Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

The tracklist goes 1. Gwen Stefani "Hollaback Girl" 2. Kelly Clarkson "Because of You" 3. Ciara f. Missy Elliott "1,2 Step" 4. Mario "Let Me Love You" 5. Natasha Bedingfield "These Words (I Love You, I Love You)" 6. Weezer "Perfect Situation" 7. Simple Plan "Shut Up" (live) 8. Relient K "Be My Escape" 9. Saving Jane "Girl Next Door" 10. Emma Roberts "I Wanna Be" 11. Howie Day "Collide" 12. Gavin DeGraw "Follow Through" 13. Backstreet Boys "Incomplete" 14. Carrie Underwood "Inside Your Heaven" 15. Frankie J "Don't Wanna Try" 16. Ryan Cabrera "Shine On" 17. Switchfoot "Stars" 18. Franz Ferdinand "Do You Want To."

Anyway, one-third of the way in, we run suddenly into a batch of songs that I'd previously heard rarely or not at all. These are my thoughts:

Simple Plan "Shut Up" (live) - Good hard-rocking adenoidal bratboy bubblepunk. The harmonies thrill me to my teeth, the adenoid voices make me grit my teeth. Nice roar, and when they're sensitive they're better than when they're adenoidal. They've got a nice lift, may be nicer than Green Day's, but Green Day doesn't irritate me nearly as much.

Relient K "Be My Escape" - Good strong rock riff at the start, which the track then flees, clearing out the space for sensitive boy vocals and nice harmonies. Likable, I suppose, but still, I'm trying to figure out what is it with boys these days, why they don't sing nearly as well as girls. Why are boys either defensively whiny or stupidly sappy?

Saving Jane "Girl Next Door" - See above.

Emma Roberts "I Wanna Be" - Nice bubblepunk start, 8 fast beats per measure on the guitar. The voice is really young, which seems to be its main characteristic. "I want my life to be more than a journey into nowhere." Needs a better song. And a more interesting voice. Maybe she'll grow one.

Howie Day "Collide" - This is terrible. Boy sensitive. The voice... Is he a Ryan Cabrera imitator? But Ryan has a beautiful voice, whereas... wait, this guy just sang "I somehow found you and I." Aagh! Make it stop. (Oh, yeah, this is a CD so I can make it stop.)

Gavin DeGraw "Follow Through" - I think I've heard this before. The melody is not so bad; the voice is inflexible, but its inflexibility may give this a bit of dignity. And maybe ths melody is so bad. It's not fair that this stuff corners the market on sensitivity. Not horrible, I suppose.

Switchfoot "Stars" - The name Switchfoot seems so familiar, as if they're a majorly popular band that I've just never managed to hear. (However, if I were novelist needing to invent a name for a fictional Majorly Popular Mainstream Rock Band, "Switchfoot" would be the sort of name I'd choose.) The singer manages to be strained yet blah. The harmony is not altogether terrible. "Everyone feels so lonely, everyone feels so empty, but when I look at the stars I feel like myself." Um. The melody has its pleasing moments, but the lyrics achieve a sublimity of badness that I, were I to be a novelist, would be proud to place in any fictional bands' mouth. How come nobody ever told me about this? "Stars looking at a planet/Watchin' entropy and pain/And maybe start to wonder how the chaos in our lives/Can pass as sane/I've been thinking of the meaning of resistance/Of a world beyond my own/And suddenly the infinite and the penitent/Begin to look like home."

It has an inexplicable tendency to get them laid.

Keith Harris REALLY likes "Stars." I've seen him sing it in his car on the way to a Beck concert.

"Oh your promised land doesn't stand/Can't hold back the avalanche."

And the Ashlee line (from "Say Goodbye"):

"Maybe you don't/Love me/Like I love you baby/'Cause the broken in you doesn't make me run."

The Platinum Weird line is just far too vague, whereas the Ashlee line is utterly wonderful. Yet when I look at them, I realize that the Ashlee line is at least as abstract as the Platinum Weird. So why does the Ashlee line work so much better?

(Btw, for those of you just tuning in, Platinum Weird is Dave Stewart and Kara DioGuardi, and the forthcoming album is produced by John Shanks; and Shanks and DioGuardi are listed as co-writers (along w/ Ashlee Simpson) of "Say Goodbye" and everything else on Ashlee's I Am Me, and many of the songs on Ashlee's Autobiography.)

