Chaffalumps

Wow, most of this is from today's update of Tommy2.Net. Some good stuff...

1. First was Pink:

Pink has recorded a opening theme song for NBC’s Sunday Night Football. The song goes by the title “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night” and is set to Joan Jett’s 80’s pop hit “I Hate Myself For Loving You.”

Cool! I'll post this when I can find it, may not be available yet.

2. Then Jonas Bros.:

Looking for some new material from The Jonas Brothers? There’s a new video online of the Joe Jonas Rap. Click here to view it, and prepare to laugh.

Eh. A cross between K-Fed and the "Behind the Music" parody ("Penetrating the Music" on the Popular Music Station yuk yuk yuk) a couple friends and I made in 12th grade! Joe Daddy represent (OMG his name is Joe, too!)

3. Then Ashlee (!!!):

Ashlee Simpson is scheduled to be the next pop star to star in the musical ‘Chicago‘. She’s been booked to play the role of Roxie Hart in London.

Whoa! I can't see this working at all (well, maybe). But I'm quite excited about it.

4. Then Hilary visits Katrina victims with USA Harvest a year later.

Yesterday Hilary Duff received favorable press for her work with USA Harvest. Extra taped her and she had an in-depth feature during On The Record With Greta Van Susteren on Fox News.

Hm, the screen shots still make me feel weird.



5. Plus it showed me how to make the above ticket. Go here.

OTHER THINGS

1. I was incorrect in sayin that Popgeneration is a Hollywood Recs PR prop, it's actually much more direct. Popgeneration is part of a PR firm that handles all Hollywood Recs artists plus Paris and Fefe and Veronicas and Cheyenne and Joanna and just about anyone else you can imagine. A minor oversight on my part but a completely inexcusable oversight on the author's part.

2. Jojo's "Too Little Too Late" made it on to the Radio Disney Top 30 countdown this week at #24, time will tell if she climbs up (this means that the kids are voting on her, which may lead to further airplay). She's at 29 in airplay on Mediabase. "I Got Nerve" is #1 (uh, yeah).

3. Someone on the Skye Sweetnam message board just called Hilary Duff "horseface." Unless he was referring to Haylie. ("Horseface Duff" could refer to either, I suppose, but Hilary doesn't have a horseface!)

4. Hey check it out: best teenpop blog on the internet! To paraphrase TMBG, that's like being the world's tallest midget. But thanks! Hm, this guy's been reading up. Also watches the Disney TV movies (DCOMs) I don't have any access to. Except via DVD (for HSM).

Sometimes I catch myself staring into Myspace/ Counting down the hours 'til I get to see your face

Another Myspace with 5 pages worth of friend requests waiting on me when I get through posting this. Couple of links...my most recent column got bumped up to weekly feature status (!) so you can check out both the splash page w/ the new Lillix drummer lookin' badass and then read the feature. I have several nitpicks, but I think I'll let them go, overall pretty happy with how it turned out.

Also in this week's singles jukebox. I get the feeling that people going nuts over "Revolution" haven't spent much time with the Veronicas...still a good song, maybe a 7 or 8 by non-Veronicas standards but definitely lower by my own standards for them. Hm, maybe ditto Pink? Nah, "U and Ur Hand" is one of the few hands-down failures (which isn't to say it's a terrible song, just compared to other examples) of the Luke/Max model. Speaking of which, on with the show...



Megan McCauley

Megan is a successful disciple of the new Dr. Luke/Max school (someone must think of a buzzword for this formula!), basically achieving what "U and Ur Hand" wanted to but didn't. But she also comes from the goth-pop-rock Evanescence school and brings that to the song, too -- and it all works! One of the best Lukemax trax (nah) yet, not better than "4ever" or the new Paris single (which is actually a Karaluke Justluke[andsomeonenamedSolomon]) but pretty great. It's also available over at Into the Groove.



Shut Up Stella

A "supergroup" of sorts, with fan_3 and Jessie Eden and "surfer chick" Kristin Wagner (I imagine she's the one that sounds like Gwen). It's a c.2000 teenpop throwback, a little bit of Daphne and Celeste, a little bit of B*Witched, a little bit of Triple Image (something like that). I didn't realize that the post-Spice Girls wave of teenpop could be referenced as a pose (this is sort of to that style of teenpop as postpunk is to punk) and as defense against the NEW wave of teenpop. Sez fan_3: "We wanted to make music listenable again. ...And somebody needed to counter this Paris/Lindsay bullshit." Um, bullshit. But cool to see that someone has defined a "golden age" and is trying to defend its "purity" against the newcomers, even if they're kinda full of it (and a little too self-conscious to give in to the bubblegum surrounding them, to push it all the way to WTF).



Betty Curse

One of the actresses from 28 Days Later does, like, theme-angst or something. The whole project is way too winky, it smacks of Melissa Lefton's better-than-this-but-still-doing-it tone, except Melissa is much smarter than "Betty." One problem is that Betty thinks she's being "ironic" or something, but merely provides mild in-your-face-isms, an attitude that comes through in the music. (From her personal page: i enjoy lonliness. i enjoy my bed. i like romance. i like being in control. i like being submissive. i hate apathy. i hate the small minded. i hate people who use 'wierdo' as an affectionate term. Well, you can't really "enjoy" loneliness, can you? Unless you mean to say "being alone." And why not "weirdo" as an affectionate term? It's winking completely randomly; she doesn't know at what or to whom she's winking.)

I don't think she has a chance (she's doomed, but not in the way she probably thinks, fully in character and with quotation marks around it)...there's no audience for this. The sort of Buffy/Angel audience (along the lines of the really funny Stylus blurb by Peter Parrish) that might be into her vampire or dead girl or whatever shtick are just a little too serious for the music, which is silly as music, not just as an idea. And the people who don't need to smirk condescendingly at the gloom and angst will find better music elsewhere.



Lulu

She friended me. I should know who this is, right? I think she was on Monty Python once.



Mary May

Not too bad, closer to the 90s adult-contempo influences confessional rock absorbed and selectively discarded and moved past, some Counting Crows and Sheryl Crow and hey I remember that one song, still boring. The "edgier" stuff reveals some fairly head-smack lyrics: "Gonna leave you like a victim of society/ Washed up on the shore of your morality." I really just wanted to post the bio, Mary needs to fire her publicist:

Mary May is emblematic of a butterfly. Her roots and values stem from a mid-western foundation. Born and raised in Indiana, now residing in Burbank, California, Mary May seems to float through life with a feminine, graceful air. Her spirit soars to music as a butterfly flutters with the air currents. Her music will softly touch your heart, lift your soul and make you think. She is like the Monarch headed for Capistrano - determined to continue toward her destination no matter what. Look for her debut album coming soon.

Malese Jow

Nickelodeon continues its pathetic cross-platformed attempts to compete with Disney at its own game (hint: instead of letting your stars make music without any Nick input, START A LABEL and sneak a few clauses into a few contracts!) with Malese Jow, the second (to my knowledge) Unfabulous character (after Emma Roberts) to launch a pop career. Jojo-ish R&B, very stuttery.



Vicky Coram

Included for the "Because of You" cover -- this song is a big deal, like karaoke staple big. Is that scary? Wonderful? Neither? Both? This sounds like a prompter might have been involved; if she was in the right demographic (like two years too old I think) it could have made its way to Girl Authority (they chose "Breakaway"...less intense). Kind of charming amateurishness, I guess cuz she's an amateur. I Like Her Bio:

I Am 15 Years Old
I Have My Own Personalitly
I Am Outgoing And Shy At The Same Time
I Have Been Singing For Over 8 Years
I Dont Have A Label or Manager
I Like Having Fun And Being With My Friends
I Am A Pretty Nice Person
For Right Now, I Sing Covers
But Some Original Songs Are Coming Soon!

Gianfranco Reverberi (Gnarls Barkley)

SOMEONE PLEASE STOP GNARLS BARKLEY. But meanwhile I like what they (ostensibly) based "Crazy" on, spaghetti mariachi of the Morricone school. I say ostensibly because I've never heard of this composer and don't put it out of the realm of possibility that this is part of a hoax, even though he has an IMdB entry and you can google him. So I guess it's not a hoax at all. Hey cool, so I can listen to this and then to "Crazy" and call it the St. Elsewhere EP and that will be that. And we will never speak of it again. (Probably wisely self-edited from the intro to the summer recap piece: "Don't worry, Gnarls Barkley tour diary coming next week featuring new press pics where they dress up as the girl and donkey from Au hasard Balthazar -- you'll be surprised to see who's who!")



Wolf Pack

Finally coming around to this, after prolonged support from Frank Kogan on the teenpop thread and elsewhere (finally came to my attention again in the new Allmusic singles section -- love the format, but the contributions don't really do it justice...why not just read the blog/board threads this is just weakly imitating?)

Anyway, I like "Vans" and I like most of their other stuff, very interested to see what exactly the crossover between whatever-it's-called rap and the skating culture is -- on their Myspace, the Wolf Pack has a contest to remix your skating videos to their song, so they've made the link very consciously (uh, they also wrote a song called "Vans"). But I'll leave that for someone else.

