fannish.)

I remembered liking the second, emo-ier song from the first Lohan album more but now I can't remember anything about it at all. I think it had a cute guy in the video clip, hence my approval. Maybe he looked like Ian Somerholder? He was having a fight with his dad or something?

The song is called "Over." The chorus gets so wonderful as it's winding down. I had difficulty understanding the storyline of the music video as well though. I guess the next door neighbor love interest for Lohan was being abused by his father, in effect adding an extra layer of narrative to the song which by itself is just a straght forward break up angst number.

My favorite Lohan track right now is "Black Hole" from A Little More Personal. Really nice rolling piano line. The verse melody is strong in a Max Martin going for Abba grandness. Unfortunately, the chorus then shifts to a kind of lite nu-metal sludgey whine but the verse parts are worth putting up with this.

also the first lohan album is awful. the "drama queen" single from that movie is a good song trapped in lohan's voice.

the success of anything off the second album is totally contingent on how well the producers can hide her voice or scare up something decent for her to cover, especially drowned by backup singers.

still, "who loves you" is fantastic punked up moroder until it turns terribly cloying at the end.

i don't even see the dolls as emo particularly.

they're terribly teen however, or actually more for 20 somethings who are still living out their teens, in terms of the fanbase -- but also they're a good band, so don't take that as an insult.

and yeah, i did see them do a very good cover of war pigs i guess. which is old metal but not new metal at all (and by that token more nu goth)

(Notice that none of us has the same take on Lohan. This in itself makes her valuable.)

"Symptoms of You" - The music is so-what (Shanks & DioGuardi producers but not writers), but the lyrics qualify it for the multi-volumed Rough Guide to Codependent Relationships: "Baby all I do is suffer from symptoms of you." This is supposed to show how much she's in love, the old love-is-a-fever-or-flu routine, but the song unintentionally makes the condition seem really pathological.

[We could make The Rough Guide to Codependent Relationships an ongoing series, one or two a year, like the Now compilations.]

"First": Not her very best, but a good test case. If you're drawn in by this blaring self-centeredness, as I am, then you'll like Lohan. If you can't stomach it, then you should stay away. (From her music, that is. As an actress she's far more versatile.)

By the way, the music at the end of each verse, the part that leads into the chorus, seems a pure example of why Shanks & DioGuardi are great (and Kara DioGuardi gives herself the answering vocal part, making her voice affectless so as to highlight Lohan, but sounding beautiful nonetheless, filling in the sound). I don't have the music theory to explain what makes it typical Shanks & DioGuardi, but something about it deepens the song, gives it what I've been calling "the ache of beauty," the unexplainable feeling that love and pain are genuinely at issue here, even if the words are claiming self-confidence: "'Cause you're mine/And tonight/You don't revolve around her/You're mine and this time/I'm gonna scream a little louder."

And the Shanks guitar riff that starts this track is as exuberant as Lohan is. It's one of Miccio's favorites.

