Cure for Bedbugs Summer Preview Spectacular!

In the process of moving, so I figured I'd offer a brief preview of summer posts to follow:

♥ Exploring the Rihanna death drive. (Note: Rihanna sped past Hannah Montana on this week's RD Top 30 to the #2 spot. B5/High School Musical, prepare for the great fall. By the end of the summer I want to see FIVE Hannah Montana faces in the top five slots. I will not sleep until this happens, which is to say I don't sleep.)

♥ A Meltzer/Kogan-derived dissection and dissertation of Ashlee's pop playground, defining Ashlee Simpson's ouevre and its relationship to triviality and awesomeness.

♥ The Official 37 Reasons Why Toy-Box Is Better Than Aqua.

♥ The Official 37 Reasons Why Aqua Is Better Than Toy-Box.

♥ Mislabel Mayhem, Pt. 2. Part one was a huge success; thank you all for participating! With any luck, Gnarls Barkley will ACTUALLY cover "Pushin' Too Hard" live when they see how immensely popular the imaginary version of it is on the interweb. 'Cuz y'all know they check the blogz.

♥ Commentary on new albums by Hannah Montana, Cheyenne Kimball, Fefe Dobson, Skye Sweetnam, and more.

♥ CSI: Melissa Lefton. The Man doesn't want you to know about Melissa Lefton. But I do.

♥ Confessional Jamz, Summer 2006 Edition.

♥ The continuing saga of the Lovemarks.

♥ The first serious film review I've written in at least a year. My Homemade DVD, dir. Skye Sweetnam (b/w "Switched" and "Radio Free Roscoe" performances).

♥ Several of the most incredible Myspace artists I've ever heard, most of whom I haven't located yet (but will).

♥ X-Men: The Last Stand's definitive squashing of narrative form in the 21st century cinema of attraction. Actually, that was the whole post.

Oops! ...Mislabeled Monday!

Be the first person to name every song correctly on MISLABELED MONDAY and you will receive today's GRAND PRIZE:

Melissa Lefton - Melicious

That's right, list every song correctly in the comment box below and you will actually seriously no-bullshit win a (burned) copy of the shelved and neglected 2001 Melissa Lefton album Melicious. Melissa hasn't been heard from since (believe me I'm looking), so this may be our last contact with her. Ever.

But wait! Let's meet today's contestants!

Sonic Youth - Goo-era demo, untitled

Considered to be a pivotal touchstone in SY's towering career, Goo was a towering achievement for a truly pivotal band. This painstakingly crafted but seemingly off-the-cuff demo is all bristling, angular energy tightly coiled into artfully noisy noise/art-rock that retains a disturbingly hushed ambience. The strikingly evocative instrumental was regrettably left off the recent reissue, in part because it's 27 minutes long with no fewer than thirteen (!) false starts (and six unique tunings), so get it now and be the artiest art-rocker on the art-block!

Death Cab for Cutie - BBC Session, "President of What"

I received this track from one of the regular contributors to what has to be the best Death Cab fansite on the web right now...totally on-point (and quite obsessive) analysis with a personal context lacking from so many Death Cab fansites. This is from a little-known BBC Session recorded just prior to the 2004 election. Notable primarily for Ben Gibbard's brief but effective anti-Bush diatribe, during which he calls the so-called "president," among other things, a royal pussy.

Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective - "Grass/Long Haired Child" (live)

DevBan and AnColl team up for the freakiest folk in town, from this live recording from last summer's legendary performance at the Bowery ("I was there!"). The A.C. ham it up on "Grass," which they extend into a six-minute extended sing-along until Devendra enters and joins in...only to go SEAMLESSLY into "Long Haired Child," at which point seven or twelve people joined them on stage, all with distinctive percussive instrumentation (on the recording it sounds kind of like pots and pans, though, not the best quality). You really get a great communal vibe from this track, real ELECTRICITY. And DevBan's warble has never sounded warblier.

Gnarls Barkley - "Pushin' Too Hard" (Seeds cover, live)

I MUST SEE GNARLS BARKLEY LIVE RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THEY ARE WITHOUT A DOUBT THE GREATEST BAND EVER IN THE UNIVERSE INCLUDE THE BEATLES HOLY FUCK. This is so great, it's totally playing on the whole "is it too close to the original or not" controversy of the VERY controversial Violent Femmes cover. Personally I like the Femmes cover, except when I decide I don't like it ('cuz I'm schizo just like Gnarls) but this totally blows it out of the water, shows the GB eclecticism in full effect, and what's REALLY sick is they go right into "Necromancer" after this hahaha (but the recording cuts off, I don't even know WHERE this is, but I'm sure a million of you will fill me in on the comments thread...haha get one CLUE, right?). The Seeds never sounded so fine and Cee-Lo obv. sings the FUCK out of this song (duh!).

Sufjan Stevens and Danielson Famile - "Livin' on a Prayer"

I wouldn't have guessed that Bon Jovi's ballsiest arena-rocker would sound so great gussied up with swirling symphonics and delicate group chorus, but when Sufjan hits that high C on "LIVIN'" in that achingly fragile falsetto, I just want to cry (slight nit-pick, they don't do the key change). Br. Danielson sings a few verses, bringing new life to well-worn lyrics with his strange vocal intonation...maybe a better word would be incantation. It really feels like a prayer, as corny as it sounds. If you listen carefully you can even hear the faint jangling of sleighbells amidst the orchestral majesty. Not sure when or where this was recorded, does anyone else know? It seems kind of obvious now but who knew "Livin' on a Prayer" would make such a great Christmas track?

Enjoy the holiday with some great tunes! Contest ends one week from today or until we have a winner. But feel free to comment on the above tracks, even if you don't know, like, or want our grand prize. Winners can email their home address to the provided link or just request an emailed digital copy.

E.T. is an alien and he is kinda (My)spacey/ Comin' from the universe to party and go crazy!

THE T STANDS FOR TOY-BOX!

Dum dum dee-dee dah-dee dum dum dee (let's party)!



Tata Young

This one's a role player (only two friends + Tom) but at least the music is on there. Found this one googling around Matrix-wise. The Thai Britney! "Sexy Naughty Bitchy" is a hoot, not much to say about the lackluster 'space w/ out of date bio...but the music is great and overlooked (by me at least). Apparently she's Thailand's biggest selling pop star ever [EDIT: swear I saw that but as I said the googling was lazy...can't verify now but that's probably very much not true]. Her official website is now defunct, not finding a lot of great info on her goings-on through lazy googling at the moment. [SIGH, EDIT 2: Hey, here it is, Tata Young's Official Site, it was undergoing particularly weird-looking construction the other day...next time a "Be Right Back, Site Maintenance!" would do the trick to lazy lazy lazy people like myself!] Holy crap, her albums aren't the cheapest things going, but now I MUST have them all.



Katie Neil

How long have I been friends with this person without noticing?! Majorly indebted to Fefe Dobson with vocal phrasing closer to Benatar-derived Skyeisms (oh man that's one of the worst phrases I've ever written, I should keep a running list). Her songs are pretty great, very sharp...I may have to pursue this one further and track down the self-released CD. Be sure to check out her "Stupid Ex-Boyfriend" contest from a recent blog post. [inserts into Stylus column]



The Dollyrots

Proof that Lookout! does teenpop aside from that shitty Ted Leo cover of "Since U Been Gone," which probably doesn't count anyway. Heard and loved these gals (n' guy) randomly on Pandora a few weeks ago (nice reminder to plug Chris Dahlen's Pandora/etc. article) and didn't really pursue much further (except friending them) until they got a mention on the teenpop thread. Garage rock sung by the Rugrats = amazing...I should pick this one up.



Victoria Acosta

Voted the "Best Mariachi Vocalist in America" at age eight (cool!), now Victoria Acosta does low-rent indie R&B and has some affiliation with Radio Disney (if you look carefully, you can just make out the Radio Disney logo in the background there). Tip: using really loud, really fake cricket chirping effects throughout your single is generally not a good idea. Victoria has a friendly link to Yohany, who has been described as "a more street Jessica Simpson" (what?).



The Maynard Triplets

Take THAT, Veronicas!

Shout out to Ashley Wool, who, along with Tiffany Affair, knows how to work the teenpop blogging circuit. She asked me to "please write a totally sarcastic and hilarious review. it would make my year. i'm not even kidding." Sorry, I don't do sarcasm...but I can refer you to an expert.

X-raying the harmonies

Lisa and Jessica Origliasso

(I suppose I risk turning this whole operation into a massive in-joke. But hey, it's not like anyone else reads this blog anymore...)