And an old Myspace update -- Katie Neil's "Stupid Ex Boyfriend" is available on iTunes and (no details but) MTV has been mentioned. But you didn't hear it from me.

Paris Is Yearning

Has anyone made this pun yet? [Results 1 - 10 of about 156 for "paris is yearning", tho a few are accidental and a few are based on Bertolucci's The Dreamers; there seem to be no puns left unpunned in the blogosphere, but please prove me wrong in the comment box] Based on this review, discussed over on this thread.

And then there's this review, from the Phoenix. I'm conflicted [EDIT: eh, not so conflicted]. Here are some problem paragraphs:

If after her disastrous shitshow of a Saturday Night Live performance Ashlee Simpson was able to rebound with a sophomore effort for Geffen that puts L.A.M.B. to shame, who’s to say Paris can’t serve up a sonic bitch slap on her first try?

Well, a warm-up. Including it becuase the author really doesn't seem to grasp some of the most important facts about the pop culture icons she's supposedly "defending" in this piece -- to say that simply making the record was "rebounding" is a stretch, suggests that she ignored the important part, not whether or not it was made, but how it sold (and how the accompanying tour did). At this point no one would claim that Fefe Dobson's being allowed to record another album is the indicator of her "success," but OK.

OK, now to Paree. No wait, one more:

Popgeneration.com caught on early. The site’s an on-line HQ for grassroots street teams, serving up 10 pristinely packaged, super-femmy recording artists, with plenty more en route.

Um, did she notice that Popgeneration is basically a thinly-veiled PR site for Hollywood records? They even have a contest to name the Hollywood Rec's Girl Next comp (which you can try to win a copy of in the upcoming Sugar Shock Teenpop Quiz!). Saying they "caught on early" is like saying that Radio Disney "caught on early" in promoting Aly and AJ or Hannah Montana.

Followed up with:

Pop Generation is a reflection of just how easy it is for songwriting squads like the Matrix and mixers like Serban Ghenea to manufacture girl pop in industrial quantities and then model it all as designer exclusives.

Gotta call bullshit here, or at least sneaky (not so sneaky) backhandedness...it typifies the tone of this piece (which on the whole is much more reasonable than the Observer article I spent way too much time and possibly embarrassed myself a little "analyzing" the other day) to use this sort of questionable terminology and not really convey how these songwriting teams actually work. She instead fuels broader bankrupt assumptions with a neo-rockist (yeah I said it, or to use another phrase, "good rockism") pro-"manufactured pop" twist.

Most of these artists have some authorial control over their work -- in the case of Aly and AJ, they have a great deal of control, as they write almost all of their songs themselves with some help from their parents. They're a lot of things, but "manufactured" isn't one of them. Ditto the Veronicas, who, as she just mentioned, not only write and play their instruments -- not sure if that's actually true, but whatever -- but wrote a song for t.A.T.u.

OK, now to Paree:

“Never be predictable . . . that way, they will never get tired of you.” That’s Rule #21 of “How To Be an Heiress,” from Confessions of an Heiress, the adult picture book Paris “authored” in 2004. Only Paris would take the high road and assume that we haven’t grown bored of her. And yet she’s right. Cue Rule #22: “If the media plays with you, play with them.”

Note the quotation marks around author. I don't know whether or not this was ghost-written, in which case I guess that's sort of valid, although that does sound like something Paris could and maybe would actually say. You'd have to be a sucker to pay someone to come up with that.

Re: a recent "vow of chastity":

Nobody who’s seen five minutes of the notorious 1 Night in Paris would buy into her promise to stick to first base for the next year. Especially once you hear Paris, which is even more concerned with getting down and getting off than Paris is herself.

Maybe a sexual riff on "good rockism," or just sexist. Paris, who -- again to the best of my understanding -- was the victim of this sex tape (which I've never seen) is attacked with the tape used as evidence of the disparate claims people are hurling at her -- "she's even bored and apathetic during sex!" Or here, "you know she won't keep a vow of celibacy since she's on camera and on record gettin' down and gettin' off!" Why should a singer's "vow of chastity" be inherently unbelievable simply because her songs are about sex? Or, for that matter, because she had sex with her ex-boyfriend?

“Stars [Are Blind]” already trumps “A Public Affair,” Jessica Simpson’s feeble “Holiday” ripoff call to the ladies. And unlike Disney Radio darling Hilary Duff’s “Wake Up,” it gives Paris a chart-topping crossover that will have 11-year-olds shaking underdeveloped hips alone in their rooms. It also all but guarantees that boozing club kids will be grinding to remixed versions straight through the holiday season.

Jeeeeeez. Get it, she likes pop! She's heard Jessica Simpson and has (sort of) heard of Hilary Duff and Radio Disney! Didn't bother googling it, or she'd get the name right and maybe figure out that "Wake Up" was number one among eleven-year-olds on RD for almost a year -- and to date has been one of "Disney Radio's" (and eleven-year-olds') biggest hits ever. Man, Disney really took a chance on that one, they got to it before anyone else! Unless a careless editor separated the second-to-last and last sentence from one longer sentence (it reads that way), this makes no sense at all. More proof of a flimsy "pop-lovin'" facade for a confusing series of bizarre (rockist) arguments. Also yuck for the phrase "underdeveloped hips."

During an MTV special on the making of the album that aired two weeks prior to its release, I was transfixed by a scene that shows Paris hard at work in the studio with Storch. She claims that this is how the songwriting process went: he’d mess around on his keyboard with the beats while she’d grab a pen and write whatever came to mind. Wait a minute. Didn’t she hire someone to do that for her too? The camera pans down to her paper. I try desperately to make out what she’s scrawled on the page. Just as quickly, the camera flashes back to her cleavage. I’d kill for a better look at that notebook — it’s probably just a shopping list for new sex toys.

Why is it so completely unthinkable to anyone -- especially someone who acknowledged and then dodged the issue of co-authorship earlier in this same piece -- that Paris had a hand in creating this? What exactly are people responding to, what are they afraid is going to happen if they accept this music on its own terms (which, judging from that clip, might include Paris' co-authorship)? I'm glad the author included this description of the special, which I haven't seen, because it proves that Paris wasn't sleeping the whole time while they surgically extracted the music from her undisturbed. Like, maybe she wrote a couplet. Get over it.

This is another part Paris pays to play. But she’s discovered how to ensure that she’s no longer the punch line -— high-rolling with the right staff is all it takes. When you’re signing blank checks, the transformation from celeb-trash-princess to chic pop star is even easier done than said.

Nothing is easier done than said. If that sounds overly literal-minded, remove snarky but essentially nonsensical jabs like that from the piece and what's even left? Paris Hilton scribbling a note to Scott Storch during a recording session and a gratuitous cleavage shot? Why, when it involves Paris actually contributing to the music she's invested in, in all senses of the word, is it another "part Paris pays to play," but when, say, it involves the decision not to have sex, she can't play the "tired of having sex" part?

In these pieces I'm at least seeing a few trends: laziness, falling back on the same tabloid language that Paris ostensibly emerged as a celebrity from, but in this case from the other side; or is it the same side? Love/hate, whatever...the important thing here is that there are no clear sides in this debate -- everyone who's against her seems to be against her for the wrong reasons (because they don't hold up when examined) and everyone claiming to be for her is somehow for her for the same reasons the other people are against her, but now these baseless assumptions equal "good" whereas before they equaled "bad."

Still more to say about this; I think I've got most of the initial huffpuffing out of my system for now, but I can almost definitely promise an actual essay on this subject in about a month's time.

Aly and AJ unplugged Frankenstein

Thoughts on the new album cover and title, Acoustic Hearts of Winter:

1. I hope there was a wind machine involved, or else Aly's got Something About Mary levels of hair product in there.

2. Nothing about this set-up particularly says "acoustic." What is an acoustic heart? Since when are Aly and AJ's hearts "acoustic," anyway, when so many of their songs are angst-fuzzed and Pro Tool'd, much to their benefit?

3. Isn't that the same font Courtney Love used for America's Sweetheart?

4. So there's a Christmas theme, just in time for the holidays...apparently one of these tracks is crossover with a Jingle Jams or some other such Disney comp.

5. Is it just me or is Aly slowly turning into Tammy Faye Bakker?

Assorted Paris thoughts:

1. Couldn't resist this, thought it up late last night but...there's Paris Hilton as an extra-geographical but vaguely "American" capitalist touchstone of (so-called) ruination, which is to say we're LIVING with Paris, with Paris at one extreme of a perceived social spectrum, somehow symbolically representing the apex (or nadir, or maybe cartoon) of our participation in a culture of excess, class disparities, apathy, whatever else -- she's perceived as that outer boundary that just plain terrifies people, even if it doesn't exist as they imagine it to (how could it?), because it's a part of everything they've chosen in life and everything that's been chosen for them, and how can you reject either of those? So she's a Frankenstein of ideas, maybe bad and destructive ones, but certainly codified ones; she's an amalgam of the projections of guilt and shame and terror about how we're living with Paris and we choose to continue living with her, no matter how much we hate it (not everyone hates it). We may not have created her -- she was born into it, too -- but we're nourishing her somehow, this Paris-Frankenstein, just by acknowledging her existence, and she just came out with an album and asked, "could you make it with me?" or maybe "would you make it with me, please?" and there's that instinct to say yes, yes, yes, because why wouldn't you make it with the Paris of Paris? But what about Paris as Frankenstein?