So, Daj. *I Know You Want Me*, 2006, Purple Buddha Records, Albanian-American, from Florida. One of the first things you'll notice when you look at her cdbaby link above is "imagine the Veronicas on acid." Unfortunately, I have still barely heard the Veronicas at all (hope to soon), so I have no idea if that's true or not. What I do know: (1) The first song on the album is somewhere in the '80s Prince/Teena Marie/Sheila E neighborhood, and where her voice gets loud is also when the powerchords get loud, and it *isn't* Teena, I know, but it still makes me *think* of Teena, which counts for something since almost nobody ever does anymore. (2) The second song, a totally kicking cover of "I've Done Everything for You" with totally chirpy high-pitched backup vocals, supposedly written by Sammy Hagar but I know it as a Rick Springfield hit, is even better. (3) The third song might be even better: "Pretty in Punk," over-the-top silly-at-least-partly-by-accident-I-think new wave bubble-punk pop about a dad being concerned because his daughter is dating guys with piercings and she's wearing fishnets and getting kicked out of Catholic school for flashing the priest and listening to the Sex Pistols on her iPod because her favorite word is anarchy. (4) Fourth song "When You Put Your #@!! on My !#@" to quite sexy effect leaves the blanks for naughty bits blank a la George Jones's "Her Name Is..." or the Beastie Boys's "Cookie Puss" or Boney M's "Bang Bang Lulu" or something though I forget why those last two belong on the list. (5) Fifth song "Just Rock N Roll" to me is BLATANTLY Billy Joel's "Still Rock and Roll to Me" as redone by a more hard-rocking C&C Music Factory, with Daj stretching out words with extra vowels James Brown style near the end. (6) Sixth song "Forbidden Fruit" starts with a hushed fluffy spoken-word part that reminds me of Seduction or Bardeux or one of those groups, and from there on lets the music drop out into open space in a sort of dub or psychedelic pop way. (8) Ninth song "Photogenic Memory" is also apparently a cover (originally written by Jerry Knight and Davitt Sigerson!) though I don't think I ever heard the original before but this version is super catchy with freakazoid '80s robot-funk backup vocals. (Just checked AMG; turns out it was the first song on the Philip Bailey album with "Easy Lover"!) Anyway, minus the acid, is this what Veronicas sound like?

I like Rick's better but it's not very different from Hagar's, which was also very good. "Rock 'n' Roll Weekend," "Plane Jane," Sam did a lot of hard teen pop on his Capitol LPs.

lindsey & kathy, 4-song teen-pop country bubblegum rock EP by two teen florida sisters said on their cdbaby page to also be former child actors on a PBS kids' show called "the huggabug club" not to mention daughters of a pro baseball player i never heard of: first song is yet another "walmart parking lot" song, different than chris cagle's and probably closer spiritually to shannon brown's "cornfed"; in this one, you get things-frank-would-(probably accurately)-call-lies like "no one's complaining about nothing changing here" and stuff about how the local paper only has a page or two which is enough for the news in such a small town and there's only one button on the radio dial which of course plays country so it's "kinda like livin' in the past," okay, the usual myth, but who the hell said songs were supposed to be honest anyway? sound is like a fast early tom petty tune or something, though maybe somebody can figure out a more accurate '80s pop-rock referent for the guitar parts. second song is about a breakup the singer wishes didn't happen, very nice, and helped out what i believe to be a bassline from the doobie brothers' "listen to the music." third song is more bluegrass/folk trad, and the place the sisters' sibling harmonies most shine. and the last song is maybe the most interesting -- not country at all, way more like lisa lisa losing herself in emotion or deniece williams hearing it for the boy in the mid '80s. updated '60s girl group, in other words; in fact, the updating might be accidental. and it works; people who've listened to that *one kiss leads to another* box more than me should figure out what REAL girl group singer it sounds like.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/lindseykristy

And it's a picture disc!

My favorites right now are "Perfect," "Breathe Today," and "I'm So Sick." The latter two have been the two singles so far.

Did you know that John Shanks played in Teena Marie's band when he was still in high school!

Your description of Daj makes her sound better than the Veronicas. I love "4ever" and "Leave Me Alone" [which is the Veronicas imitating the song they wrote for t.A.T.u.]), and the majority of the Veronicas' other stuff sounds good but leaves me feeling a bit hammered by high-pitched so-what normality, the joy of breaking up and telling guys to fuck off, I guess, but coming across not all that joyous, you know?