I came across this track from the Pop Culture Countdown download page. They also have an acoustic solo peformance of "Rush" by Aly and AJ [what is up with all these mysterious deletions???].

This live recording displays the twins' vocal interplay outside of the studio. Autotune doesn't work miracles, and these girls can really really sing. Semi-related: I finally sat down and watched the various infamous Ashlee performances this week and would love to hear a stripped down acoustic set. To my ears, both events, SNL and the football game, seemed like the result of major sound problems beyond her control (and who had the bright idea of changing a bunch of the lyrics to "La La"? I'LL GIVE YOU LEMONADE WHEN I MEET YOU AT THE DOOR?! Isn't that straight out of a "Simpsons" episode?). Damn, the football performance was particularly heart-breaking to watch on so many levels. Shame on everyone in attendance/America.

Here's "4ever" unplugged, soarus very much intact, except they don't hit those Eb's at the end.

Veronicas - 4Ever (acoustic)

Thursday is Gorges

A day of musical gorging and otherwise languishing indoors...aside from the like ten $2-4 purchases I made over the weekend (many listed on the all-but-movie updated sidebar, damn I just can't watch films for pleasure these days, I must be broken), I've decided to track down a few albums I've missed lately. So now I'll provide completely lazy and inarticulate blurbs about my first impressions to prepare me for a career in freelance music writing!

Ghostface - Fishscale
I have the same reaction to this as every Ghostface album I've ever heard. I don't get it and don't care to listen again (I probably will, though), but I can imagine someone else quite enjoying it. Ghostface seems to have about as much personality as a rapper as Lucy Woodward has as a Shanks project.

BWO - Halcyon Days
Oh man, it's about time. I've been hunting for this goddamn album for weeks. Pretty awesome throughout, the stuff that sounds the most like the four singles from Prototype stuck at the end hits immediately but the album overall is pretty solid..."Temple of Love" and its decent semi-clone "Juggernaut" are both highlights, "Chariots of Fire" is a favorite, don't register most of the ballads yet but they aren't bad, which is good. (Actually, listening again, the overall standard on this album is surprisingly high, no missteps/filler really standing out. The best song might be "Marrakech," have to listen a few more times.)

Toy-Box - Fantastic
This has got to be one of the most coveted teenpop objects ever, still goes for an average price of $50-60. I like that I only have a dubbed cassette of it w/ new age + whale call music on the B-side (after some Nena and Kim Wilde singles). It might be one of my favorite albums ever. It is relentlessly stupid, which means it's a very smart album -- it's hard to be this consistently STUPID. But is "E.T." the best or second-best song featuring E.T. ever (the other contender being that ridiculous Michael Jackson song)?

Ashley Parker Angel - Soundtrack to Your Life
I'm liking it OK so far, I'll update at the end of this post when I finish the whole thing. The Matrix single "Soundtrack to Your Life" (which I hadn't heard in its entirety) is sooooooooo bad. SO VERY BAD. Dedicated to Ashley's son, LYRIC. This is why teenagers need to stop having sex immediately. Surprisingly eclectic, there's a "She's Leaving Home"-sounding ballad, some darker low-key electronic stuff, all of it given some direction with Ashley's voice, which is probably the most solid male singing voice I've heard this year. But yikes, the final ballad slog is pretty awful.

Arctic Monkeys - I Refuse to Type the Name of Their Album in Its Entirety Even Though This Is Longer
Wow, I really like this album!

Robyn - Robyn Is Here
Not all that notable overall, but I never really paid attention to the big singles, both of which were produced by Max Martin and Denniz Pop. This alters my understanding of the Pop/Martin trajectory a little, I made a pretty direct link between Ace of Base and Backstreet Boys/Britney, but Robyn is an interesting detour or phase or whatever she is between BSB's first two albums and the first Britney album. The singles actually sound like they belong after Britney, they seem subtler, a toning down of the explosive energy in the Britney singles.

Danielson - Ships
Sounds like it was more fun to record than it is to listen to. Part of a trend toward what I'd call "practice room pop," the kind of stuff my friends and I come up with when we're fucking around in music school practice rooms.

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Bleah. It took me a bit to really enjoy "Crazy" after being initially underwhelmed (the trick for me was unexpected replay, one reason I like that it's been such a successful UK #1). But I can't imagine listening to the album much. A waste of Cee-Lo's voice and more fuel for my Danger Mouse ambivalence. Gnarls Barkley is practice room pop at heart.

I may or may not chime back in when I finish getting this thing labeled "unreleased Britney 2006," hope I'm not getting virus'd... EDIT: Haha, this is where I realize that the Britney B-sides/rarities collection I've been looking for all day has been labeled "unreleased Britney 2006" and is in a file format my computer doesn't recognize. Oh, internet.

Almost missed the missing link...

Who knew the missing link would be named "Lucy"?

It's 2003 and John Shanks is looking for his next stepping stone to the elusive SOUND that he hasn't quite nailed yet. He's going to team up with Ashlee and Lindsay soon enough and the sound is forming slowly but surely in a bunch of Hilary Duff tracks and on the first Lillix album...by way of Sheryl Crow and maybe some remaining shades of Melissa Etheridge adult contempo (still haven't heard the Pink album he produced) (EDIT: woops, Shanks only produced a single remix), but a lot of that has been filtered through other acts by now. As far as this makeshift narrative of teen pop is concerned, Michelle Branch is the turning point.

I bought Lucy Woodward's While You Can on a whim because it was three bucks and I was feeling lucky. And I lucked out -- not sure how I even knew to pick this one up except I must have mentally documented everything John Shanks has produced since 2001 or so (I definitely don't remember reading anything else about her now that I have). In my haste to buy it, along with one of those cheezy Dizny comps with some Christy Carlson Romano tracks on it, I didn't even bother to glance at the back and see that the whole thing was produced by Shanks. But I certainly heard Shanks when I popped the CD in.

Teenpop archaeology hat on, I turned to Emily and told her that this must be somewhere around 2002 or 2003, sounds a LOT like Ashlee, but...you know, earlier (I finally purchased a hard copy of Autobiography the day before, also three bucks, so the aesthetic bridge to Lucy Woodward was much clearer -- another argument for owning physical copies of albums, I had very little connection to Ashlee's debut listening to MP3s of it, but I've come to understand it differently; I'll describe it in a bit). Emily couldn't check copyright date/production credits in the car (carsickness, jeez) so we waited it out and finished the album.

She instead asked why I dated it there and I tried to sketch out my understanding of a timeline. Which I thought it might be beneficial to write down.

So Europop Britney/boyband falling out of style by 2001 and other complications (I'm not big on blaming 9/11 for everything changing [anymore] but it did ostensibly prevent Melissa Lefton's Melicious from being released, that counts as a factor, right?) gave way to confessional rock coming into style, part Lilith Fair, part nu-metal, part pop-punk, part Sheryl Crow, part Alanis Morrisette becoming the idol of so many performers at the same time post-Alanis producers of female pop/rock acts were finding a foothold in teenpop production (enter John Shanks). Also Tracy Bonham (covered by the V's), Letters to Cleo (Kay Hanley in another short-lived paradigm shift to power pop 2003-4, not totally in vogue these days but hey "Mandy" finally cracked the RD Top 30 with an extra PR push in Disney advertising), Liz Phair, Courtney Love. Who else?

There's a relative lull 2002-2004 while teenpop, the demographic category and possibly genre since that hasn't been totally decided yet, recuperated from the Britney mk 1 and the "death of the boyband" (yeah right) comes back full force in part by cross-platforming more efficiently. Television/film crossover is a norm now, not just a common phenomenon; it's been standardized. This is part of the reason why Miley Cyrus Montana is such a mindfuck, it's like meta-platforming. Just don't hold me to that word. (Haven't mentioned here but Miley's real first name is DESTINY. DESTINY CYRUS.)

But in that time period (maybe lull is the wrong word for it...transformation?), a bunch of acts fall through the cracks, including Lucy Woodward. She's hedging an awkward fence between bubble R&B sugar diva and proto-Ashlee, but the tracks where a slight snarl comes through point pretty directly to Autobiography. Formal analysis of her album: cool!

So Autobiography. My initial association was instinctual and more based on my personal experience with it...I'm actually hearing Radiohead's The Bends, not by how it sounds (actually maybe a LITTLE bit how it sounds, mid-90s alternative rock gets paranoid) but by how it feels in the chronology of me "discovering" it. So an album comes along and for whatever reason I'm kind of floating around, either because I know nothing about music and need something to believe in (OK Computer) or because something has changed, probably in me but maybe in music, too, and once again I need something to hold on to. I Am Me did it for me, really forced me to ask some hard questions about what music I was listening to, why I was listening to it, and HOW I was listening to it, talking and writing about it. Not that I've answered those questions, but I'm trying to carve out some meaning little by little.