2. I guess these arguments have been going on for so long I'd been somewhat numbed to them, but here's an article by Emma Forrest in the UK's Observer that deserves to be examined a little, because it seems to be putting forward a few anti-Paris statements that sound relatively common, and might be useful in getting to the heart of what exactly is setting off so many firecrackers (as I expected, the answer is sort of "'everything,' but nothing in particular").

Well, let's pause on the title: "MY AMERICAN NIGHTMARE: A US that chooses as its sweetheart a billionaire heiress notorious for hardcore sex is no place to be"

Good, we're getting some evocative terms here -- "American nightmare" -- which automatically denies a reality of Paris, only a nightmare, a possibility, a projection. And already it starts to fall apart, even in the title, when we examine why this is a (presumably) moral nightmare -- "billionaire heiress notorious for hardcore sex." So Paris is despicable for 1) being born (well, being born rich, but what was she supposed to do about that part? Keep it under wraps, I guess) and 2) being in a notorious sex tape. Hm, I thought it was notorious because her spiteful ex made it without her knowledge and then made it public. Think of it, a country where people can just be born and then have an embarrassing sex tape made and proliferated without their knowledge!

OK, the text. We're introduced to a "malevolent conga line of events," including Hurricane Katrina, the "most distressing" image of which was "Bush hugging two African-American victims." Yeah, how dare he not kick 'em in the face! So already we're in self-righteous (but unexamined) moral outrage territory GRRRRRR. I also find it very hard to believe that the Bush hug is the image that sticks out as "most distressing."

Then there's "Denise Richards explaining how she had to wean her newborn early in order to get her breasts in shape for the cover of Playboy," a sure sign of cultural decay. I've heard that some people don't even breast-feed at all anymore, shameful. And nudie mags are right out.

And then, speaking of other sure signs of cultural decay:

Some were financial: when Citibank started sending overdue notices on a credit card for which I hadn't been approved. In June, they said I owed $75 and then in July $91. The bills started arriving around the same time my health insurance was cancelled.

Boo hoo, cry me a river, lady. I'm middle class, too, and so are all my roommates, and there's been a whole lotta health insurance cancellations goin' on -- it's almost as if health care reform was needed in this country -- which, for future reference, might be a good idea for an article, although unfortunately it would require, like, research and stuff. But whining about a credit card mix up (which was probably you're own damn fault...did you try calling Citibank? Oh wait, there's the retroactive allusion to Katrina, WHAT ABOUT THE POOR PEOPLE TRYING TO CALL CITIBANK AND NOT EVEN GETTING A CREDIT CARD AT ALL? Good question, somewhat upset to see you've asked it without any intention of examining it further. How dare you pose with Katrina victims and not provide any further tangible support!

Holy jeez, we haven't even gotten to Paris yet! But we have established that, so far, there are no moral arguments to be parsed from this hit piece. And the premise, when it gets to Paris, is completely false: "we nominated a billionaire heiress as the nation's sweetheart." Who's "we"? You didn't nominate her, neither did I. I'd wager that no one nominated her as "the nation's sweetheart," and I'd be surprised if anyone actually thought of her as such. She's actually been nominated as the nation's punching bag, for all the sorts of quick-release condescending scorn you've already expressed in the opening paragraphs.

The show ["The Simple Life"] was a hit, but it is because of the bestselling sex tape that Paris has launched her own perfume, advice books and nightclubs, with films and CDs on the way. She has pioneered 'slut chic', which is reproduced by 13-year-old girl fans across the country in both their dress sense and sexual technique.

A highly successful television show has NEVER led to cross-promotional possibilities, whereas amateur sex tapes launch perfume lines, like Tommy Lee's popular Love Stick brand. Before Paris invented "slut chic," 13-year-old girls across the country were chaste and happy and conservatively dressed, and had no broader social pressures to conform to unreasonable body types or sexual standards, and if they did actually, shock, choose "slut chic" or even the decision to have SEXUAL INTERCOURSE, there were no irrational or hypocritical standards of whether or not this behavior was acceptable. Jeez, and then, in the next paragraph:

Paris professes, says Vanity Fair, to not be very sexual at home with her fiance. In which case, she is the perfect sex symbol for a country whose President would rather have owned a baseball team. In their mutual entitlement, they took what was on the table for them.

What on earth is even being argued here? It directly contradicts the image of Paris as a "hardcore" sex-crazed "slut" by saying that it's a bad thing she isn't very sexual with her fiance? And she compares PARIS to Bush (not til yer married and then go HOG WILD, kiddos). What was "on the table" for them, a pile of cash and the option not to have sex all the time? And who says Bush can't be President and own a baseball team at the same time? And even hug black people while he does that.

More inexplicable stuff comparing "pre-feminism" and "post-feminism" to the "hypothetical point where communism meets fascism" (you mean on the political compass? That's very hypothetical, I don't see that option anywhere...) and then claiming that Madonna is different because she never capitalized on "hardcore sex." Except for the fact that her first single was called "Like a Virgin" and she quite voluntarily made a book called "SEX," but then that was softcore, I guess.

Ugh, too much to even tear apart here, it's like cleaning the gutters or wiping all the dust off of the fan, which I promise I'll do as soon as this post is over.

Paris's unwavering confidence in her position as hottest in the room is matched by her and her followers' belief that everybody wants to be American.

Yes, Paris (<--foreign city!) is a nationalist hero to her many followers.

And the thinner she gets, the more Paris consumes.

Do you think language like this has no effect on these super-impressionable 13-year-olds you mentioned?

Lindsay Lohan, asked at the opening of a new Madison Avenue diamond shop what she thinks of the protest outside against the company's use of child labourers, sneered between champagne sips: 'I refuse to get involved in their drama.'

And now you went and got yourself on the War on Lindsay ON NOTICE list. As we all know, when you see a demonstration for a cause that even Kanye West has ineffectually protested, you drop what you're doing and join (was she endorsing the store? Having a CD signing there? Or did they just happen to be passing by?). Look, I'm not trying to make an argument for Lindsay (or Paris) as an angel here, or even particularly bright (although I imagine Paris is brighter than she appears on TV), but you could at least specify your unfair expectations of American entertainers. Seriously, should she have joined the protesters? Sugar-coated how she expressed her feelings? (I often don't get involved in the drama of political groups whose actual aims are unclear or who I see in passing and am in no position to choose sides -- of course this writer didn't explain who the group was, what Lindsay's role was at the diamond shop, etc. etc., since that would have required, like, googling or something.)

To be offended by Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan is not a feminist issue -- it is pro-humanity.

Whoa, those are some HUGE claims! You present it as if it's so obviously a "feminist issue" that it goes without saying (or saying as a tossed-off aside), and then don't even qualify what the fuck being "pro-humanity" is supposed to mean! Maybe you're saying, like Jayson Greene, that when you really think about it, Paris Hilton might just be a terrorist.

The problem for Democrats trying to combat all the tax breaks afforded them is that so many on the US poverty line idolise them, believing that they, too, will one day become millionaires through happenstance (in their case, the lottery).

I'm not dignifying this utter bullshit with a response, except to say that this person is on my general ON NOTICE list, too, between Cheyenne Kimball and the Disney corporation.

Just as the Bush administration's tactic of 'say it often enough and it becomes true' has worked, so the phenomenon of Paris is: 'See it often enough and it becomes relevant.'

Relevance is not the same as truth; you can't fake relevance or lie about relevance, because fake relevance is relevance. Yes, we've seen Paris a lot and so she IS relevant; that's why it's so crucially important to clarify why it is she is so bad and hated, which is something that NO ONE has been able to do convincingly.

LAST MINUTE SKYE THOUGHTS!

1. FINALLY, some good news around here...Skye is back! From her Myspace. Consider this SKYE FRIDAY ON THURSDAY! because I probably won't post tomorrow...

Deadly Pink in My Music Machine

Hey Flesh Eaters and Blood Suckers!

Sorry things have been kind of dead lately... pun intended. I miss you all and I'm having a hard time being away from the road for so long! Hope you guys are hanging in there and having a good summer! I know I am!

Check out PINK IS THE NEW BLOG and scroll down. I was out for a ride on my bulldozer when I decided it'd be cool to shout out to the site! (jordan's idea!) thanks J!

So what's the status on the record eh? Well I've recorded around 50 songs between now and when the last record was released. So now it just comes down to finding the right tracks that everyone is happy to move forward with. We're looking at a release in the new year, because the last quarter of the year is always filled with the blockbuster releases. Remember my soldiers, world domination is key. Hope you still love me!

So as you can tell I'm super excited about the Tim Armstrong tracks and the super Matrix jams... I also worked with magicians Max Martin and Dr. Luke on a song that the label seems to be pretty hot on!

