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

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I think it's hugely interesting Enrique! All that cod-anthropological stuff interests me! Not just "what teenagers think" obviously - what my friends think, what office workers think, my parents' generation, little kids, posh kids, whatever. And collecting primary evidence to help discussion is part of that, or at least it was when I did my creepy history degree and when I go to work in the creepy market research industry. (Actually the MR industry can be quite creepy though not in a paedo way).

When I'm in the queue at the supermarket I *always* peek into other people's baskets and try to work out what they're buying. Surely I can't be alone in that? (ulp).

xpost

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:17 (sixteen years ago) link

(And, maybe esp., MCR -- listned to by many real genuine teens -- who shoulda been #11 but I think they were on my list)

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:17 (sixteen years ago) link

I don't think that the media fixates on "what black people are into" in the same way - by which I mean that although i don't deny that this happens too, the logic is very different.

I think they focus on it when it serves a certain angle or goal, like it mattered a lot a few years ago that black people liked Paul Wall, but as soon as white people liked him too, it no longer mattered.

― mulla atari, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:19 (sixteen years ago) link

And, just to elaborate once more before I go to work, the problem with the example of "black people" is that it assumes that "black people" are the audience for rap. Whereas Frank (and Tim and people on the thread) assume that "teenagers" are NOT the audience for teenpop, and are interested in what they're actually listening to, see if it has any relationship to the teenpop that's for adults (Kelly Clarkson) and children (Hannah Montana) and British people (Crazy Frog).

Yeah, I wasn't implying some straight line parallel with the comparison, of course the correlation between teenagers and teenpop is completely different from the correlation between black people and hip hop. I just think either scenario is a little loopy. My point was that none of the people on the rap thread would do that because we're all opinionated and knowledgeable, and trust the opinions of other knowledgeable rap fans but wouldn't go off looking for tips from random people on MySpace who are superficially more "in the target demographic" of the music (this was before you pointed out that Frank's MySpace friends are apparently people he knows IRL, which would be very difficult to infer from him calling them "my MySpace friends").

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:20 (sixteen years ago) link

I view adolescence in general with a fair amount of romanticism although my own adolescence was relatively non-descript

i've often wondered whether the stereotype of the gays loving the teenpop possibly stems from the way in which teenpop approaches things like love, relationships, crushes, finding personal identity, growing up - sometimes clichéd, sometimes romanticised, sometimes confused. i think to a lot of gay people it might not be as...banal, as it's sometimes accused of being, because obv few gay people (of our age and above, certainly) could have actually had a typical adolescence.

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:20 (sixteen years ago) link

i don't think wanting to know in general is creepy, just social networking websites. if frank knows them irl then alright (i hope!).

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link

i think to a lot of gay people it might not be as...banal, as it's sometimes accused of being, because obv few gay people (of our age and above, certainly) could have actually had a typical adolescence.

now thats beginning to get somewhere

― 696, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link

tom and tim massively otm about finding out what other people like, too! finding out why people like what they like is one of the reasons we're all here, surely? and i'm always really interested in why 'normal' people (ie people who aren't music geeks and not on the internet) like what they link, since they're the silent majority in all of this.

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:24 (sixteen years ago) link

Also, Alex, the whole "what does The Other listen to in the Real World?" question completely animates 1000 ILM threads - all the MIA ones, the Stelfox ones, the equivalent of "what are [x] listening to on their MySpaces?" seems to be the guiding principle of the Dissensus approach to music too.

That doesn't have anything to do with whether caring about teenpop is creepy or not, but I'm just saying it's hardly unknown as a critical method.

xpost OK some of this covered in Alex' reply.

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:24 (sixteen years ago) link

In Frank's book he has the essay where his girlfriend's daughters are talking about Xtina, and it's interesting to see how much they've either absorbed or rejected the image the media is aiming at them.

― mulla atari, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:25 (sixteen years ago) link

"but anyway i don't care what teenagers like; it fascinates the media because teenagers are as ever the primary consumers of recorded music. but why should that interest me? (or frank?)"

I don't think it's just that. I think there's a widespread notion that teenagers care more about such things - held not just among the media or big labels but also a surprisingly large amount of pro-authenticity, anti-pop keepers of the true flame.

I mean, isn't the standard story of music fandom the tracing of the decline and fall from the white-hot stridency and passion of teenage musical obsessions to a sort of complacent 12 cds per year dilettante-conformism?