I do like "Your promised land doesn't stand/Can't hold back the avalanche," the idea of a fantasy or a promise or a dream being knocked down and swept away by an avalanche (the avalanche being reality I suppose, life, or Kara's anger, or something). It's an ambitious image. But it needs something else in the song, some story for the metaphor to hook onto - promise of what? which dreamland? for the metaphor to sum up. Whereas "Maybe you don't/Love me/Like I love you/'Cause the broken in you doesn't make me run" is a story in itself. It feels archetypal, like "The King died, the Queen died of grief." For all its abstractness, "the broken in you" is an image that I can immediately attach my experience to. Or maybe not my experience, just the image of Ashlee willing to wrap her arms around a man in his brokenness. As for promises and dreams not holding back the avalanche of events - my mind gets it but doesn't bring any feelings or experience to add to it.

I realize that my explanation here doesn't explain...

But I love every song on the album. If I'd heard it last year it probably would have been my third favourite of the year (I like it much more than Autobiography actually, though maybe that's because I heard it first so it hit me harder). I even love the powerballad "Say Goodbye", which has some awesome lyrics:

"Maybe/you don't/love me/like I/love you/baby/'cos the broken in you doesn't make me run"

Something about that line is so ace, maybe it's that it drags out the simple first part so much, then all the meaning is actually so tightly compressed in the second half.

Tim, interestingly enough, a couple of days before you posted that I was listening to "Say Goodbye," a song I'd tended to pass over, and the "broken in you" line hit me hard; and what I said to myself was, "Here's a line from the second album that feels like a lot of the first album."

I'd heard the second album first too, didn't buy Autobiography until I was basically done with my review of I Am Me. I'd heard the three singles from the first, only really concentrated on "La La." When I finally did hear Autobiography, my jaw dropped at the title song, the two singles I'd ignored ("Pieces of Me" and "Shadow") suddenly hit me as really powerful - in fact tracks one through four were a knockout, "Autobiography" followed by the three singles - and a few tracks farther I found another song to adore, "Love Me For Me." But I did feel that, overall, I Am Me had a stronger sound, despite Autobiography having a rougher, rawer guitar. In fact, I decided that on "La La" - which I still think is her best song - both she and Shanks are pushing too hard, trying to be too rough and tough. Whereas on I Am Me - e.g., rockers such as the title track and "Coming Back For More" - the sound was a lot cleaner and the singing more at ease without losing an iota of force. And back on Autobiography the rawer guitar sound was also applied to the ballads at the backend. And the combo - guitar roar and ballads - seemed wearying.

Anyhow, at some point something shifted in the way I heard it. And this isn't because my analysis above is wrong; maybe just my ears remixed the songs in my head. I'd played my five favorites from Autobiography into the ground and was now going on to the others, and I was hearing through the roar to the melodies and the words, or the roar now had rearranged itself and didn't seem like a roar. Hard to say why you like one thing more than another, but Autobiography ends up - at least for now - having more tunes that grab me and more words that make me feel.

This is relative. I love both albums. The difference is really this: Listening to I Am Me, I fell in love with the music. Listening to Autobiography, I fell in love with her.

Thinking of that line in "Say Goodbye", I think one of the things that makes it work so well is that, yeah, at first glance it sounds pretty straightforward, but actually it's almost encoded. A straightforward line would be something like: "You can't handle me 'cos I'm complicated" or "You only like me when I make you look good." But instead she says:

"Maybe you don't love me like I love you, baby, cos the broken in you doesn't make me run. There is beauty in the darkness. I'm not frightened - without it I could never feel the sun."

It's a lot less judgmental and, I guess, more reflective, this way: like she's just coming to understand the difference in the way that she and her (soon to be?) ex approach questions of love and relationships. And she's not sure which is right or wrong (if right and wrong there is) but she's not sorry for being the way she is. And then on another level she's telling him that it's okay to be damaged.

That sing-songy brainless piano plinking and sing-songy brainless melody coupled with YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU chorus is irritating beyond words.

I dunno Don, I think Ashlee is saying "we're both broken (damaged, not heartbroken), but you want someone unbroken (maybe because you can't handle your own brokenness). Whereas because I know that I'm broken I'm willing to accept that dealing with your brokenness is the only way I could make this arrangement work. You disagree, so this relationship isn't gonna work."