In th mean time I've been rehursing my skills. Singing skills, guitar playing skills, producing skills, dirt biking skills, drawing skills... you know, the basics! hehe!

I'm hoping once fall hits, Capitol Records will wake up from their summer slumber and bite into my BARK!!! Cause you know my growl with my pack of tigers is fierce! I'll have lots to share with ya'll in regard to music, videos, photos as things start rolling!

So keep spreading the word because I'm hoping to give you some sneak peaks of the music to come!

much love, my loves,

Skye

Have a happy Skye Friday, folks...

Watching Paris Hilton legdrop New Jack through a press table

I came up with this metaphor yesterday re: the Paris fighting. So, imagine a debate about a NEW pro-wrestler. Let's say this pro-wrestler didn't work his/her way up as such, but instead just entered with lots of fanfare and you say, oh my God, Paris Hilton is NOT A WRESTLER, and then she starts wrestling and she's really good! You know her as a real-life heel, but she gets out there and her technique and stage presence is great (she doesn't really even present herself as a heel), she's obviously been working very hard at this, and what's more she WINS. The match is exhilirating, she's developed this cruiserweight style that reminds you a little of acrobatic Mexican wrestling, like watching an old ECW match between Rey Mysterio Jr. and Eddie Guerrero Psichosis or something. And then there's her trademark move where she splits into a thousand Parises and they all start singing softly in these complex harmonies to a great dance beat, which lulls her opponent into a state of hypnosis/ecstasy for the finisher -- which, OK, is kind of lame (the last ten minutes have been less exciting, you can tell they're both tired but c'mon it's her first match) and it's the only time you start to think that the style is a little cheesy and clunky...maybe if she just hadn't picked Rod Stewart for her exit music and gone with one of her own compositions, it would have been better. And even as it is, the finisher is sort of appropriately gawdy and true to character, she still earned it even if she didn't nail it.

And the best part is, she really does it on pro wrestling terms! She doesn't stop in the middle to make a phone call to Scott Storch so that he'll come in and finish the job for her or some soap opera bullshit, it's a long, hard-fought, well-planned match, and when she wins you can believe she won.

There are basically two types of critics analyzing the match. The first set says, in effect, GRRRR, WRESTLING IS FAKE AND SO IS PARIS! These idiots have been saying things like this since they were kids excited by a sport that, later in life, they felt to be beneath them -- or maybe never understood or liked in the first place, and found it easier to call "fake" than to figure out why they didn't like it. Since normally they don't watch wrestling matches at all, this isn't a huge deal, but they're watching this one and making annoying sarcastic remarks. They don't judge wrestling for it's artfulness; many have assumed that its audience doesn't see it as a construction, that they're really so stupid as to think that these guys ACTUALLY BREAK EACH OTHER'S NECKS every match and ACTUALLY PLAY THEIR OWN INSTRUMENTS and ACTUALLY WRITE THEIR OWN SONGS! What jerks, to enjoy this obviously staged trash!

Then there are the critics who observe wrestling with some perspective, acknowledging that wrestlers are performers and artists and athletes of varying skill, that they've each constructed a unique (or derivative) persona, that they've developed a style, and these critics understand the pleasures of exploring the many constructions and evolving styles. They can even "let go" and really get into the match internally, both excited to see how the story ends and amazed by the plans and improvisations, the execution of old moves and occasional introduction of new moves and variations, like turning the revolutionary (and now standard) Kelly C. piledriver into a brand new dance-pop PARIS PILEDRIVER, which you have to admit is totally awesome.

This second category of critics hates Paris Hilton for a lot of reasons. Maybe it's because they respect people who have worked their way up in the wrestling world, whose career you can track to the big leagues (although that seems to be getting harder as the league gets consolidated and more difficult to "break into," so it's not like there are a ton of small leagues to be followed [there's always Myspace backyard wrestling, but that's not quite the same]; previous breakthroughs in the big league didn't necessarily work their way to the top, except from a low rung in the big leagues to a higher one). Maybe it's because they just hate Paris -- she has no ambition, no drive, she's bad bad bad, everything that's wrong with America, even. But that makes her a heel, and those attributes are integral to her character, just as Vince McMahon turned his own entreprenurial-turned-megalomaniacal persona into a decent heel -- which still required him to wrestle well, even if he did "buy" the position. Maybe they don't want to pay for a match that funds Paris's adventures in being hyper-rich. Well, with that sort of logic, they'd need to stop contributing to a lot of paid matches, either by not paying for it or by not watching it (although, even though Vince and Paris are hyper-rich, a lot of others aren't; there are shades of class within the spectrum of wrestling just as there are outside it, requiring one to grapple with the whole damn "system," if that's the word you want to use). ...And anyway, when the option not to pay for it is so easy, why deny watching a good match? Paris doesn't care if you pay, she's building a character here, her money comes from the success and continuation of her character, not from pay-per-view royalties.

Maybe some don't know what to hate. They get embarrassed sometimes when they acknowledge parts of the culture that surround pro-wrestling; they feel they don't want to be a part of it, even though they've found people who feel the same way they do about it, people who can examine it thoughtfully and enjoy it without always agreeing with its sexual politics or class politics or any politics, really. They can talk about that stuff, too, but it has its place in an argument and can't be grounds for outright dismissal. And yet with Paris, there's the urge to dismiss it, to finally construct the Big Evil that the weirdo first category of haters have constructed for themselves. Because it's EASIER to call it fake, to dismiss it, to believe that pro-wrestling exists in a social or political or whatever sort of vacuum and that by shutting it off, or even parts of it off, the problems that it supposedly represents will be that much easier to take. People think: if it just wasn't Paris Hilton, I could enjoy myself. But it IS her -- here in front of me is the target of all of my frustrations about everything I can think of, sex, money, social position, apathy, all rolled into a convenient mascot-waif. And she's in the ring and the match is phenomenal (or at least GOOD, maybe you just don't like her technique, but it's good for what it is) and I'm conflicted! But that's part of the thrill, part of the conversation.

But instead of using that confusion and frustration and conflict as a means of further provocation and enrichment, instead of appreciating how the conversations you can have about this match are different and possibly more exciting from the ones about other matches because of who Paris was before she got in the ring, you shut it down, because it's impossible not to act and the only alternative to shutting it down is to invest your time and energy even more, maybe more than you usually do -- maybe it will make you question why you watch (/listen, OK finally time to drop the metaphor) in the first place, which is why this thread has been so strange and wonderful, as all the best ones are.

Paris and the pop star terrorist funhouse

Critique as you listen! Osama bin Hilton edition!

"Turn It Up"

Getting "Slave 4 U" vibes...Paris is paper-thin from the start, like a shadow of her own voice at the beginning, shout-outs to Scott Storch. She sounds bored or sarcastic, but I guess it's true to character. That's one thing that perplexes me about some of the talk about Paris' evilness, the idea that somehow her mutant capitalist excess is any different from anyone else's. She's just perpetuated her image as THE evil capitalist excess figurehead, which is kind of brilliant, it's what makes The Simple Life seem so ingenious whenever I watch it.

"Fighting Over Me"

OK, I think I've heard this before. If I remember correctly, Paris is kind of like wallpaper in this song (which works) while Jadakiss and Fat Joe steal the show, kind of like Britney's "I Got That Boom Boom" where Ying Yang Twins ham it up.

One notable thing about the Paris album that might be unique is how insanely overdubbed her vocals are. You can make out multiple vocal tracks (four plus easy, maybe like ten or twenty, but hard to tell), it's a really interesting treatment of a weak voice. It obviously doesn't improve her voice, and there don't seem to be any egregious Autotune moves (which I'm not inherently opposed to, unless it sticks out like a sore thumb, as it does a few times with Ashlee and I think even a Veronicas track), but it creates this army of vapidity that has a real charm to it.

"Stars Are Blind"

I have nothing else to say about this one, today Stylus called it "impossibly treble" (well, not so impossible). The rest of the review doesn't sit right, seems confused as to what standards to judge the album by...anti-Paris diatribe, OK, I guess you can bring that to the discussion if you want (don't see how it really helps a negative review, especially since the album is actually quite good, if anything it's an argument for more "untalented" rich celebs getting the star treatment since they have nothing to prove, they're like putty in the hands of the so-called "army of serious-minded professionals with impeccable pop credentials" (if you're going to use that sort of language, why then point to Billy Steinberg of all the producers?). But more to the point, how can an admittedly good, well-produced, even, shock, enjoyable album be a signifier of "everything you hate about the pop industry"? You mean, resenting "the pop industry" because somehow lots and lots of time and money and production talent can be put into creating good pop music? As far as it being expensive goes, even if expenditures on this sort of project somehow directly funnel international aid into Paris Hilton's handbag, the music industry is still hardly the place to start with that argument; even the most expensive music production of all time (which I doubt this was by a longshot) wouldn't cost a fraction of the cost of a Hollywood film. The mere existence of this album is not in and of itself proof of the existence of some "system" that can be equated with structural concerns leading to eventual social ruin, one that must be dismissed in order for progressive social change to occur. If there is a "system" (which there isn't, at least not in the tunnel-visioned way most Paris haters conceive of one), this is actually evidence of one of its modest triumphs.