I first heard The Bends about six months after OK Computer, which I can pretty confidently call a formative album in a phase of my life that I've moved past, and Autobiography comes (in non-MP3 form) about six months past I Am Me. It's a bold album; it feels like the start of something. It's meaty, beaty, big and bouncy, sexy, fully formed, confident. But it's not there yet. "There" only happens in retrospect, but it happens, and I think it has happened with Ashlee. The foundation for longevity has been laid, I trust her and I trust who she's working with.

Tangent thought: Radiohead needed the first album they've since all but disowned to even get the chance to record The Bends, but Ashlee's shot was secured in who she was, a sort of celebrity royalty, which in part fuels some of the guilt that helps me relate to her songs, regardless of "who she is" (she is me?). And what kind of assumptions are there inside those quotes, anyway? A friend who likes Ashlee Simpson made an argument that "Shadow" is just "that song," the one she had to record, like "oh, this is my famous sister, I know people are thinking about it so I'm going to write that song to appease their expectations of me as a celebrity"...as if the bizarre circumstances of her own fame (and infamy) are boilerplate for a pop music career. Really, this happens enough to be some sort of Hollywood cliche? I don't think so, but I'm open to some examples.

Anyway, the bottom line is my understanding of what seems to be (for now) the pinnacle of what she and John Shanks and Kara DioGuardi are capable of doing was an integral component of my retroactive understanding of what came before. I love that I heard I Am Me first because it allowed me to subsequently connect to Autobiography in a way that would have been impossible without some hindsight.

Another reason why it's a shame Lucy Woodward never got a second chance -- I hear some potential in the shadows of her voice, those times when she trusts that there is something beyond capable singing (she has a good voice, not necessarily the most interesting voice, at least not on every track) that will reach that mystery mark that both she and John Shanks are groping toward in 2003. But Lucy Woodward has moved on, with a new album being recorded as of April 5 and songwriting credits on Stacie Orrico's best song, "More to Life." Possibly never to relive her days as a (not-so-)missing link.

EDIT: One thing that I overlooked in my initial post (all of a few hours ago) is lyrics, which aren't nearly on the same level as Ashlee's. Several of these songs are full of vague ideas/language, placeholder rhymes that undermine other lyrics, plain ol' mistakes...and I'm having trouble retaining most of the songs after hearing them. Most egregious error I just realized is in "The Breakdown," with this line: "The Rolling Stones and I disagree/ That you can't always get what you need/ And I find it a little hard to believe/ That there ain't enough love to go around/ That's how it breaks on down"...first of all, that is the OPPOSITE of what the Stones are saying, at least the way you've phrased it. What you seem to want to say is "the Rolling Stones and I disagree; I think you can't get what you need." But if the overall message in this song is "hey, shit sucks sometimes," then don't you mean to say is that you find it easy to believe there ain't enough love to go around? So anyway final verdict sez I still hear Ashlee sound in chrysalis here but yeah these lyrics don't stick at all...thank god a professional celebrity stepped in. And having said ALL of that, I should say that I kind of like the story in "Gettin' It On" of two people who know they have no feelings for each other but just can't stop fucking.

Lucy Woodward - The Trouble with Me

Lucy Woodward - Gettin' It On

And check out the streamed tracks at her Myspace.

I KNEW IT

I KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. OK first of all [edited for impressionable young A&A fanz] Aly and AJ for ruining my 100th post celebrations. Second, my hatred of these two evangelist fear-mongers is well-documented, so I say to the world I TOLD YOU SO.

But in this month's issue of Blender, or so I'm told, we get a nice pull quote from one of the Michalka sisters: "I think evolution is silly."

Oh man oh man, when I get my hands on that article I am going to read the hell out of it, even if it means purchasing Blender.

More to come very soon.

EDIT: Got it...

Of note, Aly and AJ claim of "I Am One of Them": "God put it in [our] hearts."

Throughout dinner -- where we're joined by the girls' dad, Mark, who owns a successful contracting company -- kidnapping comes up in coversation. Carrie says that when the girls were invited to a party Elton John was giving, she sent a body guard with them, because "if they got in someone else's car, I could never see them again." Hollywood, mom and daughters agree, is "full of freaks." Later on, Aly pets her big black dog Saint vigorously (they're about to get two puggle pups, too), and says he's there to protect them from "perverts."

You're home-schooled girls in a gated suburb -- why are you so afraid of kidnapping?

"It's not a fear of ours," Aly says."We just want people to be aware. You could live in a nice neighborhood and there could be some perv there. You never know."

[...]

Given the pronounced Christian overtones in the home-schooling movement, we can't help but ask the girls for their thoughts on that cultural hot potato, intelligent design.

Do you believe in evolution?

"No," AJ says, shaking her head and frowning.

"Wait," Aly says, bolting forward. "Are they teaching that in schools now?"

They've been teaching it for the better part of a century.

"I think that's kind of disrespectful," Aly says. "Anything that has to do with anybody's beliefs on religion, that should stay out of the classroom. I mean, I think people should be able to pray in school, if people were into that. Everybody should just do their own gig."

"Evolution is silly," AJ adds. "Monkeys? Um, no."

Read the article here: Page 1 and Page 2

EDIT: Now available online here.

SKYE SWEETNAM FOR 100, ALEX

"CON-GRAD-ULATIONS!"

100th post on a drizzly afternoon in...where am I again? And yet the most pressing question on my mind is: can I edit acetate base film with a sonic splicer? I just don't know. (This is starting to read like a Brie Larson post, abort!!!)

Not a heckuva lot of Skye news to report, except today I find that the darn feature that I only wrote to be posted and discussed on her fan board remains woefully un-posted. SIGH. Try to keep up, kids, we're talking about the future here.

Yes, that is Skye drawing on some poor girl's face with a Sharpie. It's either the greatest moment of that girl's life, or one of those moments where you realize that Barbie's hair is never going to grow back. Unless you buy the one where the hair grows back.

Columnated Ruins Domino

New monthly thing in Stylus, one of me favorite pubs. Where is the deluge of nasty troll comments? That's the only reason I even signed on to this gig!!!

Future ideas: the Myspace phenom officially theorized a bit, a big WHERE ARE THEY NOW feature (newly featuring Alexandra Slate and Melissa Lefton, more soon), and the single greatest interview Skye Sweetnam has ever done. Gotta love that banner, I hope it's the recurring image each month.

I was also asked to try my hand at some Summer Jamz, so get ready for a 17-19 track teenpop overview, 1996-2006. Duh, of course I'm opening with "Oops! ...I Did It Again."

I wanted to clarify one point in the Stylus piece about Marit Larsen assuming the role of M2M's Jennifer on "Under the Surface"...this is an idea that was worth expanding upon but I didn't really think it was appropriate for that feature. I have two different interpretations of "Jennifer" (probably still available in the M2M Listening Report post) which is fascinating for both what it is (Marion + Marit) and for what I feel it might have been (less Marion!). What it is first: the story of a relationship on the verge of breakdown, because That Guy (meaning the counterpart in every M2M/Marion/Marit song) found someone who is BETTER than M/M. In my mind, he's found someone a lot like Marit, and is currently dating someone more like Marion, whose "voice" (both literal and writing voice) shines through on this one.

What I wish the song was is a bit more complicated...I want TG to be currently dating Jennifer, and trying to appease his most recent girlfriend that the relationship is a friendly one, just to spare her feelings. The lines "can't believe how much you LOVE her" make a bit of room for this scenario, and makes the line "it's either her or me" seem...well, kind of sad, like Marion accidentally falling into Marit mode, railing against inexorable forces. But in this version I want more Marit, more self-doubt, less assured passive-agressive digs "hope you don't hurt her, it would be a real shame if Jennifer got hurt"...something more genuinely concerned for a nice girl, Marit modesty that acknowledges, rather than "she's so great, I still want her to DIE," "she's so great, how could I hope to be as good as her?"

So in "Under the Surface," I'm seeing Marit as the "super nice" vulnerable (haha I always thought they said "wunderbar") girl who will absolutely end up with TG at the end of "Jennifer," because frankly TG just can't handle these Marion mind games anymore. But now Marit, who is clearly superior to M/M in "Jennifer," is doubting herself despite the fact that she really truly loves this guy, and knows at some level that he loves her. At the "core," she's still haunted by the idea that he loves his previous lover more -- thing is, she just doesn't realize how amazing she is, which is paradoxically what makes her songs so wonderful and heartbreaking, and why when I listen I just want to BE TG, the cause of and solution to all of (Marit's) life's problems.