I crashed your pickup track
then I had to drive it back home
I was crying I was so scared
of what you would do
of what you would say
but you just started laughing
so I just started laughing along
saying it looks a little rough
but it runs o.k.
it looks a little rough
but it runs good anyway

we get a little further from perfection
each year on the road
I think it's called character
I think that's just the way it goes
but it's better to be dusty than polished
like some store window mannequin
won't you touch me where I'm rusty
let me stain your hands
touch me where I'm rusty, let me...

Not for long...enter The Lovemarks!

Saatchi & Saatchi is touting a manufactured girl band, created by the agency, as its latest ad weapon in the battle to reach young consumers.

Marketers will be able to hire the as-yet-unnamed group to promote their brands in their songs, their clothing and what they eat and drink.

(More at Poptimists). (xpost)

It's also the message threaded through I Am Me, is it not?

(2) I got Tori Amos's Scarlet's Walk (2002) from the library last Saturday; haven't had time to listen to it enough, but so far I like it far more than I'd expected. It seems far more pop than I remember her being (I used to cringe when people played her for me); is this because she's moved closer to pop, or because pop moved closer to her? I've not been taking in the lyrics, not because I've been avoiding them, just because she's been in the background and they haven't broken through. In any event, there are songs on here that aren't so different from the opening to "Rush," though unlike Aly & AJ she doesn't take them through to the teenrush of a wailing chorus.

So are the girlpoppers effecting a change in my taste?

I mean, Tori Amos???

I imagine it's both...a friend of mine made this same observation a week or so ago. She doesn't listen to the radio and dislikes most teen pop, and she thought that Tori Amos was going more "mainstream" in her some of her later albums (I wouldn't know, never really listened to Tori Amos all that much). I forget which album we were listening to. But then how many teen poppers cite Tori Amos as a major influence? Is the ratio the same as a high school drama dept's worth of aspiring singers?

Ashlee et. al. certainly still sound closer her first album Little Earthquakes, which I actually really could imagine sounding quite different after a heavy dose of current confessional teenpop. Some young aspiring girlpopper should definitely cover "Girl" from that album. But more generally I think we might see girlpoppers move toward that territory when they get to the third album stage and wanna "prove themselves creatively". Relevant factoid: Alanis Morrissette claimed in an interview that when she first heard Little Earthquakes she lay on her floor and cried all day.

"Take it back, take it all back now/The things I gave, like the taste of my kiss on your lips/I miss that now."

So by the third line she's taking back the taking back. She misses him. She wants him back. Once again, she's telling a story in abstractions, and once again it feels like a fullbodied story anyway. The chorus goes:

"All the things left undiscovered/Leave me waiting and left to wonder/I need you/Yeah I need you/Don't walk away."

What a profound way to lament a relationship: "All the things left undiscovered."

And then there's the ending, which is a whole new melody, sung in the same slow steps Tim described in "Say Goodbye," but many more - I wish I could convey her singing, the slow emphasis she gives everything, first a steady tread on her husky register:

"'Cause I can't fake/And I can't hate/But it's my heart/That's 'bout to break/You're all I need/I'm on my knees/Watch me bleed/Would you listen please"

Then repetitive little cries as her voice lifts.

"I give in/I breathe out/I want you/There's no doubt/I freak out/I'm left out/Without you/I'm without/I cross out/I can't doubt/I cry out/I reach out/Don't walk away, don't walk away, don't walk away, don't walk away"

A couple of interesting facts about this song: (1) Background vocals are credited to Ashlee Simpson alone; unlike the other tracks, no Kara or John augmenting her. (2) Songwriters are Ashlee Simpson and John Shanks. No Kara.

So, a question I'm kind of posing myself - who or what am I loving when I love Ashlee? - well, this doesn't necessarily eliminate Kara (who's at least as good-looking as Ashlee, and she's only 17 years younger than I rather than 31, and she says on her Myspace page she's single and straight)... This is an artistic creation here, this Ashlee, no matter how few or how many hands are in on it. But still, try and find an equal creation from Kara or John when Ashlee's not in the room.

I love it to death. It's like the Matrix guys doing Judas Preist with a refreshingly non-breathy girl voice on top.

Back to "Undiscovered": Good guitar playing from John, too. A gentle drone, a note shifts while the others stay put, but it's insistent, like the song itself.