"I Want You"

Breezy dance number. On the verses, several stacked-up Paris vocals almost equal Kylie Minogue's breath. And, yep, about fifty Parises on the chorus. (Wait, is that "Grease"?) Nice speak-sing breakdown in the verse, hm, so far the album is tight and impeccable. Which means they can stick a siren through the whole song and it just sort of enriches it. Sort of.

"Jealousy"

A little darker, string opener could open into dance...and it does. So far reminding me a little of "500" by Bertine Zeitlitz. And if she wanted, Paris could hit those same harmonies, but it would take about, er, 500 of her. Oh wow, nope, first strand of Kelly C angst-rock, nice rug-puller chorus. This album is sort of perfect. Maybe Paris is the (most recent) apex of the possibilities of anonymous pop, just enough personality to offer a sort of through line but nothing else. So the music can be fine-tuned around the spectre of her public persona, which itself doesn't come through as such -- you gotta bring that baggage to the record, and even then this is produced for the baggage not to stick. Why bother anyway? (Oh, and also from that Stylus review, Paris is not Osama Bin Laden! Jeeeeeez. If you're going to get self-righteous about the idea of Paris, you can't just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. And yet when Paris throws shit at the wall on her album, it works.)

"Heartbeat"

Kind of lulls, or maybe just lulling, a nice cool-down, even though none is needed because nothing has really heated up yet. A double entendre at a sub-Lindsay level, something about "I can hear my heartbeat when you come." Hm, maybe it's not even a double entendre. Weird, this actually has a similar vibe as the other "Heartbeat," riding this completely understated energy without ever peaking for nearly four minutes, self-contained and refreshing, but it doesn't hit as hard as Annie's version -- probably because it isn't supposed to. Not sure how much of that impact on the Annie track is contextual pathos, as opposed to this song's contextual frivolity (both songs sound frivolous, but aren't).

"Nothing in This World"

The de-clawed version of the Dr. Luke/Max Martin rock formula, bouncier and goes for a big giggly smile in the chorus instead of the weird sorta cathartic effect of the V's and Kelly C...the best incarnation of this, on Paris' feel-good terms on this track, is still probably BSB "Just Want You to Know," but Paris brings a few new elements to it, lightweight synths in the chorus, generally a more dancefloor-oriented take on the style. Better than the Dr. Luke/Max fusion effort on "U and Ur Hand" but not any better than the V's or Marion Raven or Kelly C or maybe Skye Sweetnam, who could really have some fun with this formula, plus she has the pipes, plus she won't be too overbearing on the soaring chorus, since you know there's gonna be one.

"Screwed"

Wow, I love the remix of this, and this is still much better. Probably the best use of the army-of-Paris vocals, bouncing off each other like funhouse mirrors while there's a pretty damn solid rock/pop track chugging along beneath. There's an illusory charm to the whole album, like you keep getting glimpses of a real person, but no, that one's just a mirror, chasing these infinite shadow Parises through the song.

"Not Leaving without You"

This seems to be the weakest so far, now the music and Paris are both sort of weak instead of being understated. But it's simple and effective as a perpetual, lightweight dance number, just not as strong or as tightly produced as the other tracks so far. This material is so thin that if it isn't absolutely held together it kind of crumbles. On "Stars Are Blind" it's kind of incredible to realize it isn't going to fall apart at all, but on this one there's some wavering, like the surroundings are about to disappear and Paris is standing there all alone, ready to jig off the stage. But no, there's too much going on at all times for that to ever happen, and Paris probably wouldn't jig, she'd just shrug and stand there and maybe yawn.

"Turn You On"

This one's better but not one of the better tracks. More playful with her voices, let's them harmonize, let's them explore the track a little, yelp, flirt, yawn, whatever.

"Do You Think I'm Sexy"

Hm, done up like a disco novelty, or a different kind of disco novelty. At points it's like Paris fronting the Tom Tom Club, which could work but isn't working for me right now. Whatever, about 8/11 is pretty good! Better than Marie Serneholt's average...better than the Veronicas'. Also goes on too long, it's like having three after dinner mints after only eating a light dessert.

I don't think I could ever really get into this album, not because I hate Paris (if I did, which I don't, I don't see how that would be particularly relevant -- and hey, I guess if Osama bin Laden put out a pop album and it was any good, I could probably admit it and still be able to articulate a political argument against him), but because I'm not really supposed to get into it. I could only listen to it in passing, which I have. But there's nothing below the surface, there are no enduring pleasures, even by its own aesthetic standards -- there's nothing to dig into, and there isn't really supposed to be. So it's very good, but, perhaps like Paris Hilton, I probably couldn't be bothered to give a shit. Hm...

Choice Blog Post

Teen Choice Awards were last night...I don't know if I've ever actually watched these, or part of these, before, but it was a trip. Greeted by the Cheetah Girls and sent off to bed by Kevin Federline, and all other sorts of ridiculousness in between. I won't do the blow by blow, but I think it's worth noting that I didn't get a sense of any real musical personalities, even at an awards show that got Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom together, both looking confused and maybe a little intoxicated.

I can only assume that the lack of Ashlee or Lindsay or P!nk was the decision of the teen tastemakers (which isn't to say there weren't schedule conflicts with touring or filming, but I doubt they were invited to start with), but it makes me wonder whether or not the Teen Choice audiences have rejected some of their most important stars. They had Jessica (co-host with Dane Cook), they had Rihanna, they had Nelly, they had the cast of High School Musical at one point. But something was missing, some gap between the old-school Disney types -- a last-minute appearance by Britney, obviously looking very pregnant but having some fun announcing K-Fed, more on that in a sec -- and Miley Cyrus and HSM, that I could mentally fill with several artists that audiences seem to have largely abandoned.

The show might be the closest television equivalent of what happens when Calvin eats a bowl of Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs, completely schizo and disorganized, plus there's a jacuzzi on the stage, plus they give out surfboards instead of statuettes. But even with the show bouncing off the walls, there was no clear culture that the show was drawing from, there didn't seem to be any acts that really brought the crowd over the top. Nelly and Timbaland looked awkward and uncomfortable; it gave me the impression of Nelly being washed up, even though she's probably never been more successful -- maybe not washed up, but she doesn't seem to fit in her new persona at all, maybe the reason why there are only about three songs worth of it on the album. Rihanna was lip-syncing poorly (nobody minded), but didn't really compensate with a big production number, the whole thing seemed tossed-off. Kevin Federline was a jaw-dropping joke, lame in Vanilla Ice proportions. I'm not even sure how to describe it, but K-Fed might have less charisma and talent than anyone currently working in music. He can't rap...he can't even walk across the stage convincingly. He's got one hype man DJ who completed his lines (occasionally because he seemed to forget them) and two kids who seemed to just be hanging around (at one point a third kid came out and started breakdancing right in front of him, but was sucked into the black hole of lameness because he stood too close to K-Fed).

Anyway, a disappointment, and it got me thinking about where the Choice culture is headed at the moment -- as far as I can tell, Ashlee and Lindsay in particular have been blacklisted for a number of strange reasons. Tabloid culture is huge, and a lot of the night's more (forced) memorable moments engaged with it directly, including Nick Lachey winning Best Love Song and saying "Um, awkward!" or preggers Britney launching K-fed's doomed solo career or even Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn appearing together in a video clip. And yet even though Ashlee and Lindsay (Ashlee moreso recently) have been absorbed by tabloid culture, there seems to be a rejection of them by those standards, for Ashlee still reamining from the SNL/Orange Bowl fiascos (which was another type of rejection uncharacteristic of her audience) and for Lindsay from her partying and other tabloid stories. But the key is that both are in the tabloids, both are part of the culture -- if they're perceived as the tabloid's "bad guys" (which may be true of Lindsay, probably not Ashlee), fine, that's a valid role to play. Paris will undoubtedly get all the mileage she can from her "bad" image, which is to say her image, when her new album is released. And maybe we'll see if she's on the awards show next year.

But what can Ashlee or Lindsay, or P!nk, who never needed the tabloids to aid her career but whose audience seems to be dwindling, do to regain their places toward the top of the Teen Choice food chain (if they were ever anywhere near the top -- Lindsay more than the rest, I suppose)? The hardest road is probably for P!nk, whose public tabloid image isn't as fundamentally linked with her popularity. Ashlee has been getting herself more immersed in tabloids recently, but it hasn't helped her ticket sales. I can only imagine Lindsay "cleaning up," doing a few prestige movies (starting with Altman probably doesn't hurt, even if she didn't actually do very much), but I don't think it will transfer to her pop career.

I wouldn't mind so much if the available options weren't such lightweights. Wherever teenpop is going right now, it doesn't seem to have many pillars in place for the transition; it seems like the star system of a year or two ago has been effectively dismantled, but nothing replaced it. Disney further privatized and expanded its own little corner of the world, older stars like Nelly and Jessica have tried to come back, and there are exceptions like Rihanna, but the love for the new guard -- Ashlee and Lindsay and even Hilary (who was also nowhere to be found) -- seems diminished. I guess there's always Kelly Clarkson, who bypassed the tabloids early.