Say Hello to the Lovemarks

Meet Rockwell, Mercedes, S.J., and Chanel!

So I've been googling around trying to find out more information on THE LOVEMARKS, the new Saatchi and Saatchi GUM division girl group who will soon be selling us all sorts of wonderful products.

Well, if I hadn't been on spam site filter-out mode, I would have clicked on one of those celebrity picture dumps, which has had exclusive photos for quite some time.

A bit more (also old) info from this site:

“The band made its first appearance last evening at Saatchi & Saatchi offices, and unless you knew any better, you'd never know it was a marketing device."

[...] Meet S&S Gum Girls Rockwell, Mercedes, S.J. and Chanel. And why not? A custom-built all-female (of course) product promo hip-hop (of course) band is a kind of natural extension of the now well-established marketing practice of using teens to promote the product you're trying to get them to buy in the first place.

Um, not sure if those "of course" asides were totally appropiate. Anyway, this is from back in September when the event happened. Present at the gala were the following celebrities of some interest:

♥ Kim Appleby (singer/songwriter, formerly of Mel and Kim)
♥ Amy Winehouse (singer/songwriter)
♥ Anthony Costa (formerly of Blue)
♥ Beverley Knight (singer)
♥ Gerry Devaux (singer, Lenny Kravitz's cousin)
♥ Tyler James (singer, touring w McFly, yikes covers "Your Woman" out Aug 22)
♥ Kelly Bryan (formerly of Eternal)

The question is how many of these musical wannabe-luminaries are actually involved in the Lovemarks project, if any. Only speculation at this point, but a few of them seem like candidates for co-writing credits...or maybe they just crashed the party.

This shindig was appropriately called the Saatchi & Saatchi Gum Factory Launch Party. I wonder if they've read my article...

PS - it's official, "We're All Ears" is not a defunct catch phrase as I stated in the RD article (online version revised). It's actually still in use when auto-pilot programming goes on in the middle of the day and the little kids listen to Cookie Monster, as I'm doing right now. I've never actually listened in this time slot but now that I have some free time during the afternoons I'm already opening my eyes to a whole new world. Hm, Cookie Monster into "First," I dunno. Also the Radio Disney edit of "La Vida [Mickey]" is ridiculous.

Graduation is overrated

Anti-uglists fail to establish a foothold at Radio Disney

OH SHIT HERE COMES THE TRUTH SQUAD SOMEONE PLEASE PULL THE PLUG ON THIS BEFORE I HAVE TO LISTEN TO IT NO NO NO NO NO NO.


#25 with a turd bullet

EWWW THEY EVEN HAVE THEIR OWN ICON!!! WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO DESERVE THIS THAT MR. C THE SLIDE MAN DIDN'T EXCEPT NOT BE THE GORGEOUSEST MUSICAL PERSONALITY EVER!!!!

If I let this cheeseball cover of a cheeseball song represent one iota of my graduation experience, I encourage you to shoot me in the face. The Truth Squad needs to go back to their respective entertainment careers, which won't result in me mailing them dead mice with a note that says CON-GRAD-ULATIONS! XOXO MICKEY.

Other songs that need to stop being played on Radio Disney THIS INSTANT. "Unwritten," neo-payola'd "On the Ride," "Big Bad Wolf" which is REALLY A LOT LESS CUTE every time I hear it, "I'm Like a Bird" which they don't play often but are playing it now when they could have just as easily played "Maneater" (Radio Disney/Muppet edit: "Mah-na Ma-neater"), neoracist colorblind race promos ("see the person, not the color") which aren't songs per se but get heavy rotation. And anything from High School Musical (is there such a thing as inverse-payola where you pay people NOT to play something again? I'll do that).

Songs that need more airplay: "SOS" even though I'm on overload since about March...this should go to #1. Also Hannah Montana's "Who Said" and any other Hannah Montana song they care to play, "Mandy" by the Jonas Brothers (the kids aren't gonna give a shit about a promotion to meet the Bros if you don't play their song on the radio...jeez when are you people going to hire me?? You need HELP), any number of summer-themed songs that ARE NOT "GRADUATION"!!!!!!

FIGHT THE WAR ON LINDSAY!!!!!

Anti-rockists fail to establish foothold at Fox News

This article is ridiculous. Let's examine it.

The New York state attorney general has levied a $12 million fine against Universal Music Group for payola.

[...]Take Lindsay Lohan. The teen actress was turned into a singer by Tommy Mottola, who made an interesting deal at Universal to start a label just for her.

Mottola also managed Lohan, which no one questioned, and he claimed that UMG had put up $50 million to get the ball rolling.

But Lohan is no singer, and no one, not even her movie fans, wanted her albums or to hear her on the radio.

Nevertheless, the record company persisted. A series of e-mails in June 2005 shows what was happening — a manipulation of MTV’s “Total Request Live” show that airs every afternoon and can seriously affect a new record’s fortunes.

UMG, according to Spitzer’s reports, was spending money at radio stations and for “TRL” to “stuff the ballot box” (my words) and turn losers into winners.

It's almost as if a writer at Fox News is...editorializing. Now wait a second, if those emails are from June 2005, that means the "manipulated" song in question is "First," judging from the chart records.

Clearly no one consulted with any of these people (only two?), who would have informed this so-called entertainment journalist that "First" was actually the fourth best single of the year.

It has become painfully obvious that what we're dealing with here is an all-out, unabashed, full-throttle WAR ON LINDSAY. And I for one won't stand for it.

I am not going to let oppressive, totalitarian, anti-LINDSAY forces in this country diminish and denigrate THE ACTRESS and HER MUSIC. I am not going to let it happen. I'm gonna use all the power that I have on THE INTERNET and MYSPACE COMMENT THREADS to bring horror into the world of people who are trying to do that. And we have succeeded. You know we've succeeded. They are on the run in ROCKIST MESSAGE BOARDS, in the media, everywhere. They are on the run, because I will put their face and their name on MY BLOG, and I will talk about them TO ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN if they do it. There is no reason on this earth that all of us cannot celebrate a TEENPOP SUPERSTAR devoted to BUBBLEANGST, CONFESSIONAL ROCK, and CELEBRITY NARRATIVE SUTURE POP together. There is no reason on the earth that we can't do that. So we are going to do it. And anyone who tries to stop us from doing it is gonna face me.

I'm hereby starting list of all known, on-the-record ANTI-LINDSAYISTS. These people are DANGEROUS.

Please bookmark this post and send it to your friends and loved ones. Help me in this righteous crusade -- stage boycotts, write your representatives in Congress, and do not be afraid to name names. I'll get the ball rolling here, but I can't redeem the sanctity of Lindsay Lohan alone.

THE FOLLOWING ANTI-LINDSAYISTS WILL BE SHOT:

Offender: Caryn James, The New York Times
Crimes: "Portrait of the Party Girl as a Young Artist"

Offender: Roger Friedman, FoxNews.com
Crimes: "Lindsay Lohan's Record Company Fined $12M"

Offender: Jenny, IDon'tLikeYouInThatWay.com
Crimes: "Lindsay Lohan's 'Music' Gets Punished

This is only the beginning. And don't think this isn't a WAR ON ASHLEE, too. Her reputation has also been marred by this filth.

D-Mo and the Chaff Tones party like it's 1999

Gettin' jiggy with...because...you know...

I wonder what I would have thought of these songs in 9th grade. A belated update from a recent Tommy2.net Radio Disney time capsule (site's not link-friendly, but mine is and I posted it here). I should email those people.

B*Witched - C'est La Vie: #2 (after "Baby One More Time") with a bullet. This time capsule chart must pre-date "I Want It That Way" by about four minutes.

Midget - Invisible Balloon: I can only imagine what this must have sounded like played ad nauseum between tyke-squeak "WE'RE ALL EARS" (which, despite calling it "now-defunct" in that article, is still in use on cable/on-demand RD. I can't remember ever hearing it on the internet radio station).

Swirl 360 - Hey Now Now: Wow, it's like I stepped into the ruins of a former civilization. And they liked 90s alterna power pop with strained post-boy (not yet a man) vocals -- they nab that high note OK I guess, but I don't recall it happening again on the album, to the album's detriment.