'twas "funk boutique," 1991. AMG sez angel [sabater] was there for the second album in '89 but not for the third one in '92, and my CD single is storage; not positive whether angel's still on there on not.

i guess part of what gets me excited about these two cdbaby CDs is that i can't think of many acts, teen-pop or r&b otherwise, who picked up where either teena *or* lisa lisa *or* the cover girls left off. am i forgetting somebody? probably i am. but to what extent is '60s girl-group sound an element in late '90s/early '00s teen-pop at all? not nearly as much as it was in '80s pop r&b and latin freestyle, i'm sure. i didn't even hear it in the spice girls much (though of course i've yet to define what i mean by "'60s girl group sound," and i'm not sure i can. unschooled voices might be part of it, though. which obviously means lisa lisa more than it does teena. though maybe i should throw stacy lattisaw in there. {or shanice maybe?} i do know that i seem to be having a much harder time getting excited about kelly/lindsay/avril/etc than lots of people on this thread, and i'm not sure i know why. i like all of them fine, and hilary and robyn too, but they're missing SOMETHING. a sense of adventure or weirdness or surprise, maybe? though quite likely that stuff is there, and i'm just not hearing it.) (i also wish "konichiwa bitches" WAS as surprising or funky as "attack of the name game.")

(disclaimner: i'll decide a lot of that rant is utter bullshit mere minutes after i press "submit," but i'm gonna go ahead and press.)

then how come i don't like pink or gwen (or even lindsay) more? so maybe that's not it, either. (i do like all of them fine. but still.)

'Twas the Dance Club Play chart, where their single "Nice Day" is now at #3. Not sure who their album (again, coming out this month on an actual major label) would be marketed to -- I guess their audience now would be clubgoers (and specificially gay adults? Or maybe Eurotrash adults? I'm not sure), though they're songful enough that they easily *could* be marketed to teens. They'd fit in on Radio Disney. Anyway, I like this verse from "Home": "She takes her daddy's money/She spends it all on junk/She goes out with different girls."

http://thecaglefamily.com/

finally got the veronica's CD yesterday, and "4 ever" is indeed pretty awesome, but what it mainly sounds like to me, except for the chorus parts where the high harmonies kick in, is just a really good donnas song. (it must have been the song i compared to joan jett above, when recalling perfunctorily having listened to parts of an advance of their CD a few months before, when i didn't know who they were.) other tracks? i'm not hearing much yet. not bad, just shoulder-shrugworthy. unlike many of the non-single cuts on the e-40 CD ("muscle cars"! "yay area"! "white gurl"! "they might be taping"!), which i actually think i might like more than its single. (and e-40 belongs on the teen-pop thread, since he mentions lindsay lohan in "white gurl," which isn't about lindsay lohan but about cocaine.)

finally bought the akon CD today at princeton record exchange, after procrastinating for like 2 1/2 years. (he belongs on the teen-pop thread because frank said he does, in the first post.) "locked up" and "ghetto" are even better than i remembered. who i'm realizing he sometimes reminds me of is shinehead. (he also belongs on the world music thread! and if there was an industrial thread, the percussion of "locked up" would belong there!)

"paper plane" by persephone's bees may well take its melody from "green tambourine."

anyway, more akon thoughts: (1) i think i like the version of "locked up" without styles p better than the version with him since i prefer the jail-guitar-door slamming effects to his rapping; (2) when "lonley" was played on radio disney, did they just bleep the "bullshit," or what?; (3) "ghetto" is the song that reminds me of shinehead -- when akon's not as good, he reminds me more of shaggy, which is still okay; (4) best non-hit maybe: "journey."

so far my favorite non-hit on the veronicas' CD is "revolution." lalena says their version of "mother mother" sounds exactly like tracy bonham's (though didn't tracy just have one mother?). lalena also says the flyleaf singer sounds way more like the cranberries' singer or even sinead than bjork (who she's listened to way more than i have), but that the flyleaf vocals seem more multitracked than any of those. also, as a precedent for high female harmonies in a goth/metal context, she says Drain STH did that all the time in the late '90s.

(Drain STH apparently Swedish, all female, Ozzfesters, and often rumored to be a producer concoction not a "real band" during the high Swedish teen-pop era. Which might be relevant.)

For some reason I think of "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" when I hear their version. One of the pitfalls of having no discernible personality, maybe.