"i've often wondered whether the stereotype of the gays loving the teenpop possibly stems from the way in which teenpop approaches things like love, relationships, crushes, finding personal identity, growing up - sometimes clichéd, sometimes romanticised, sometimes confused. i think to a lot of gay people it might not be as...banal, as it's sometimes accused of being, because obv few gay people (of our age and above, certainly) could have actually had a typical adolescence."

It's a double pincer movement I think: most pop culture representations of adolescence are obsessed with the difference between essences and appearances, so in a funny way most pop culture representations of adolescence tell the story of gay adolescence at one level of remove.

At the same time, the specific content of those representations is not just something we didn't happen to experience, it's stuff we were structurally unable to experience (or, to get the emotional sense of it more accurately, it's stuff we were denied) even if we were in the right time and place for it.

Massive generalisations though obv.

― Tim F, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:27 (sixteen years ago) link

My point was that none of the people on the rap thread would do that because we're all opinionated and knowledgeable, and trust the opinions of other knowledgeable rap fans but wouldn't go off looking for tips from random people on MySpace who are superficially more "in the target demographic"

wanting to know what people i trust are listening to so i can pick up hot new stuff myself, and wanting to know what less "knowledgeable" (ugh, snobbishness, but i know what you mean) people in the target demographic are listening to so that i can think about what aspects of the music have mainstream or widespread appeal, which in turn is helpful with talking about future trends, are both equally valid things to pursue

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:28 (sixteen years ago) link

"It's a double pincer movement I think: most pop culture representations of adolescence are obsessed with the difference between essences and appearances"

By this I mean that adolescent films in particular almost always at least involve one character whose social position and representation is at odds with their "true" self - High School Musical is paradigmatic, as is Buffy, but it's difficult to think of teen romantic comedies, say, where the central relationship isn't made difficult by the constraints of one or both participants having to perform a social role.

Alex i think it's misinterpreting Frank to assume he was genuinely looking for tips! If anything when he does this sort of thing it's a kind of humility-gesture, like, "hey, I'm talking about "teenpop" like I know what I'm talking about, but actually who knows what the hell it is".

― Tim F, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:31 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah, Tim, you're right, it was kind of a willful misinterpretation to compare it to "looking for tips" when he clearly wasn't doing that. Again, for me it mostly comes down to the fact that you're almost never going to be the same age or race or whatever as the artist or the target audience of the music you're listening to, so pointing out those disparities isn't really that interesting to me.

All this stuff about gay culture's embrace of camp and cheesy pop as it relates to the teenpop thread is interesting, although I never thought to bring it up since I have no idea about the sexual orientation of most of the people on that thread.

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:38 (sixteen years ago) link

It's a double pincer movement I think: most pop culture representations of adolescence are obsessed with the difference between essences and appearances

totally agree: i'd say that the obsession is based on the tension between the absolute certainty adolescents have regarding appearances (ie what they "should" be, what is socially acceptable) and the total uncertainty they have over "essences" (ie who they really are - the process of adolescence is after all trying to find this out, and for gays this is magnified) (this pins down something i was clumsily trying to express right at the top of this thread because it's this fumbling attempt at self-discovery which those hilary duff tracks best express, and with which i identify most easily)

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:39 (sixteen years ago) link

I mean, isn't the standard story of music fandom the tracing of the decline and fall from the white-hot stridency and passion of teenage musical obsessions to a sort of complacent 12 cds per year dilettante-conformism?

well yeah. this is certainly my narrative. still not caring what teenagers like though -- interesting that the poptimists here do. isn't this some kind of displaced authenticity kick, a la stelfox?

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:41 (sixteen years ago) link

nrq you don't seem to care about what anyone likes though, or indeed very much about anything at all

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:41 (sixteen years ago) link

i mean, feel free to correct me with examples

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:41 (sixteen years ago) link

Yes, probably! I think in my case it's more likely to be a displacement of authenticity onto the 'mass', the marketplace (cf Popular as a project, the centrality of group opinion to Poptimists), rather than adolescence: a class-related yearning rather than an age-related one, rooted in my ambivalence over my private education. Since you asked.