...Why isn't anyone playing "Mandy" anywhere? These kids are going to get pissy and make a Myspace that downplays their one success as a group, instead offering some boring song from Van Wilder OST (as a free download, no thanks) and changing their name to either SWIRL or, even better, KILLING SKY. And before I bring Adam Schlesinger into all of this, I should probably do my research and figure out he co-wrote at least one of their songs. No shit, I was just going to say he should have done that. And hey now now look, twins before it was cool (really, Denny and Kenny?). They should hit more high notes (i.e. try to sound more like girls) and call themselves an anonconfess (confanon, journonymous, suture-rock) unit. Then maybe they wouldn't have such a depressing bio:

Hello Everyone. Just wanted to let you know what is up with us. First, Thank You for being so patient with us. I know we should of had a record out forever ago. You see, this past summer we got picked up by a new American label. They made us go back in and re-record songs from the California Blur sessions. They put us in the studio with Sylvia Massy (Tool, RedHotChiliPeps,...) to make those sessions more rock. They also wanted us to change our name to, Killing Sky. Anyway, it was supposed to come out in 2005. Unfortunately, the label lost $$ and the record was just sat there. Now, we are excited to say that we have been picked up by a new label called, Machine(www.themachineproductions.com). We are putting the finishing touches on some songs that we are writing and will start recording soon with Mark Endert (Maroon5, Gavin Degraw, Tonic, Splender,..). We will take 6 songs from the Sylvia sessions, have Mark remix and add his special touch to it. We plan on having a record out this year. Also, our new label is letting us keep our name. We are just going to drop the 360 and just be, SWIRL. Please stay in touch with us so we can let you know what we are doing. Plus, we should be posting some of those new songs soon! Thanks again for hanging in there with us. We appreciate all your messages! Thank you!

Other thoughts in no particular order while listening to a particularly gruesome stretch of RD tunes:

♥ Looking at that old chart now...hm, they still play "Space Jam" too much (on cable, anyway, where they're a bit slow on the uptake, all kinds of Disney cover version flops that are displaced by HANNAH MONTANA'S NEWEST AND BESTEST TOP 30 CONTENDER SINGLE "WHO SAID" on the RD [Real Deal]). Oh my god I'm going to get so sued when that album comes out and I post the whole thing at once for evaluation purposes only.

♥ I don't know why I'm not getting more into the Ark album. I do like it...I'll stick with it for a bit, "Clamour for Glamour" is pretty awesome (especially when accompanied by this video). Brie Larson would like it.

♥ Skye, a Wal-Mart exclusive soundtrack release? Yer killin' me, first a Target exclusive then Wal-Mart? You know they (Target) can refuse to sell you Plan B if you and Music slip up, right?

♥ Miley Cyrus still gets no name recognition on the Diz...careful, you may want to disown this Hannah crap before you can't get out from under that disguise (everybody on the show knows by now anyway, you suck at keeping secrets).

♥ Do these kids actually like B5's "Big Bad Wolf"? Kids are STUPID. When I was a kid we listened to Green Jelly's version. Because we were STUPID.

♥ It's official, I have NEVER heard "1985" more than three songs away from "Sk8er Boi." Another back-to-back block, yuck.

♥ I can't stop watching the "I Need a House" video. It's as brilliant as I think it is, right? I didn't go crazy or something?

♥ Emily gets her own heart!

♥ It's going to be VERY funny when Rather Ripped gets stuck between the Veronicas and Hannah Montana OST at the tail end of my year-end list. Ha, I'm thinking about it right now.

♥ Did anyone actually purchase Secret Life of the Veronicas? Prove you did in the comments section and I'll send you a FREE burned copy of Secret Life of the Veronicas!

♥ OK, Jessie Daniels - The Noise: She's got the Kelly C rockfessional down pretty well (goddamn it [sorry Jessie] SOMEONE needs to create a hot buzzword/genre for this music! I can't waste all my time blogviating about rock-confessional-confessional-rock-in-a-teen-pop-setting...it takes too long to type. Hey, look at that, troublegum...not quite right, but what a word). Problem is, this is wholesome Christian rock lyrical fare, so Jessie's using the kiss-off voice to...praise. Similar problem in the new Pink single (is "Who Knew" the next single?), these heartbreaking lyrics pasted on top of "Since U Been Gone"...feels wrong. Jessie, whatever you get mad at in this world...hangnails, black licorice jellybeans, liberals...whatever, doesn't matter, WRITE A SONG ABOUT THAT. Of course Jesus is underlying all of this stuff, it's as true for Ashlee and Kelly and Lindsay and Aly and AJ as it is for you, they just don't capitalize their H's and Y's. I WANT TO SEE A WRATHFUL JESSIE. Also, for someone who employs so much guitar noise in her single, you really seem to have it out for noi...oh.

♥ Has anyone coined the word "blogviate" yet? (Yikes, it's been coined by many many other clever people. It's a pretty stupid word.)

♥ I finally sat down in front of our new cable box and watched episodes of "Lizzie McGuire" and "That's So Raven." They both SUCKED...I can't believe I'm wasting my time on this bullshit!!!!

Here's a message from Kara DioGuardi courtesy this guy:

Is Teenpop a Superword?

A handy preliminary definition of terms is appropriate before I get going on this mess:

Brief sketch of what I mean by Superword: A Superword is a word like "punk," which is, among other things, a battleground, a weapon, a red cape, a prize, a flag in a bloody game of Capture the Flag. To put this in the abstract, a Superword is a word or phrase that not only is used in fights but that is itself fought over. The fight is over who gets to wear the word proudly, who gets the word affixed to himself against his will, etc. So the use is fought over, and this - the fight over usage - is a big part of the word's use. That is, we use the term in order to engage in arguments over how to use the term.

Meta use is use!

A Superword is a controversy word, but not all controversy words are Superwords; for what makes a Superword really super is that some people use the word so that it will jettison adherents and go skipping on ahead of any possible embodiment. Like, no one and nothing is good enough to bear the word "punk," and I wouldn't join a band that would have someone like me as a member anyway. (Supposedly, in the late ’80s I once claimed that Michael Jackson and Axl Rose were the only two punks going at the time.) “Rock,” “pop,” “punk,” and many other genre names sometimes act as Superwords. So "punk" (for instance) can be an ideal, and every single song that aspires to be punk can fall short in someone's ears. But for the word to be super, not only must people disagree on the ideal, but some people must consciously or unconsciously keep changing what the word or ideal is supposed to designate so that the music is always inadequate to the ideal, even if the music would have been adequate to yesterday's version of the ideal. And the music then chases after this ever-changing ideal. Words bounce on ahead, and the music comes tumbling after.

This one is coming up on the ILM board, a Kogan idea (applied to punk, although Tom Breihan makes interesting observations about hip-hop as superword) that makes me want to read his book. Commence summer reading. Anyway, I'm thinking about a lot of this stuff now and felt like I should respond to a few things in a way that lets me obsess/expound a little.

This thread evolved into a discussion of genre and social categorization, and I think a lot of it relates to teen pop in ways that have been discussed (for one) in the Voice Ashlee review. Which I still haven't totally unpacked yet.

The first idea here relates to the (seeming) breakdown of social category that has a lot to do with how production, distribution, and marketing of entertainment media in the context of American (and I guess global, but I'm speaking in a primarily American context here) capitalism has developed in the past 20 years. I'm using the Time Warner merger in 1989 as the marker of a distinct phase in entertainment media creation/consumption...see the incredible Global Hollywood 2 for an extensive overview of these developments.

The idea of the "counter-culture" and of any culture stemming from a consumer model -- this includes rock, punk, hip-hop, most codified or wannabe-codified genres of music -- has been undermined by niche marketing capitalism, which doesn't attempt to market to the individual within a wider group, but rather emphasizes individuality to, paradoxically, ensure mass homogeneity. Examples are maybe most apparent in global Hollywood marketing schemes that strategically isolate culture, racial, gender, even class groups in order to market to the individual, in what's called "positioning" films for a specifically defined audience (semi-related fun fact: "domestically...films about black themes are given a mere six weeks of opportunity each year, in the period between Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday and the end of Black History Month"). Arguably most pertinent to a discussion of music in this structural context is the "indie film" as a niche genre, which utilizes the same distribution and marketing practices of a witheld-from-critics action movie while somehow being perceived as having greater substance and/or value than those films, despite being indistinguishable in terms of the structural aspects of its distribution and marketing (and usually production, although that can very occasionally be subverted).

That point can be translated pretty well to an argument about "indie" as music genre, which I think has been discussed enough, and I don't really have much to add to the discussion -- read a few Myspace posts to find a few "mainstream pop" indies. And remember Skye's new slogan: "INDIER THAN THE DECEMBERISTS!"

But the niche marketing aspect can also relate to changing perceptions of musical genre as part of a culture or subculture. Though "punk" (for example) isn't a purely historical superword, perhaps it will become more difficult to introduce and canonize new superwords as young audiences are individually targeted using group assumptions that intentionally and systematically don't translate to a unified, identifiable cultural group defined by music genre.