I actually brought up the Ani lyric partly because I reckon I could make a mean compilation of earlier Ani stuff that would sound like an underproduced version of a lot of stuff here. Back on the covers tip, something like "Anyday" would make a great ballad for a girlpopper (I love this phrase Frank!) to do. In some ways becoming so obsessive about Ashlee has put me back in touch with my partially repressed fem-singer-songwriter adolescence.

Songwriting credits: Ashlee Simpson and John Shanks. Once again, no Kara.

Anyway. Johanna Stahley's *I'm Not Perfect* (she's from NYC, I think) is a better Sheryl Crow album than the last Sheryl Crow album. Sounds more like when Sheryl liked beats, back in her "Leaving Las Vegas" days. First song is called "My Big O (I Can)," and, judging from the album cover photo, may well be about the singer's Big O and the achieving of it thereof. Also, she imitates Steve Tyler in it. Another highlight is the one where Johanna falls for a bartender. And even the songs with sorta dreary words don't sound like they do.
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 18th, 2006.
What makes Johanna Stanley's CD so boppy, I figured out, is how her bassist and drummer play full-on late '60s bubblegum soul beats in three straight songs in the middle -- "The Bartender Song," "What You're Doing," and "Misery," the latter of which doesn't sound miserable at all. Tapdancey alley-cat rhythm of "I'm Not Perfect" (a Rickie Lee or Norah Jones move?) and George Michael Diddleybeats of "Nothing I Would Change" are nice, too.
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 18th, 2006.

(I, however, did not get the Switchfoot. I picked it up, looked at it, but could not make myself take it.)

I need an editor.

Q: 1. why are you so spectacular? 2. can you buy a private jet and save me from florida? I think the elderly people are coming to get me.

A: 1.) i took classes from lindsay lohan. but they involved drugs and drinking, so I failed. 2.) if I had a hammer, i'd hammer in the morning, i'd hammer in the eve'nin, all over this land.

Q: Are you excited about turning 17 this year?

A: i'm more excited about not turning 16.

Q: Where do you get the inspiration to be a song-writer and by being an artist (design)?

A: i dont get inspiration. I dont really know why I write about certain things, or why I dont write about certain things. I dont really "write" about anything. its all pish posh.

Q: So first of all i would like to ask. will you come to my house and disco with me and my brother in the nude? Secondly. being serious and all. WHEN. and i mean it. are you my dear, going to come to england.

A: I was in England yesterday! didnt you know? I was dressed as ringo star and I yelled things like "NAY NAY NAY"

Q: will you sing happy birthday to me on friday? i'll be 19.

A: happy birthday Mr.president.

Q: Okay. i've got three questions. 1. do you have any pets? If so, what are there and what are their names? 2. Have you ever watched Veronica Mars? If not, you should. 3. Have you ever traveled overseas? if so, whats your fave place you've been and why? p.s. Do you love it?

A: (uno) yes. simon's dawgs. and unicorn. (something) i lost my remote (tres) i was riding on the mayflower, when I thought I spotted some land.

brie!!!!!!!! will you come and chill with captain nicnic in hard rock cafe london and bathe in baked beans? you know you wanna

A: YES YES YES.

Q: what is your fav. sport and why??

A: is that a trick question?

Q: have you ever wondered what your life would be like without the music, the movies, and the fans?

A: yes. and then I remember that I would live the same life.

Q: 1. What is the best Bob Dylan CD? 2. Have you seen Transamerica? 3. Do you think Reese Witherspoon should have got best actress?

A: 1.) my favorite is Highway 61 revisted. but they are all amazing. 2.) nope. 3.) i thought she did win? am i going out of my mind? I saw walk the line the day it came out, at midnight. LOVE IT.

Q: yes, she did win...my question is do you think she deserved it or should someone else have got it. =]

Q: what is ur biggest wish??? :)

A: to be a character at disneyland. mostly Ariel.

Q: if you could live in any decade which decade would you choose?

A: SIMPLE. the 60s. no doubt.

Q: Do you remember going to a school called Pioneer Middle in South Florida to talk about you're movie Hoot (April 3rd)?

A: PIONEER MIDDLE SCHOOL GIVES A HOOT. i hope cookies and cream/salt and pepper have been feed lots of cheetos and crickets.

Q: Where'd you get your networking skills?