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:44 (sixteen years ago) link

Another point, why, not, since I took a breath and will not be a jerk again, is that I would love to see teenage MySpacers post on the teenpop thread (in particular I would REALLY love to see Aly and AJ fans -- all of whom HATE ME -- post on the thread, since they always post on my blog and say really interesting and often intelligent and provocative things!). Googlers and "outsiders" (and "target audience members," as vague as all these categories are) can bring some of the most interesting and unexpected arguments and perspectives to the table, especially when things get insular (simply because there are only six people posting with any regularity. And if you hadn't noticed yet I'm basically just doing a membership drive for the teenpop thread on this one).

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:47 (sixteen years ago) link

nrq likes loads of stuff! comedy stufff mainly. he loves nathan barley, the big mad man.

― acrobat, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:50 (sixteen years ago) link

I like the whole random googler thing in theory but in practise I've never seen them actually integrate into a thread or community.

For instance, it'd be interesting to do a comparison of the rolling hip-hop threads with the Nas/Jay-Z Throwdowns. Someone's point at the time - might even have been Frank's! - was that the hip-hop fans on ILM almost never used to post on those (they're still one of the strangest phenomena I've seen on a message board).

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:51 (sixteen years ago) link

i love poetry, and a glass of scotch, and, of course, my friend baxter here.

― That one guy that quit, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:51 (sixteen years ago) link

"well yeah. this is certainly my narrative. still not caring what teenagers like though -- interesting that the poptimists here do. isn't this some kind of displaced authenticity kick, a la stelfox?"

Sort of, except that teenpop is a category shaped by social (mis)perceptions and marketing strategies - there's no unified/authentic/meaningful/social practice at its core (as distinct from the standard dissensus/stelfox argument) so there's no single higher authority to appeal to - I mean we've already established countless times that teenagers and teen-pop usually don't coincide! Posting random lists of old and new songs that teenagers play is just a demonstration of this point, nothing more.

― Tim F, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:53 (sixteen years ago) link

ah, i hate comedy, so never the twain shall my enthusiasms and nrq's enthusiasms meet.

i also love poetry and scotch though

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:54 (sixteen years ago) link

The throwdowns -- they were a law unto themselves. Loved 'em.

When I'm in the queue at the supermarket I *always* peek into other people's baskets and try to work out what they're buying. Surely I can't be alone in that? (ulp).

I have no idea whether you're alone but I just realized why you do the work you do.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:54 (sixteen years ago) link

Let me revise what I'd like a bit: I would like to see BRIE LARSON post on the thread, and bring some of her MySpace friends with her.

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:57 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah wasn't it Blount that kept trying to son Ethan and whoever for not trying to engage the Jay-Z/Nas googlers in a dialogue? I dunno, there's a billion message board threads about rap beef and they're all pretty worthless, the fact that we ended up with one here kind of by accident isn't really very surprising or interesting if you've seen any of the other ones out there. (xpost to groke)

"target audience members," as vague as all these categories are

I don't think it's vague at all to imply that there's a target demographic for teenpop, and that it's tweens and teenagers.

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:57 (sixteen years ago) link

the fact that we ended up with one here kind of by accident isn't really very surprising or interesting if you've seen any of the other ones out there

Doubtless. But that therefore makes it the pop equivalent to the underground. Er.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 14:58 (sixteen years ago) link

Alex: It wasn't the content of the thread that I thought was bizarre but the way it turned up and kept going and was a law unto itself for ages. It's because there are loads of beef threads all over the web that one going on here for 2 years and building a completely separate community was so strange! Not seen that happen for anything else.

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:00 (sixteen years ago) link

i.e. they weren't googlers - they started as googlers but by the time we moved off Greenspun (which killed the threads) there was a community: leaders, followers, regulars knowing one anothers names and foibles, etc. I suppose the DMB thread could have done that too, I stopped reading after a bit.

― Groke, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:03 (sixteen years ago) link

Make an Aly and AJ thread googlable enough and see what happens! (Teenpop is kind of impenetrable to googlers, I imagine.)

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:04 (sixteen years ago) link

*teenpop THREAD I mean

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:04 (sixteen years ago) link

yeah it was definitely impressive how much it took on a life of its own and kept going and going, i'll give you that. i was never clear on whether any of those guys knew each other from some other board that the ILM thread was linked to on, or if they did become a community on that thread. (xpost)

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:04 (sixteen years ago) link

"aly and aj" is in itself kind of googleproof anyway

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:05 (sixteen years ago) link

Some good stuff in the last 18 hours.

1. I also find Tim F's posts about gay critical approaches to be interesting. I'd be curious to know why other posters think that teenpop appeals to them personally.