Current teen pop's relationship to the superword is interesting, because to some extent it defies social categorization, despite the fact that much of it (from Britney to Ashlee) is widely believed to be part of the mass homogenization of popular music. Again, I'm torn when it comes to the music world vs. film world, where homogenization seems so apparent -- I think this has to do with the relative ease in which new music can be created as compared to the resources required for production, distribution, and marketing of a Hollywood-standard film. The Myspacers can record in their basement and hold their own with Britney (Skye did just that and toured with her), whereas aspiring film students, or anyone else for that matter, have pretty much zero chance of infiltrating the Hollywood system with their own independently produced work. Granted, Skye needed the distribution and marketing backing of Capitol, but she initially produced the music on her own aesthetic terms.

The actual musical content of teen pop of the last ten years has not effectively established a regular or definable group fanbase. Even using just three signifiers of popular support -- Billboard, Radio Disney, and TRL -- it's impossible to adequately track most artists in teen pop, which itself encompasses many superwords, along definable group lines. Ashlee Simpson is a model here, as she might be for many other aspects of this discussion, because as has been previously stated, she has not found a unified audience outside of TRL. Other audiences who might be unified under a blanket superword for whatever music Ashlee makes have, if not rejected, been hesitant to embrace Ashlee's music.

This opens up a lot of questions. Is teen pop subject to the parameters of already formed superwords, or is it truly a unique new musical experiment, a superword in itself? If it is truly unique, can any subsequent superwords emerge from the artists who now push the boundaries of how the music is understood by its audience (whoever they are)?

Kogan examines I Am Me using punk as a "red cape," if the punk/Ashlee thread is any indication. But he also asserts on his blog that Ashlee has no clear precedent, and actually (re-reading this) makes a few points I've tried to make above:

Obviously, I'm identifying hard with teenpop in that just as I don't see a path for them into the future, I don't see a path for myself either - which isn't to say that there's no future for me, but just that like for the teenpoppers, my path isn't given, my way isn't clear, so we're going to have to invent one.

Current "teenpop" - or the strain within it that most currently is capturing my attention, the part I'll call "rock confessional" - is actually without precedent, kids in their teens and early twenties working with a handful of music pros in their mid thirties, but the kids all included in the songwriting credits and creating (with the aid of those veteran pros) songs that are smarter and more emotionally complex than most of what you're getting from real grownup pop and rock performers (including the grownup pop and rock performers that the veteran pros also work with). But what this means is that these girls have no good models for how to expand and deepen their music as they grow into their twenties, and no preset market or genre to inhabit once they do, unless they create it for themselves. Well, no good models is my opinion. The girls probably all want to be Alanis, not realizing that they're already better. Kelly Clarkson's commercial success is heartening, as she's managed to do her agony and angst without shedding the sugar pop. But Ashlee, who's the best of the lot, is now only getting middling sales and poor airplay and is probably reliant on the tweeny-market that she'll shortly be losing. Maybe there's a way for Ashlee and the others to carry on with their pop craftsmanship and exuberance yet do Alanis and Fiona and KT Tunstall and Tash Bedingfield and Courtney Love and Craig Finn and Conor Oberst, but without Alanis et al.'s bullshit and obfuscation.

Hmmm, don't know why I didn't tell John the truth, which is that I'm hearing in Ashlee the potential to do Jagger or Dylan 1965 but take it somewhere else, since she's basically a "nice girl," which means for better or worse she won't be tied to the alienation of a counterculture, so maybe she'll grow where Dylan and Jagger stopped dead. These are sketchy thoughts on my part, and I don't know how much to credit to Ashlee as opposed to Shanks and DioGuardi et al., except none of what S & D et al. have done with anyone else shows this promise, so I might as well credit Ashlee. "Ashlee" is an amazing creation anyway, no matter how many hands are involved.

Not to say that existing superwords are mutually exclusive from whatever category it is in which we can define, or attempt to define, Ashlee's music. But if I'm interpreting this correctly (which I may not be) this idea of being a Dylan or a Jagger is imperfect because of its reliance on an older conception of superwords -- to go back to the idea of capitalism underlying and maybe informing this entire discussion, as changes capitalism so changes how superwords are formed and used, or perhaps in the case of musical identification, if they're formed and used. In 10 years, there has been no one genre to describe nearly any of the artists widely recognized (and in some cases vilified) as teen pop (to do a quick top of the head list, Backstreet Boys, Britney, *NSync, M2M, Avril Lavigne, Michelle Branch, Skye Sweetnam, Kelly Clarkson, Ashlee Simpson, Lindsay Lohan...how are any or all of these artists actually musically related?). I don't see teen pop itself as the genre, but as more of a catch-all (or is this the definition of a superword? Maybe I'm just confused here) for an incredibly diverse range of musical artists and maybe sub- or emerging genres (like confessional rock in the teen pop context) with no clear single aesthetic or audience. Instead, teen pop is largely organized by critical assumptions, in this case assumptions about audience demographics, which may be, if not totally unfounded, harmful to valid analysis of musical content ("teenybopper music" is not the codified genre/cultural term for whatever it was the Beatles were doing).

I guess part of this is the question of how music and/or superwords are canonized, and whether or not recognizable artists and audiences within a superword "really happened like that" -- maybe there's as much diversity in "punk" as there is in teen pop. But I have a suspicion that the aforementioned artists will not be critically or institutionally canonized in the way that, say, Sex Pistols, Clash, Ramones (to name three very different but prominent artists informing the discussion of punk as superword) have been. Current niche marketing practices, which infiltrate both how audiences consume music (define a "punk," then define an "indie kid," then define a "teen popper"...)and how writers write about music, might preclude the possibility of Ashlee Simpson or Skye Sweetnam or even Britney Spears from being widely critically discussed in a manner that might lead their catchall "genre" (teenpop) to the same superword status as rock or punk or hip-hop. It's been (at least) ten years already and I see little progress toward a superword -- teen pop is dogged by many of the same assumptions and exclusion from "validity" as it was in 1996.

Part of my frustration and confusion here comes from an almost complete lack of critical discourse on teen pop. I'm not sure how one would combat this, aside from writing about it on a blog or a message board or a Myspace comment box somewhere, because music magazines have all become integral components of niche market capitalism. Ashlee Simpson won't be taken seriously in established music magazines so long as her audience doesn't require that sort of discussion or validation to sell records. And yet she doesn't really have an audience -- a unified one, anyway -- if the charts are to be trusted. She's existing in an interstitial teenpop universe, a liminal zone of pop (academia here I come!)...along with Lindsay Lohan, who certainly isn't getting any favors from the New York Times. Oh no, it's OK, as long as she "matures" (and conforms to the "valid" indie film niche, where you can actually get written about SERIOUSLY in publications that smart people like to buy) she'll be just fine.

I'm not sure how many interesting or valid or original ideas I have here, just thought I'd kind of expel it and see what happens. That's all for now, but I'll probably return to this after thinking about it more.

Fairy Use

Enjoy!



Here's the link.

Just couldn't wait...

Can you turn this picture into a guitar riff?

Drat, I saw this over at Clouded Senses a day or two ago, just after the birthday post. There's a certain day of the week more appropriate for it but...holy crap.

This article is so full of gold that I almost want to print it as is. But no, I must filter out all but SUPERGOLD.

On doing "the Canadian thing":

"I started off doing the whole Canadian thing. I wrote with my band. I wrote with James Robertson who I did the last record ("Noise From The Basement") with, and then I got summoned by the Gods of L.A. to come down to the Capitol Records building and they put me with, I'm serious, any person, any hit songwriter that you could name, I've probably written with them.

"So I'm thinking, 'Oh God, they're trying to turn me into another one of those hitmaker dolls and I'm not getting what I want.'"

Big in Japan:

...Overall the album didn't become the worldwide mega-hit everyone expected.

"Especially in North America," Sweetnam agrees. "The one place it did do well was in Japan, which now I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from because they're the ones who truly got what I was trying to do."

"Probably the coolest A&R guy ever":

"The L.A. world can be so scary and can be so intimidating at first, for young artists especially, going in there and knowing that everybody is breathing down your neck 'hits hits hits.' Luckily, I am equipped with great management, and great A&R guy [Julian Raymond at Capitol], who was secretly behind everyone's back going, 'Do more punk rock, Skye.'"

Skye makes Rancid guy kind of uncomfortable:

"Julian is a huge Rancid fan and he said, 'I'm going to make this phone call to see if this can work, 'and I'm like,' Please God, Tim, invite me over to your house. We will have so much fun,'" Sweetnam gushes. ...We wrote a song that is one of the most awesome songs, I think, on the record called 'Ghosts.' It's about going to the big city and being afraid of it, but still thinking you can prevail over it all.