And maybe Skye Sweetnam -- new track "Girl Like Me" produced by Dr. Luke/Max Martin confirmed! -- is poised for her inexorable rise to power.

Did anyone else even watch this?

[EDIT: Apparently Hilary was scheduled, which would have been all the Disney people except Aly and AJ in one place... "Tonight Hilary Duff is scheduled to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live, however there’s a bit of skepticism that she’ll be a no show just like she did at the Teen Choice Awards due to the box office bomb of Material Girls."]

Pandorah Rah

Update from the TEENPOP MEGA HYPER SUGAR SET after like six months.

Here is the address, if you'd like to listen to what I believe is the most comprehensive teenpop station EVER:

CLICK HERE FOR THE MEGA HYPER SUGAR SET!

And here is the address to Chuck Eddy's accidentally evolving Pandora site:

CLICK HERE FOR ACCIDENTAL EVOLUTION!

And here is the address to Jessica Poptastic's Pandora site (lots of overlap, shock shock shock):

CLICK HERE FOR POPTASTIC RADIO!

And, just so'se ya know what exactly you're in for when you listen to the MEGA HYPER SUGAR SET, here are my artist parameters:

*NSync; 3LW; 5ive; 98 Degrees; A*Teens; Ace of Base; Akon (“Lonely” only); All Saints; Aly & AJ; Atomic Kitten; Aqua; B*Witched; B5; Backstreet Boys; Baha Men; BBMak; Bedingfield, Daniel; Bega, Lou; Beu Sisters; Bif Naked; Black Eyed Peas; Bow Wow; Bowling for Soup; Branch, Michelle; Bratz; Brown, Kaci; Bryan, Sabrina (“B You”); Bunton, Emma; Busted; Cabrera, Ryan; Carlton, Vanessa; Carter, Aaron; Carter, Deana; Carter, Nick; Carter, Leslie (“Like Wow” only); Cheetah Girls; Cassie; Cherie; Clarkson, Kelly; Click 5; Cooler Kids; The Corrs; Crazy Frog; D.H.T.; DeGarmo, Diana; Dobson, Fefe; Dream; Dream Street; Duff, Hilary; Eiffel 65; Everlife; fan_3; Fatty Koo; Girl Authority; Girls Aloud; Go Betty Go; Halliwell, Geri; Hanson; High School Musical [Zac Efron; Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne-Hudgens; Lucas Grabeel and Ashley Tisdale]; Hoku; Hope 7; Huckapoo; Jaye, Courtney; Joanna; Jojo; Jonas Brothers; Jump5; Kaci; Kimball, Cheyenne; Krystal; Lambert, Miranda; Larson, Brie; Las Ketchup; Lavigne, Avril; Letters to Cleo; LFO (“Summer Girls” and “Girl on TV”); Lil’ Romeo; Lillix; LMNT; Locke, Kimberley; Lohan, Lindsay; Los Del Rio ("Macarena"); M2M; Maroon 5; McCartney, Jesse; McKee, Bonnie; Melanie C; Mena, Maria; Milian, Christina; Minogue, Kylie; Moore, Mandy; Morningwood (“Nth Degree” only); Mr. C the Slide Man (“Cha Cha Slide” only); Myra; Nalick, Anna; No Authority; Nobody’s Angel; No Secrets; O-Town; Orrico, Stacie; Osbourne, Kelly; Paxton, Sara; Peters, Caleigh; Pierces; Pink; Play; Puffy AmiYumi; Pussycat Dolls; Raven-Symone; Rihanna; Romano, Christy Carlson; Ronson, Samantha (“Built This Way” only); Rose, Katy; Rufus; S Club; S Club 7; Savage Garden; SheDaisy; Simpson, Ashlee; Simpson, Jessica; Spears, Britney; Spice Girls; Stefani, Gwen; Steps; Stevens, Rachel; Studt, Amy; Sugababes; Sweetnam, Skye; Stone, Joss; t.A.T.u.; VanDerPol, Anneliese; Valance, Holly; Vengaboys; The Veronicas; Vitamin C; Westlife; Weezer (“Beverly Hills” only); Woodward, Lucy; Wreckers; Yankovich, “Weird” Al; Yellowcard (“Ocean Avenue” only); Young, Will; Youngstown; Zetta Bytes

And here, before you call me out on forgetting anyone, are the artists listed as not available on Pandora (although they have added a few, including Leslie Carter whose unreleased album I just got via cassette in the mail! It's awesome!):

1,000 Clowns; 2Ge+her; A1; Amanda; Betty Boo; Big Fun; Boyzone; Broadway Kids; Brock, Stevie; Bros; C-Note; Candice; Chrissy; Cleary, Nikki; D-Tent Boys; Dahv; Daniels, Jessie; Daphne & Celeste; Diamond, Amy; Falcon, Rose; Garland, Ashley; Gates, Gareth; Goldo; H & Claire; Ha Ash; Hampton the Hampster; Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus; Hear’say; Helen Love; Hilton, Paris; Hudson, Sarah; I Eight Paste; Josie and the Pussycats; Lalaine; Larsen, Marit; Liberty X; Little Angels; Louise [Nurding]; McCutcheon, Martine; Meg and Dia; Mickey Mouse Club; Midget; Miranda!; Morgan, Debeleh; Panettiere, Hayden; Partlow, Hope; Plus One; PJ & Duncan; PYT; Raize, Jason; Raven, Marion; RubyBlue; Rush, Lindsay; S Club 8; S Club Juniors; Silvas, Lucie; Simon and Milo; Solid Harmonie; Swirl 360; Take That; Tik n’ Tak; Thomas, Khleo; Tousdale, Chris; Toy-Box; Triple Image; True Vibe; The Truth Squad; Ultra Sonic; Wilde, Nina and Kim [actually just Nina!]

EDIT: OK, Pandora JUST played Kim Wilde, get it together people.

If you can even read all that, please let me know if I missed anyone crucial. Just updated today w/ Girl Authority, a few others. And realized now that they've revamped their station editing options that through some fluke, there was no *NSync in my parameters...weird.

So go listen!

Hylarie!

"Oh, did you like it? Yeah, we just put that one together backstage. Buy my next fifty albums!"

Is Hilary Duff the closest thing we've got to a potential Kylie right now? New single "Play with Fire" sounds a little bit like Kylie, but I mean more in terms of longevity...I get the sense that Hilary has many years of pop gold ahead of her. She's consistent, prolific, chameleonic, just charismatic enough to make EVERYTHING work. Who produced this again? (No luck but quick google shows that apparently Timbaland produced her and Haylie's "Material Girls" cover which is surprisingly good.)

Anyway, I'm eagerly waiting for this new album (allegedly now only EP-length, oh well, call it a greatest hits + remixes again and I'll still buy it!), which according to Hilary is "unlike anything she's ever done." Well, duh, that's kind of her thing. Very excited.

LONG LIVE HYLARIE!

EDIT: Hilary fans and hataz make their voices heard!

♥ This is the best song/video she has done in her life, its so hot, very mature not vulgar though, I love it, and btw Hilary actually wrote this song, she said it in an interview freaks

♥ I know she can act, but she's such a baddddd singer. How can you say she has a nice voiced based on this digitized crap? I won't get into the fact that 40,000 of her songs she says she's over guys, yet spends the entire song singing about them......

♥ did she slim down??

♥ THAT SUCKS!!!!!! I hate her singing... she just uses the same material to a different tune. And I htought she used to be a good girl? Not in this song...

♥ the video sucks...kinda like kylie wannabe..be urself!

♥ this is cheep! the green shreen is cheep! whats the point of the vid? thair is no story to it and no fire?! her dres is ugly her new hiar is ugly. she is trying to be like kylie but failing! the song itself sucks the ppl who write her stuff suck. she sucks. cant see what joel sees in her.

ATTN: L00ZERS, HYLARIE PWNS STFU LUV C4B

Magnesslessness

New Kelly joint, "Maybe," all eerie slow build until it bubbles over and goes electric. In one version the speakers seem to blow out to signal the change, on the other version the sound quality is improved but the tension is lacking. Kelly's in true angst-ballad form, with the same agonized intensity of "Addicted" (can't hear the lyrics, so I'm not sure if it will have the lyrical intensity of "Because of You" [EDIT: listening again, it has more of the desperation of "Addicted," too..."maybe...maybe...maybe"...it feels paranoid, strange, I like it!]). The incessant build of the first section is unlike anything else she's done that I'm aware of, good to see she's avoiding car commercial soundtrack compromises like "Go" (which isn't a bad song, just dull) and really expanding her musical range without lightening up. It also occurs to me that Kelly is the PERFECT candidate for an Unplugged session.

"Maybe" sans blow-out
"Maybe" avec blow-out

h/t Poptimists

Bratzo Rizzo Sleeps with the Fishes

So Universal has this shady promo mp3 player, into which they apparently dump any random album they like. I got an email today informing me that Bratz - Forever Diamondz was now available, so for the first time ever I actually used it, probably at the expense of my poor old PC. The chance of this thing being bundled with rootkit cubed is likely.