2. With respect to Frank's teenage MySpace friends, I appreciate the kind of anthropology that Frank sometimes does, since music criticism is often filled with half-baked assumptions about target audiences and subcultures, but I almost always find it lacking in rigor or comprehensiveness. In Real Punks, for example, he leans so hard on the letter from the girls in the Australian Smash Hits: it crops up in several different reviews or essays, all proving some point about the relationship between fans and the bands they follow. This sort of examination is great, but it's one of the only examples he uses, and I find myself wishing that he'd undertaken a larger survey. (I'm hoping that Michaelangelo Matos eventually puts up the paper he gave at the EMP Conference on college students who own Bob Marley posters.)

3. I share some of acrobat's jealousy about the teenpop thread. I do think it's one of the only places on ILM where intelligent conversation is happening in 2007, I just wish that conversation was about music I was familiar with and felt passionate about. (One solution would be to delve into teenpop more to see if I do like more than the few token songs that have captured my interest so far.)

― jaymc, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:41 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah some of my discontent is admittedly some form of jealousy; I wish the rolling R&B thread was as consistently active as the teenpop thread!

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:51 (sixteen years ago) link

or rolling snap 2007, which hasnt even been mentioned here

― and what, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:51 (sixteen years ago) link

it's been mentioned.

― da croupier, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:53 (sixteen years ago) link

well, i don't really feel like complaining about the relative dearth of rap threads activity, since i feel like that's a direct product of guys like us becoming bored and malevolent about discussing rap in earnest on ILM or going off and focusing on blogs.

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:55 (sixteen years ago) link

i'm kind of disillusioned with the vast majority of rap discussion anyway. reading xxl comments will do that to you

― deej, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:58 (sixteen years ago) link

rap discussion on the internets, i mean

― deej, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:58 (sixteen years ago) link

xpost Ha, Matos said in his paper that he couldn't actually get too many people to respond, so his sample size wasn't really sufficient. I do hope he posts it though, it was great.

I like teenpop in large part because of the reasons people were bashing it for upthread--because it's insistently mainstream, because it has a specific target demographic, because it's primarily commercial. It eliminates a lot of the bullshit you have to deal with when you talk about music, and I think that surrounding context makes the music itself much richer and more interesting. I also like that it's working the kind of pop-rock sound I love, which doesn't really seem to exist much anymore outside of teenpop and (increasingly, weirdly) emo.

I also think it's not accidental that the subject provokes such good discussions. It's the music itself, not just something about the people involved or the format or anything. I think it's genuinely one of the richest, most meaningful kinds of music being made right now. Not necessarily the best, but certainly one of the most unpackable. Ditto hip-hop and R&B, fwiw.

I have no idea how this relates to my background, but there you go.

― Eppy, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:58 (sixteen years ago) link

who in 2007 is neglecting rap discussion on ilm to focus on blogs?

― and what, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 15:59 (sixteen years ago) link

(One solution would be to delve into teenpop more to see if I do like more than the few token songs that have captured my interest so far.)

you know you want to

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 16:00 (sixteen years ago) link

Start with Aly and AJ's new one, "Potential Break Up Song." It's fun!

― dabug, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 16:01 (sixteen years ago) link

yeah abby commanded me to check that one out (i have never heard aly & aj ever!)

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 16:03 (sixteen years ago) link

OK I realize this means admitting that i look at the 'eye candy' section of xxl but this comment both epitomizes my apprehension about the majority of internet rap discussion + was amusing:

#
G'dep Says:

February 26th, 2007 at 6:23 pm

girl has beauty brains and a good taste in music stillmatic! , my kind of girl coz after some wild sex we can talk about rewind. nah mean

― deej, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 16:03 (sixteen years ago) link

who in 2007 is neglecting rap discussion on ilm to focus on blogs?

-- and what, Wednesday, May 16, 2007 11:59 AM

I meant more the current state of rap discussion on ILM is kind of a result of that 04-05 period when dudes like you and me and deej and dk started blogs and kinda stopped starting threads or writing at length on ILM, which kinda continued even after some of us stopped blogging.

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 16:04 (sixteen years ago) link

or actually, the straight answer to that question is that I personally write about rap way more on blogs than on ILM these days.

― Alex in Baltimore, Wednesday, 16 May 2007 16:05 (sixteen years ago) link

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