A: from many years of working in the netting industry.

Q: Do you want to go see the musical Wicked with me.

A: can I be in the musical?

Q: What event from your life would make the best cartoon scene? Pirates: cool or overrated?

A: once I chased a road runner. i tried to drop an anvil on her head. but it fell on me instead. i think that would work great as a cartoon. the best part was that I was dressed as a coyote! how random right?! right. pirates are overreated. I AM THE WARRIOR.

Q: How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? Why is the sky blue?

A: those are highly controversial question. mostly ones I cannot answer. but I will say this. "is it safe to say C'mon C'mon? was it right to leave? c'mon c'mon. will I ever learn? c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon"

Q: you were in my dream. i'm hungry. lets go get pizza.

A: I have a question. I JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH YOU AND NOT ONCE DID YOU MENTION THAT I WAS IN YOUR DREAM. what the frick. that damned lip ring is giving you brain damage.

Q: do you like mooses? that is a weird word. mooses.

A: i once owned a bear that wore a dragon costume, named moose. so. to answer your question. i hope mooses suck.

Q: would you eat a chocolate covered hot dog if someone offered it to you?

A: depends. what kind of dog? i couldnt eat a whole saint bernard. maybe a baby poodle. the white ones. with milk chocolate? that wouldnt be so bad.

Q: What do you think about imaginary teddybears?
-You want one?
-Do you think im crazy, or just a really cool person with an imaginary teddybear called Hans?
Take your time Brie.
Those are some tough questions.

A: --- they make me say "free all night" ---i dont ---well. can you make pancakes? waffles? if the answer is yes. then yes.

Q: i got a job at the gun club pulling traps. it just kind of happened. i dont even know what i'll be doing. AHHHH I'VE NEVER EVEN HELD A GUN IN MY LIFE! but i hear you get good tips...should i stick with it? hahaha this is like an advice column...

A: YES. BECAUSE YOU ARE THE WARRIOR. listen to the following songs, they will be the soundtrack to your life: slippery people by talking heads, warrior by yeah yeah yeahs, knockin' on heavens door by BOB DYLAN and....soldier by destinys child:)

Q: How long does it take you to come up with all the banter you churn out? I mean seriously, it has to be the most random irrelevant stuff I've ever read. I guess though that is the mystery that is Brie Larson....

A: i bought the Do-it-yourself DVD.

Q: is your concert on friday free?

A: well. its 5 invisible dollars. so I guess you could say that.

Q: should my mum let me get my lip pierced?

A: YES. and it should be in the shape of the letter B.

Q: Do You Like Panic! at the disco? and do you think billie joe armstrong is attractive?

A: i would say no, but only because when I hear their music or just their name...I get this sudden urge to break my left arm and stick a fork in my eye? billie joe armstrong is in green day. your answer is right there.

Q: What does celestial mean?

A: read a book. maybe its in there.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/yolandat

1. yolanda thomas (another post-divinyls cdbaby aussie hard-living gurl who stops after only *eight* songs and who is almost as good as leanne kingwell in her horniest songs "lock up your sons" and "going down" where she is gone down on and maybe "oh yes", all of which make her two sappier songs about california more bearable).

2. come to think of it, "oh yes" probably has a wee bit too much melissa etheridge in it for its own good, and the gloria-estefan-via-shakira move "perception of deception" is probably more fun. vibratophobes, caveat emptor. but "lock up your sons" and "going down" are truly rockin' and sexy and really crack me up:

- slik *slik* (1976, on arista records, and totally fucking mysterious. who the hell are these guys? they name one song "the kid's a punk" but at best they only look like punks in the *lords of flatbush*/dion and the belmonts sense, except they're all wearing different baseball jerseys on the cover. and really short greasy hair. you know they're tough guys 'cause the one with the springsteen/deniro/pacino look has a toothpick in his mouth and another one is punching his left palm with his right fist. they cover both "when will i be loved" by the everly brothers and "bom bom" by exuma, the latter of which i'm pretty sure was also covered by the jimmy castor bunch, and they also do a song called "do it again" credited to midge ure, though ultravox didn't put out their first album until 1977 I think. also, there's a song called "dancerama." so maybe they're disco? i have no idea, not yet.)
-- xhuxk (xhux...), April 23rd, 2006.

http://alexgitlin.com/npp/slik.htm

http://www.answers.com/topic/slik