>. kaci brown *instigator* 2005 $1.99 (who is she? she looks young. and i'm assuming she's country because that's where three copies of her CD were filed, and i think i heard of her before, possibly either in billboard or on one of these rolling country threads.)<

well, album definitely seems more like "r&b-leaning teenpop" (pretty ignorable so far, though that may change) than c&w. AMG's explanation:

>Kaci Brown grew up in Sulphur Springs, TX, and was singing at a very early age. Throughout her youth, she performed across her home state, appearing just about anyplace that would have her. To further her career, her family moved to Nashville in 2001 — remarkably, before attaining a record contract, she had a publishing deal and was writing for country artists. Though she intended to be a country artist, she was repeatedly told that she'd fare better with pop. By the end of 2005, she had summer touring dates with the Backstreet Boys, in addition to her Interscope-released debut album, under her belt. All of this happened before she passed her teenage years. A few of the things she adores, as noted on her website, include "love," "purple anything," "boys with guitars," and "boys in general."<

Incubated over at Radio Disney a while ago and kept a strange blog.

Infrastructural inspiration, as -remarkable- as hearing 20,000 people applied for Nashville Star or the thousands that line up for various casting calls reported on by Entertainment Tonight from 7 to 7:30, everyday. Giver a Nobel or a Pulitzer or a Booker or a Mcarthur, but how many people are so blown away by the talent, that as session hacks, they'll work for free for a chance to be on the recording?

Entertainment and talent as spectroscopically combed during observation of populations of ideal gas cloud volumes of molecules. Statistically, there's always one to fit every requirement of wonder in every cloud.

Yet somehow, nothing like as bad as Karmah's version of 'Just Be Good To Me'. I'm not describing that, though... quiversome. Brrr.

My response: "Combining Rage Against the Machine with stupid girl vocals is way better than combining Rage Against the Machine with Rage Against the Machine vocal. Sexless, juiceless dork, the guy was.

"Are there any sexy male rock singers under the age of forty?

"Flyleaf sound like Rage Against the Machine with Evanescence-type girl vocals except that Lacey the girl is a live wire on the order of Avril Lavigne rather than poor Amy Lee being stretched on the rack. (But I like Evanescence when they've got hooks; Amy's agony can be quite fetching when it's melodic.)

"I just listened to a band called Stutterfly who are like Flyleaf but even more harmonized and poppified, which would be fine with me if the guy singing hadn't removed all the sex and liquid from his vocals, sounding like another sun-deprived indie boy, basically."

So, anyway, back to Flyleaf: you get sexy female vocals, lotso high female harmonies. Now, where else in Officially Gets Played On "Rock" Stations rock do you get those sexy live wire high female harmonies? I've barely listened to the "rock" stations in the last five years, though I'm now wishing I had. You do get boy harmonies, usually sexless and dorky (in my unlearned opinion).

Xhuxk: Maybe what you're trying to say is that you wish some of the Lindsays, Avrils, Ashlees (and Shankses and Martins) hadn't thrown over the DISCO during the transition to "confessional rock" (or whatever you want to call it). And by "DISCO" of course you can really mean "freestyle w/ girlgroup leanings." Although freestyle is pretty much a dead genre, some of its DNA has wormed into Europop. Ive been telling Edward O. that some of the pretty Swedish pop needs the sort of personality-oomph that a Lindsay would give it; but I can turn this around and wish that the Ameriteens would incorporate some Eurofizz.

(By the way, "r&b" is strong on the Radio Disney palette, B5 and Jo Jo not to mention Black-Eyed Peas, Chris Brown, Pussycat Dolls, Usher, Ne-Yo, and Rihanna. Akon's finally fallen out of the Top 30, but I'll bet that "Lonely" will be a Disney perennial, like "Blue Da Bee" and "The Rockefeller Skank" and "Get Ready for This.")