Jaw still on floor:

"So I wrote this song and then I go and sell out," Sweetnam says abruptly.

She's talking, of course, jokingly, about working with The Matrix, a.k.a. Scott Spock, Lauren Christy and Graham Edwards, who produced a series of hits for Britney Spears, Hilary Duff, and Avril Lavigne, among others.

"I go to The Matrix and everybody's going, 'Skye, what are you doing?' I'm thinking, 'I have an anti-Matrix sign on my guitar and I'm going to The Matrix,' who obviously wrote tons of hits, wrote Avril's record, who I've heard about, her name, everyday for the last three years of my life. So I'm like, 'What am I doing? I'm committing artistic suicide right now.'

"But they were actually thinking the exact same thing as I was thinking," Sweetnam continues with refreshing honesty.

"They were thinking, 'We don't have a credible name in this business because all we do is take young girls and write hit songs for them,' and they just worked with Korn on their record so they were like, 'We're trying to do something different.' So I'm like, 'Oh my God, finally somebody who understands.'

"So I brought my art books and I'm like, 'Can you turn this picture of a wolf eating a girl into a guitar riff?' and they're like, 'Okay, let's try it.'

"So a lot of it is high concept; a lot of it rocks, like Nine Inch Nails meets Britney Spears. I can dance to it. I'm very very proud of this record."

PLEASE get more excited about this.

The Greatest Myspace Post of All Time

Seriously, so many good ones today. A few are obvious/major (and really just an excuse to plug their new single, but whatever) and a few are new to me but probably no one else in the universe (who lives in Sweden or reads Popjustice). Also, if I didn't mention it before (pretty sure I have but oh well), you can find and friend everyone in the semi-weekly Myspace series at the Cure for Bedbugs Myspace page.




Alexandra Slate

Excellent confessional-rock with fuller, richer vocals than a lot of comparable teen pop. Bec Hollcraft should take some notes...singing lessons are what, $60-70 a week? (You're almost there, and you don't even have to wail it out to get your point across!) Right next door to Skye in Toronto, though after some searching it seems that the two have never met. They'd be a nice double bill, maybe triple it up with Fefe for the Music Is My Boyfriend 2007 tour. We're gonna need a bigger bus!

Nice profile, too:

Poised.Brainy.beautiful.and.unguarded, self-aware but not self-absorbed. Her parents are happily married
Her upbringing has been largely idyllic and her life continues to be characterized by focus and achievement. With her talent Looks and intellect It’s apparent that she is one of the anointed ones. Indeed, in a medium dominated by self-admitted neurotics who hammer their anguish into art Slate seems remarkably…well…normal.

So which one is the real Alexandra Slate?The girl next door or the receptacle of inner turmoil?

Simon Curtis

Hot hot hot. There's been a paucity of BOYS on this here site, leading some close acquaintances to suggest ULTERIOR MOTIVES in my enjoyment of this music. To which I reply, the girls just do it better, period. But Simon does it pretty well, too, in part because he kind of sounds like a girl -- or at least boy c. 2000, when it was OK to categorize yourself as a BOYBAND artist. (In a recent interview, the Jonas Bros. rerecorded their intro because it sounded "too boyband." These kids are going to crash and burn with that kind of attitude -- and acoustic "Mandy" SUCKS. Sorry.) My frame of musical reference is limited here, early Daniel Bedingfield might be sorta appropriate. If I'm hearing it correctly, Simon also gets Myspace-referentiality bonus points. From "Bones": "Get out of my face/ It's my Myspace (Simon Curtis)."




Anna Sahlene

Swedish. Good. Found this one via Marie Serneholt (below). Anna worked with Lasse Hallstrom as a kid and has worked her way up to relative Swedish fame and fortune (fifth place 2006 Eurovision...). Nice gospel/blues force behind the voice. Ranges from decent soul ("Missionary Man," available for download) to dance! dance! dance! piano-twinkle glammish pop ("Creeps").




Marie Serneholt

She's in my top 10 (read: 6) albums of the year with an album that's like 30-40% crap. Which is saying a lot for the other 60-70%. I'm just linking to the Myspace here for an excuse to post another track off of her album and then link to this TOTALLY AMAZING HOLY CRAP video...discussions about playing with multiple identities all within fairly rigidly defined gender roles/types could be directed to "I Need a House," which could have been co-written by David Byrne. I really hope it's supposed to be as smart as it is. My favorite on Enjoy the Ride is probably "Calling All Detectives," though...just don't play it in the car, those siren sounds are not mixed for driving enjoyment. (A note on previously posted "That's the Way My Heart Goes" -- it was written by Jorgen Elofsson, no wonder it's got that Cheiron sheen...)

"I Need a House":






Lillix

Been holding onto this one for a while, and I'm glad I did. Their new single just wandered over to the internet and it's ridiculously good. The best thing I've ever heard by them anyway...picking up the disco-rock thrum without getting rid of the 21st century girl group charm.

Abby from Poptext had this to say:

So new Lillix 'Sweet Temptation'...

From the blurb:
Recorded by producer Jeff Saltzman (The Killers) and James Michael (Alanis Morrissette, Motley Crue), the band wanted to evolve their sound and get back in touch with their rock 'n' roll roots. Completely enamored by '80s music and classic rock, Lillix were crossing their fingers and toes that the producer of the Killers' multi-platinum smash Hot Fuss would take a chance on them. "We sort of thought [Saltzman] would brush us off as not being 'hip' enough, but he really liked what he heard and said yes to the gig," says Burns. As for the girls hand with this, in addition to writing the material on the record, they are also credited for their production services.

To me, it's not doing much. The chorus doesn't soar the way I need from this kind of song - the yelled lines keep the range lower, it doesn't ever take flight, you know?

I respectfully disagree, I guess...but then I'm not a stickler for soaruses. I don't know that this really needs to "take flight," I like the solo vocal build in the verses leading to a nice rug-pull in the shouted chorus (not really a climax/catharsis, though...it seems more part of the song's circular energy). "This is Lillix? Where's the rest of 'em?" ONE TWO THREE FOUR! Oh. And the fact that I'm on my way to listening about twenty times today alone suggests the "trick" in the chorus works as well as a chorus as it does as a trick. One of my favorites of the year so far.

Lillix - Sweet Temptation

Marie Serneholt - Calling All Detectives

NOTE: If you've seen "Fairy Use" already and are wondering where it went, the, er, "collective" had to tweak it a bit. It will be re-uploaded to YouTube soon.

SKYE FRIDAY PINK BULLDOZER BIRTHDAY CAKE EDITION

Name Skye's album on her birthday!!! Leftover names will be used for the 6-7 outtakes compilations that will be required to house all 70 of the songs they've written so far. Which is to say Soofyawn can suck it.

SOUND SOLDIER
MUSIC IS MY BOYFRIEND
I'M IN MY PINK BULLDOZER
GONNA KNOCK YOU OVER
PiNk BuLLdOZeR
GONNA KICK THE MATRIX IN THE TEETH
MAKING LOVE TO MY BOYFRIEND (MUSIC) ON SKYE FRIDAY
THE RETURN OF BRAINBRAT/BRATBRAIN (front/back cover)
MUSIC IS MY BRATBRAIN
MUSIC IS MY PINK BULLDOZER
I MADE DISNEY MY BITCH, BITCH
SKYE SOLDIERS UNITE
CONFESSIONS OF A BUBBLEGUM BRAINIAC
AVRIL LITE TACTICAL STRIKE
I READ HAMLET...TWICE
STRAIGHT OUTTA BOLTON
SHARPIE TITLE GOES HERE
LOVE DOGS IN MYSPACE
BRIE LARSON THINKS PIRATES ARE OVERRATED 'CUZ SHE'S A LITTLE PUNK
THEY LET ME MAKE ANOTHER ALBUM!

(Poll will commence in the comments section. PLEASE COMMENT, as Skye reads this page regularly and would love to hear your feedback!)

Happy Birthday, Skye. And of course you couldn't spell "Happy Birthday, Skye" without B-SIDE. So, fresh off NOISE FROM THE B-SIDES (a work in progress), a birthday song we can all enjoy, even though it's technically a compilation track and not a B-side. See, because you need SUGAR to make a birthday cake. That's shaped like a bulldozer.

Skye Sweetnam - Sugar Guitar

SKYE FRIDAY POP QUIZ

Q: What song should Skye cover on her birthday?