Anyway, Diamondz is pretty disappointing, no more of the full-on guitar cheeze of Rock Angelz. I guess that's one of the few drawbacks of the truly anonymous performing entity -- the style is always in flux, not necessarily bad, but there's literally nothing holding over from the last album (possibly some of the singers/musicians, but I don't have the credits and it doesn't sound like the same group). This is entirely a new band, watered-down hip-hop/R&B, which loses the weird FAKEFAKEFAKE quality of the rock stuff. But I like FAKEFAKEFAKE! This just sounds competentcompetentcompetent. Ciara Lite is kind of redundant...Ciara is already Ciara Lite! And hers is way better than the Bratz equivalent. I mean as far as pop R&B knockoffs go it's pretty good, but nothing distinguishes it from a non-anonymous knockoff. It still sounds anonymous, but it doesn't announce its anonymity.

I dig the Spanish language track, "Que Tal," and there's a pretty good Nelly/Timbaland sorta knockoff, "Express Yourself," and there's some nice corner-cutting keyboard horns that are almost fake enough. But no, no, no, where's the bombast? Where's the cartoon hair metal? Where's Andreas Carlsson?

(Unrelated, but this should be interesting...)

BRATZ CLASSICZ

Bratz - So Good

Skye Friday: Summer Girls Edition

Summertime Skye Action Shot

Sometimes you're just in one of those moods. Relevant because (duh) it is the first documented usage of "Billy Shakespeare" -- who as we all know is WAY more literary than George Sand.

Yeah...I like it when the girls stop by.. In the summer
Do you remember, Do you remember?
...when we met...that summer?

{Chorus}

New Kids On The block had a bunch of hits
Chinese food makes me sick
And I think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer, for the summer
I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch
I'd take her if I had one wish
But she's been gone since that summer
Since that summer

{Verse 1}

Hip-hop marmalade spic and span
Met you one summer and it all began
You're the best girl that I ever did see
The great Larry Bird Jersey 33
When you take a sip you buzz like a hornet
Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets
Call me Willy Whistle cause I can't speak, baby
Somethin' in your eyes went and drove me crazy
Now I can't forget you and it makes me mad
Left one day and never came back
Stayed all summer then went back home
Macauly Culkin was in Home Alone
Fell deep in love, but now we ain't speakin
Michael J. Fox was Alex P. Keaton
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch

{Chorus}

{Verse 2}

Cherry Pez, cold Crush, rock stud boogie
Used to hate school so I had to play hookie
Always been hip to the B-boy Style
Known to act wild and make the girls smile
Love New Edition and the Candy Girl
Remind me of you because you rock my world
You come from Georgia where the peaches grow
They drink lemonade and speak real slow
You love hip hop and rock n' roll
Dad took off when you were 4 years old
There was a good man named Paul Revere
I feel much better baby when you're near
You love Fun Dip and Cherry Coke
I like the way you laugh when I tell a joke
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch

{Chorus}

{Bridge}

In the summertime girls got it goin' on
Shake and wiggle to a hip hop song
Summertime girls are the kind I like
I'll steal your honey like I stole your bike

{Verse 3}

Bugaloo shrimp and pogo sticks
My mind takes me back there oh so quick
Let you off the hook like my man Mr. Lipit
Think about that summer and I bug 'cause I miss it
Like the color purple, macaroni and cheese
Ruby red slippers and a bunch of trees
Call you up but whats the use
I like Kevin Bacon but I hate Footloose
Came in the door said it before
I think I'm over you but I'm really not sure
When I met you I said my name was Rich
You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch
repeat Chorus

{Bridge}

In the summer girls come and summer girls go
Some are worth while and some are so-so,
Summer girls come and summer girls go
Some are worth while and some are so so,
Summertime girls got it goin on
Shake and wiggle to a hip-hop song
Summertime girls are the kind I like
I'll steal your honey like I stole your bike

{Repeat Chorus}

Too much gold to process at the moment. But there's real pathos in this song! "Dad left when you were four years old" holy crap LFO-CONFESSIONAL! OK, that's all I got, so you can just enjoy it yourself.

NAME ONE SONG BETTER THAN THIS SONG
LFO - Summer Gurls

Woe Is Bubble Yum

1. Correction to the latest jukebox, that of course is "chewin' on a dick like a piece of Bubble Yum," not "bubblegum." Or maybe they say both. I still think it's stupid. I misused the word "irreverent" in that Ciara bit (no idea which word I was actually thinking of). The rest of my intentionally wheezy Trace Adkins blurb was cut (had a feeling it might be), and it is now much snappier. Also, I would refute the assertion that "Swing" is about how "if you drunkenly hit on enough people you’ll eventually find someone even drunker to drag home," as Joseph McCombs has suggested. The key is that the "home run" woman approaches him after he's clearly made a fool of himself all night. It seems to be more about shame and pity and then lying to your friends about it afterwards with vague baseball metaphors and then writing a song about it.

2. I nicked an idea from Jessica Poptastic and added a playlist to the sidebar (shock: there's overlap!). I'll turn it off auto soon, because as soon as the guitar starts up I have to keep the page up until the song is over. If ya hadn't noticed, that's my top ten so far in order. I'll basically just keep adding songs as I upload them.

3. Haven't mentioned this clip of "I've Got Nerve," a new Miley song that apparently won't be the next single going for airplay on Radio Disney (that would be this one). It's probably as close to Hilary Duff as she's gotten, no remaining traces of country, though. I'd love to know who's writing all this stuff -- I could imagine Lindsay singing this one ("Nerve").

4. And of course as I say that I check RD online and see that "Pump Up the Party" is at #19 in its first week eligible while "I've Got Nerve" is at NUMBER TWO on daily voting without being officially introduced into the playlist. Which might mean it will be released as a single soon.

The Real Christina is a Phony!

Myspace post coming within the next few days and a pretty big below-radar Radio Disney piece that I've been kind of chiseling away at for a few weeks, too. But for today...

1. XXXTINA - XXX = this and this (again). Something mighty fishy is goin' on here...I should link to a 2002 article by Jimmy Draper for comparison. One interesting point among several:

The single's ["Dirrrty"] gratuitous T&A, however, is less to blame for its commercial failure than are Aguilera's desperate attempts to cash in on paths blazed by Britney and Pink last fall...a year after Brit Brit released the similar "I'm a Slave 4 U" and Pink enlisted Perry – who had a hand in writing Stripped, too – to help her transition into a faux-hawked hellion, "Dirrty" just sounds tired.

The article is about "prefab" going "real" back in 2002, giving some perspective to the two recent pieces linked above -- the idea that Christina is finally pulling ahead after being unduly bested by Britney since whenever is kind of silly. Also interesting that this article captures the confessional mode in teenpop before it really took off, or maybe as it really took off for the first time.

I think that at some point between then and now, the idea that these artists (Pink, J-Lo, even Britney was included back when she was "maturing"...now somehow it's all bubblegum, as if she hasn't changed a note since her teasingly virginal days) were becoming "authentic" in 2002 was (perhaps rightfully) displaced with a notion that this "realness" was a certain persona. Unfortunately, the adoption of a little more personal persona has been selectively conflated with dishonesty, or "fakeness," which isn't actually the case -- hence, Ashlee and Lindsay get panned for being "fake" while Kelly sort of gets by being "real" ("at least she can sing").

Now the complex hypocrisies that have developed since 2002 are starting to infiltrate a wider discussion that appears to accept teenpop on its own terms, but actually forces teenpop into the terms of legitimizers. So we get arguments that sound kind of like, "Hey, I never said I didn't love teenpop! I love Christina, always have, but it's probably better THIS way, because it's, y'know, real." Even if such a statement seems dishonest (and may or may not be dishonest), the only part of the argument that's flat-out wrong is the "real" part. That part can be concealed by changing the explicit "this is real" to "well, this just sounds better to me," which implicitly includes the "because it's real" part.

There appears to be something strange happening -- it's a variation on the Good Indie Rockist theory, writ large(r), a surface-level acceptance of all forms of music, including the "assembly-line pop" of the past, with arguments that intentionally obfuscate underlying assumptions in such a way that they're difficult to parse and almost impossible to prove. But look again at this bit in the NYT article:

Though she was widely considered the more talented artist, she was immediately dogged by comparisons to Britney Spears. Both were blond and perky, and both began their careers performing together on “The New Mickey Mouse Club,” a cavity-inducing show on the Disney Channel. She beat out Ms. Spears for the best new artist Grammy in 2000, but Ms. Spears, with her teasingly virginal persona and revealing Catholic schoolgirl costumes, was the bigger star.

I already pointed out the last part, which is plainly ridiculous, but the first part is trickier. "Though she was widely considered the more talented artist"...well, what definition of "talent" are we using here? Singing talent? OK, she's got pipes. What relevance are the pipes on the songs? Which isn't to say there isn't any relevance, but that perhaps this assumption of "talent" still doesn't engage with either Christina OR Britney's music c. 2000 on its own terms. But it still engages with it, which is different from outright dismissal.