Wouldn't "L.O.V.E." count as r&b, albeit more Gwen than Teena?

come back, shifty shellshock, all is forgiven.

Come my lady
Come come my lady
you're my stutterfly
Sugar.baby

Such a sexy,sexy pretty little thing
Fierce nipple pierce you got me sprung with your tongue ring
and I ain't gonna lie cause your loving gets me high
So to keep you by my side there's nothing that I won't try
Stutterflies in her eyes and looks to kill
Time is passing I'm asking could this be real
Cause I can't sleep I can't hold still
The only thing I really know is she got sex appeal

Lindsay Lohan gives you something that singers with stronger voices often don't. I want to say "personality," even though that's a cliché and even though many of the world's songs are fine or even better with anonymous singers: those thousands upon thousands of freestyle and Europop songs I've loved. But even in those, the virtue may not be the anonymity of the singer so much as that the wrong singer isn't getting in the way of the song. Whereas when the singer is right, the personality can add something. (This is all abstract. Which personality, added to which song?)

One thing I noticed this time around when watching the video for "Confessions of a Broken Heart" is that, halfway through, the camera pulls back and you see that the house is all picture windows, as if it were storefront on all sides, the family dysfunction on display and onlookers crowding outside, to gawk.

Herbie: Fully Loaded: How come I was so moved by this film? The Herbie concept (a car with a personality, can intuit moods and intentions, takes rudimentary action on its own but still needs symbiosis with the right driver) is dutifully brought up every now and then, since it's the official reason for the picture, but basically the movie sidesteps it. The story is about the driver, not the car. Any (nonpsychic) stock car would do. The Herbie concept's only usefulness is that it gives Matt Dillon the opportunity to be hilarious as the conceited, handsome creep of a driver who's continually blowing his gasket whenever the VW bug beats him. Dillon and the bug relate on one level, the rest of the movie is on another. This strategy - one set of characters operating in different zones from other sets - can work in a story. Dickens did it all the time. I would just say that in watching Herbie: Fully Loaded you just bracket the boring "Herbie" ideas and forget them when they're not needed.

Lohan was 17 or 18, playing a woman in her early twenties. She plays her as someone forthright, energetic, but watchful. I could imagine Lindsay doing the Jodie Foster role in Silence of the Lambs, a fundamental directness but with the need to keep a formal reserve in the bureaucratic FBI environment and, when dealing with mindfucking madman Hannibal, a care in weighing just how much of her vulnerability to dole out to him in exchange for the information she needs.

Screenwriters provide words and a lot of social subtext, which is also provided by costumes and sets. The actors provide bodies, postures, movement, tones of voice, expressions that make lines plausible, ways of standing in this particular kitchen or that particular porch or in a particular garage, next to a particular guy. Herbie: Fully Loaded has a between-the-lines subtext about the dad's class anxiety and his wanting his daughter to surpass him and enter a world he would never feel right in. Michael Keaton playing the dad moves as if he's no longer comfortable in himself, whereas Lohan walks in a direct line, except then she'll waver, not quite allowing herself to claim her true calling, which is actually back among the stock cars with her dad.

When Lindsay's "First" plays under the closing credits, the effect is totally jarring, since the posturing, demanding, voluptuous adolescent voice of the song has nothing to do with the clear sleek line of the character I'd been seeing for the last two hours.

("First" sounds better and better every time I hear it.)

Some of Have a Nice Day's lyrics convey what would be an interesting dissatisfaction if they weren't so evasively abstract, though here's one that's kind of engaging (and intrigued rather than dissatisfied): "She wakes up when I sleep to talk to ghosts like in the movies/If you don't follow what I mean, I sure don't mean to be confusing/They say when she laughs she wants to cry/She'll draw a crowd then try to hide."

For what it's worth, one of the tracks, "Who Says You Can't Go Home," is Top Twenty on the country charts: a Cougar-wannabe number that's neither terrible nor good.

(I wonder why that happened.)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/kingwell