Rolling Teenpop 2006 Thread

Who are "Pantra"? Does she mean "Pantera"? "Tantra"?? Also, I hope she covers "Back in the Mud" on her new album!

>>Instilled with a strong love of ’80s glam-metal, some Runaways/Joan >>Jett-size girl-rock (to see Damone's Noelle in action is to >>believe), big >>Marshall stack guitar solos and badass attitude, >>Damone is all >>about the joy and excess of rock.

Damone was so not Marshall stack and guitar solo on their debut. And if it had been more like Joan Jett, I would have actually liked it. And she was as badass as my housecats. Nothing wrong with that, but geeez.

>>With the help of legendary mixing engineers Tom Lord-Alge (U2, >>Weezer, Marilyn Manson) and Mike Shipley (Def Leppard, Green Day, >>Andrew WK) putting the finishing touches on their upcoming self >>produced album, Damone has created a timeless piece of rock’n’roll, >>ready to be sandwiched in a “rock block” of Guns ’N Roses, Queen >>and AC/DC.

Ha-ha. I don't get the reverse in adsmanship. Damone's never going to pass as a bunch of heavy rockers. What's wrong with being what they were and just improving it with, like, some passion in those songs?

This blurb reminds me of the blurb that was being peddled with Hanson's live album. "Guitar brutality!" it was said, excerpted from a review from USA Today or Entertainment Weekly. So I asked for a review copy. Big mistake.

I don't know. Nothing else on Most Wanted comes close. You should try Lindsay Lohan's "I Live for the Day," which is doing something very different (a vengeance rocker, basically, and joyous on its vengeful terms), and oddly enough is one of the few Lohan songs that Kara DioGuardi has no hand in, but it nonetheless has the same reverbed-mystery-lament feel. And then you should try Ashlee's "I Am Me," which is even more of a ferocious Dance Of The Woman Scorned and so is even farther in intent from "Fly"'s tremulous beauty ache - but buried in the song's melody (especially during the dancing-on-your-grave ending) the beauty is there, aching. Which isn't altogether surprising, given that Kara DioGuardi and John Shanks are among the song's writers, and John Shanks is its producer.

So, Tim F., if you're worried that by going for Lindsay and Ashlee you'll be diluting your love for Hilary, you should instead conceive this as expanding your love outward via Shanks and DioGuardi.

Some will say that I'm counterfeit
But I will be who I want to
Some will look at me and vomit
But I will do what I want to

Which is extra funny because to make "vomit" fit the meter and rhyme you have to mispronounce it, which she does but without hamming up the mispronunciation. I think she lifted this comic device from that Billy S. guy she likes so much.

Also, in a behind-the-scenes making-of-the-video short for "Tangled Up in Me" she demonstrated to us how they prepared the instruments for the shoot, so she's showing us the muffles they put on the drums; then she turns to the camera and silently mouths "We're not really playing our instruments" to the camera, as if imparting a great but confidential secret.

I'm listening to clips of some of these on itunes. Sounds like a bigger production and she's got a good singing voice, but is it as ... believable or something? Does it not just kind of sound like some covers band doing a kind of average/blah assortment of songs, but dressed up in the studio?

xp - I always thought of Cheap Trick's version as a kind of believable '50s nostalgia. believable because it was about '50s rock and roll as a very rocking music! I think it's quite dynamite.

Speaking of Cougar rocks - though this is off-topic - last week I listened to Jessica Simpson's "I Think I'm In Love With You" for the first time in four years. It's the one that samples the brief bass-guitar fillip from "Jack and Diane" and otherwise is a basic dance-r&b number where she shows off Mariah melismas. It's likable, since she's willing to make the notes fluffy (which isn't to say that she fluffs any of the notes). But what's amazing is the Peter Rauhofer Club Mix that's included on the single. No Cougar notes, just driving, ominous techno and Jessica's "I think I'm in love"s sounding icy but heartbreaking, darting up and down above the jagged synths. Might as well be a totally different song.

(In general, I'm not one of these guys who says, "No, you gotta hear the remix.")

-- Frank Kogan (edcasua...), December 28th, 2005. (Frank Kogan)

And yeah, she's 17 (and I think the songwriting is often really good).

Mikael Wood's appraisal of her, Brie Larsen, etc, can be found here:

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0552,wood,71326,22.html

And the fact that she picked peas on her family farm in Tennesse is pretty country, I guess! Perhaps country fans will eventually agree.

-- xhuxk (xedd...), December 28th, 2005.

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Hope Paltrow is far too pretty to remain in the peapatch, for sure.
-- edd s hurt (eddshur...), December 28th, 2005. (ddduncan)

Unfortunately, on first listen, it triggers loads of "naff" detectors in me – I think it's because being from "the rest of Europe" (ie not UK and probably Ireland), I've heard loads of terrible Euro stuff employing that not-actually-proper-reggae device, and associate it with Lame Continental Backwaterism. (Examples that have crossed over into UK/US(?) are "Live Is Life" by Opus and "Susanna" by "The Art Company".)

He more than made up for it on that DVD I reviewed early last year, where he looked like someone's scary old grandmother. It's those sweaters. I never liked "I Want You to Want Me" on "In Color" and even less on the Japanese album. There Zander says this song is called "I --- Want -- You --- To ---- Want ---- Meee" like he's talking to retards and lots of small children. I could never get it out of my head. Irritating.

So Hillary Duff is better at being Kelly Osbourne than Kelly Osbourne is.

i guess you could kelly's album does the new wave thing more sloppily than those new hilary tracks do, but i'm surprised courtney love fans would take offense at that.

?????????

:-0