Datarock - Bulldozer
1910 Fruitgum Company - Bubblegum World
ABBA - Does Your Mother Know
Kyu Sakamoto - Sukiyaki

M2M Listening Report

This is how I avoid studying

Just got Shades of Purple today and it's very difficult to decide (especially after only a few listens) whether or not I prefer it to The Big Room. Big Room was my intro to Marion & Marit, but both albums have their strengths. M2M was much more unified on their first album, not particularly distinguishable until Marion's pipes really took over on the next one. In this sense, they may have been not only one of the first confessional teenpop groups, but one of the first ANONYMOUS confessional groups, years before it was cool (and before it adopted, almost exclusively, a sibling/twin model. I'm not gonna look into that just now, though).

M2M take on a less explicitly defined position/personality, playing the role of everygirl on this one, with some powerhouse lyrics hiding in even lighter, maybe more timidly(?) arranged songs. There's no diva boldness to highlight lines like "Call me crazy, call me blind/ To still be suffering is stupid/ ...did I lose my love to someone better/ And does she love you like I do?" "The Day You Went Away" seems to follow the same basic scenario they'd use in "Jennifer" ("Wow, she must be great. You two must really be happy together. Oh no, I'm fine. Don't worry about it, I mean, I'm completely devastated after all this time, isn't that weird? But no, she seems nice." Which suggests that maybe we need a LOT more passive-agressive teenpop, not quite the same thing as thinly veiled euphemism or aggressive-aggressive angst.)

I love how specific M2M get with "Day You Went Away," in a very different way than "Jennifer" (which, for the record, has one of the most ACIDIC pronunciations of a name I've EVER heard..."JENnifer is one heckuva gal [SNEER SMILE]"). Although you know, maybe it's more of a desperate delivery, a warning to this poor girl who REALLY IS VERY NICE. [EDIT: haha, wow just listened again and definitely forgot about "I wish that somebody would drop her"...and pretty much the whole chorus. Sympathy theory rescinded]

"DYWA" has this gem:

I remember date and time/ September 22nd/ Sunday 25 after nine/ In the doorway with your case/ No longer shouting at each other/ There were tears on our faces

Oh my god. HOW DEVASTATING IS THAT??? WHO BREAKS UP AT 9:25 IN THE MORNING? Or was it at night? It feels like it happened in the morning (it is the day he went away, if he left PM they would have been FIGHTING all day, which doesn't feel right...), they were fighting all night and dozed off together for the last time and woke up early, completely out of energy, she stands and watches him in the doorway feeling completely empty as he walks out (which means it's her place. Or her parents', yikes maybe he's trying to bolt before Mom and Dad wake up...must be a weekend, anyone have a 1999-2000 calendar to see what day Sep. 22 was? Whatever, they knew what was going on downstairs because everyone was SHOUTING until they fell asleep or left) The tears are all dried up, really more of a redness of the eye the way I'm imagining this. How old were they when they recorded this, 16? Really dead on getting the vibe of the break-up...Ashlee is closest to working in this territory now, and honestly I kind of prefer this sort of break-up song to "Since U Been Gone" style kiss-off (lyrically, not necessarily musically) although thematically it's closer to the songs Kelly C wrote herself.

The blending of both voices lends a strange and kind of disconcerting resonance to a few songs after a second to digest/listen a little closer. The self-deprecation feels very honest but it's not attributable to a specific personality or persona...and some of it cuts deep -- this is the kind of articulation of adolescent conflict that Pink might strive for...see, these aren't "stupid girls." Maybe M&M should be talking to 13 y/o Pink instead.

So I'm listening and relistening to "Our Song" and can't get "best teenpop song of the decade" out of my head. I do like it, kind of similar to DioGuardi/Simpson-style pretty abstract poetry with the occasional detail dagger, love the sorta brilliant transition into the Bee Gees chorus, perplexing mid-song cell phone call (what the hell is that guy saying? "_____...you're on your own." "It's done..."? "It's not..."? Sounds cruel whatever it is)...but overall it feels kind of flat compared to "Day You Went Away" or "Don't Say You Love Me" or "Everything" (still my favorite, I think), excepting maybe some subtle layering of vocal harmonies as the verses build.

The reason I don't think these two albums are really comparable is because the dynamic between Marit and Marion on Shades in no way resembles the relationship they'd display later, where there are 2 distinct M's, as opposed to maybe an interpretation of their name as "M TO M," an interchangable back and forth. Part of me likes the idea of them trying to place teenage girls (or, uh, grown men) into this complex narrative of conflict and longing...but not self-pity exactly, which is what separates both albums from a lot of post-Avril confessional stuff. There's also a streak of badass empowerment/domination, tells one kid to get down on yer knees when you're around me. And there's that incident at the cinema.

But then I also like the two personalities fighting it out, Marit trying her best to pipe in from behind Marion's vocal makeover. A big ol' voice will only get you so far, though, I get the feeling that Marit could flash a sad little smile at me or Jennifer or whoever and just DESTROY us. Which is what I think she kind of did already (wow, just let me vote it at #1 now -- no I will not actually publish any music criticism until you forcibly kick me out of the building/poll. Oh shit, I guess Skye's album will be released at some point. Wow, tomorrow is an EXTRA SUPER SPECIAL SKYE FRIDAY. But what will her new album be called? WE'VE GOT NAMES! FIND OUT TOMORROW!!

The Barbie Diaries Anticipation Thread

Discuss. Out May 9th, only FOUR [EDIT: changed from three, nice math skillz jackass] days after Captain Sly turns the big 1-8, to be accompanied by the greatest pizza ever.

So having just received Beyond Pink (by Rubyblue, not Barbie) in the mail, I notice belatedly that "Girl Most Likely To" was co-written by Nina Osoff, who also co-wrote "That's What Girls Do" (the Rubyblue version of which just barely kicks No Secrets' butt). But I won't post that one. Instead I'll go for what is, after only two listens or so, one of many stand-outs.

Rubyblue - Through the Rain: Pre-dates Josie and the Pussycats-style teenpop transition to hard-edge powerpop by a few years with some lyrical themes that would travel right on through to...well, Pink for one. "Because of your pain/ I see right through the rain/ I see right through the thunder clouds/ Beause you crushed my faith/ And then left me to blame/ I still hate you all the same/ I see through the rain" -- wow, listening now I'm seeing the set-up to "Since U Been Gone"... HELLO AGAIN. YOU STILL SUCK. THANKS FOR SHOWING ME WHAT GETTING FUCKED OVER BY SOME JERK FEELS LIKE SO MAYBE I CAN AVOID IT IN THE FUTURE. NO I WILL NOT GIVE YOU ANY OF THE MONEY I MAKE OFF OF THIS SONG.

Only thing missing is that Max Martin soaring chorus. Or soarus. Damn, this is one fine little powerpop album. Shame to see something like this basically fade away without proper release. But you can still get it used for 2 bucks, thirteen left so get it while you can, this item is predicted to SELL OUT.

And here's a word from guest blogger Jimmy Draper about a solo project from a former A*Teen, Marie Serneholt - That's the Way My Heart Goes:

the chorus is sooooo teenpop circa '99

Yeah.


Agnetha mk 2

On a scale of 1 to best 8-bit solo ever...

If you just twitched involuntarily, you might enjoy Family Music

My biggest question about YMCK, who I found through a post on Clap Clap, is whether or not you had to waste a significant number of hours playing NES during childhood to really appreciate it. When I first watched this video, I had a strange unconscious response -- there's something about the timbre of 8-bit videogame cartridge sound files that compels me to sit slack-jawed for hours.

I guess if YMCK were just about camp value or some kind of hardcore Nintendo nostalgia fetishization it might not totally work. The songs are painstakingly constructed, right down to the beep bop boop boo doot solos (which are AWESOME), transcribed straight from jazz improv. The vocals are crucial, too -- hushed Japanese girlpop with a tendency toward lounge.

But setting aside the non-tendo elements, NO ONE that I've played this for 1) particularly enjoyed it or 2) has spent any considerable amount of time in front of a big fat TV watching Megaman stand and blink (a friend just proved in his film that this tiny gesture has a weirdly profound impact in the proper context...hard to explain). How much of my enjoyment of Family Music basically boils down to conditioning, how much of it is appreciation for craft or carefully-executed novelty?

If you feel you might relate to any of these existential quandaries, you might want to consider checking it out. "Magical 8-bit Tour" is one of my favorites, but here's a less blogged-about track I've been listening to a lot. I don't think any YouTube video for this one has surfaced yet, but check out the available ones.

And hey, did anyone watch the Super Mario thing at the EMP conference? EDIT: Thar she blows...Matt Corwine's Super Mario Bros Jams

YMCK - SOCOPOGOGO