I think something potentially harmful is happening, the false acceptance of the early '00s teenpop boom that, perhaps through a combination of distanced nostalgia and removal from media saturation, has actually mutated the original grounds for its dismissal into backhanded praise for teenpop as genre, provided that some current teenpop artists are more real than others. This sort of thinking may have led to Cheyenne (who, truth be told, isn't as terrible as I make her out to be).

The rockism/popism debate has theoretically established two sides, but the underlying assumptions that form the idea of rockism have little to do with a specific type of music. Ashlee's rock can be considered just as "phony" as Britney' pop -- the problem has always been expectations of legitimacy. The debate itself has become something of an in-joke, but impetus for the debate is important to carry forward. But it can't be carried forward simply as an appreciation for a commonly critically-derided style of music or collection of artists, because it's too easy to expand the scope of bankrupt assumptions to include that style and those artists.

I don't want to get too preachy about it, so I'll stop, but I'll probably have more to say about it as events warrant. I suspect that Cheyenne isn't the last of "Real Teenpop" (as I'm calling it -- just think of "real" like the "new" in "New Coke"), maybe I'll expand into a more formal/less rambling essay...

2. I really like this MSTRKRFT (DFA79 dude + others, can't be bothered to google at the moment) album. Can't say it has any lasting replay value, which is probably why I plan on listening to it at least four or five times today (gotta get the replay value while you can).

3. The more I listen to "Year 3000" by Jonas Brothers, the more I think they're really on to something. They mention "boyband" in this one, too, but now they SOUND like one, and maybe they're doing the opposite of what the "Good Rockists" are doing, reaffirming boybands by living and breathing boyband while transparently pretending to hold them in disdain. At least, that's what I thought with "Mandy," but check THIS out [EDIT: anti-climax alert -- this is a BUSTED COVER, duh!!!! Covering a boyband basically supports the same argument, but worth noting anyway, thanx to WBS in comments, just sent me blurbs, too]:

He took me to the future in the flux thing, and I saw everything/ Boy bands, and another one and another one ... and another one!/ And girls there with round hair, like Star Wars/ They float above the floor

And another one and another one and another one!!! Maybe we'll be OK after all, plus the girls will have cool haircuts!

Possibly like this one:



4. The video, for further reference. If I liked the song as much as the idea of the song (and, even more, the idea of Bertine) it would probably be in the top ten. Fiddling with it still, every time I listen to "I Need a House" I am CONVINCED it's brilliant, but then when I'm not listening...nothing. But that's the point, right???

Star-Wars-Haircut-Pop

Bertine Zetlitz - 500

Them's fightin words!

In 1998, Britney Spears released “Baby One More Time,” and created the template for teen pop for the next four years. In 2002, Avril Lavigne released “Complicated,” and her bratty pop rock became the new standard for girls on the radio. Another four years later, having been through Avril, Kelly Clarkson, the Veronicas, Ashlee Simpson, Hilary Duff, and a whole bunch of non-starters like Skye Sweetnam, Cheyenne Kimball wheezes the genre’s last breaths. We’re due for a brand new take on teen pop right about now and “Hanging On” suggests the reinvention cannot come soon enough.

From the jukebox I woulda contributed to if I wasn't on vacation (wait, can you go on vacation if you aren't going on vacation from something [except maybe from forced vacation]?).

Jonathan Bradley's got a pretty good blog, actually agree with him on the bizarre Pfork take on "Public Affair," which is called out as neo-PMRC (ha), as if even the Good Indie Rockists are KILLING MUSIC with their pop tokens and bile must be restored. Hey, I wrote plenty of this sort of crap, knee-jerk and usually late-night (and night-before) and getting called out on it sucks, but it is what it is.

Anyway. There's some crazy shit goin' on in this blurb and some of it might be useful. It seems kind of revisionist to assume that what Avril was doing in 2002 (and maybe Michelle Branch in 2001) has been consistent for four years, so that Cheyenne Kimball's (admittedly shitty) single could somehow be the symbolic "death" of a "movement" [EDIT: I'm deviating from the quoted text here, he doesn't actually use the word "movement," but you could probably replace with "genre" where applicable. No need to be unfair...] (and that this "movement" is synonymous with "teenpop"). Kelly Clarkson is probably the key artist in the above list, along with Ashlee's first album, and the impact of it wasn't felt until late 2004 (at the earliest) or 2005. And if that's the case, any "movement" probably starts there, with Avril being more of a popular progenitor (but not founder). In fact, Cheyenne is pretty much the only artist doing the confessional bit at a high level of exposure that unequivocally fails at it (the current list includes Marion Raven, Pink, the Veronicas, Aly and AJ, and Lillix, among others...seems like a pretty strong movement to me). The reason for that isn't that this particular "wave" is finally "dying" and something must take its place in order for teenpop to survive (it isn't a genre, anyway, so how can it really die? It can maybe mutate in such a way that we won't call it that any more, but teenpop isn't dead until, for instance, Disney's dead, which will happen never...more likely there will be MORE teenpop as other media institutions catch on to -- and figure out how to tap into -- what Disney has done to isolate and mobilize child culture in the last five years, continuing what it's been doing for ten years, maybe twenty, maybe forever).

I think the reason her album fails is that Cheyenne Kimball is perhaps the first popular teenpop artist to directly capitalize on the sort of bullshit "authenticity" claim that seems to have crippled Ashlee's pop career for the time being. "Look, finally, here's one that can play a guitar! And she can sing! And she can write songs!"

Yeah, except she's working with the same people as everyone else and she has nothing to offer them or the rest of the known universe -- except, of course, for her "authenticity," which has never been a viable route for teenpop artists in and of itself. This isn't an elitist culture and the fanz don't particularly give a shit who does what and how "legitimately" they do what they do. That's in part what makes teenpop versatile, possibly indestructible. Which isn't to say that Kelly/Ashlee-style angst-rock will always be in style, but, again, teenpop can't die -- as a term of classification it can be fought over, but structurally, there's not much that can be done to undermine, say, TRL or Radio Disney and the artists who succeed there, who will always be teenpop, because that's where teenpop lives. In fact, they're all getting stronger. Aly and AJ are crossing over to TRL audiences and Billboard, and High School Musical's sales figures are a reminder of the Disney kids' solidarity.

But the important point here is that these Disney artists, or any others encompassed in teenpop, don't set unreasonable terms of acceptance. Aly and AJ play their own instruments and write their own songs, too, but they've never been actively set or marketed in opposition to artists who don't. Cheyenne, in how she's been marketed, seemingly in how she's been conceived as an artist, is the anti-Ashlee. She has the anti-Ashlee MTV reality show (er, unseen by me, gulp, no leg to stand on, oh well) that demonstrates how competent she is. She has the "one original thing," even if it isn't original -- she really means she wants one authentic thing. Which means precisely zero to teenpop's audience...it goes against the entire development of all music in the category since Britney (or since the Spice Girls, since Hanson). The fact that much of it was (and is) already "acceptable" even by the anti-Ashlee standards of a "real artist" (including Ashlee, who DID co-write her songs, and can play her own instrument -- her voice) has nothing to do with whether or not it was ever actually accepted.

So Cheyenne seems to be a perplexing outlier, an egregious miscalculation, an experiment in selling "justifiable" teenpop whose dullness can be attributed, simply, to a bunch of bad ideas. There is no inherent value in a precocious young gal who knows her way around a guitar and a sheet of paper being a star if what she plays and (co-)writes isn't any good. More often, the ones who got it don't flaunt it.

I say this song blurb is useful because it's evidence that teenpop, slowly but surely, is becoming an increasingly viable fightin' word -- which is awesome, because it's some of the only music worth fighting over right now (qualified: that I want to fight over right now). Acknowledgement of it dates back to its origin as a term, but only a few writers have been able to defend it, to respect it enough to call it very much alive in the first place in order to pronounce it dead (which assumes that it was once very much alive, meaning someone's gotta think it is still). So, honestly, thank you for declaring teenpop dead. Because now I can say NYAH NYAH! NO IT ISN'T! And we can go from there.

PS - artists to watch for to reinvent teenpop:

Shemo: Meg and Dia, Flyleaf, Paramore, ~30% of Myspace

Neo-boyband: Jonas Brothers

I'm-not-dead-angst-rock: Ashlee 3.0 (hopefully...), Pink, Veronicas, Aly and AJ, Lillix, Kelly Clarkson, ~30% of Myspace

PG R&B: [insert Radio Disney incubator artist], Jojo, ~30% of Myspace

Dufftwang: Miley Cyrus, Kristy Frank

Duff 2.0: Ashley Tisdale, Vanessa Anne-Hudgens

Pink Bulldozer Crew (assorted): Skye (most definitely NOT a "non-starter"! Kinda hasty, considering her new major label Max Martin-single-havin' new album hasn't come out yet!), Fefe Dobson, Brie Larson, Katie Neil, Colette Trudeau, ~10% of Myspace

Whomever Max Martin works with next: see description. This includes Skye (I think...when's she officially gonna let that one out of the bag??)

And on and on and on and on...