The History Of Pop Part 46 aka You and me baby aint nothin but mammals

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

In a hard-fought and popular Now 45 poll, Kelis beat Daphne and Celeste by two votes. In Now 46, Britney is back, Kylie is back, Aaliyah is back, and so is Billie (now with surname), but the big debut - in future direction if not in ticks - is Coldplay.


[Poll #733725]


ATTICK ATTACK

Comments

Saint Kara

[koganbot]

I have never heard "Spinning Around" and am willing to posit that it is not as good as "Try Again" but nonetheless it is the most important song on this poll because its hitting is what made its songwriter, Kara DioGuardi, a hot property, without whom there's no "Fly," "La La," "Come Clean," "Shadow," "First," etc. etc. etc. So America loves this song even though we never heard it. (But I still didn't tick it, so don't blame me if it beats "Try Again," which I voted #3 on P&J)

"Spinning Around" was originally slated for Paula Abdul,

Kara & John Obsessive Spice

Re: Saint Kara

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'Spinning Around' was written by the same woman as 'Come Clean' and 'La La'?!?!

Wow. I would never have guessed!

Re: Saint Kara

[koganbot]

Well, on "Come Clean" she had the help of Melissa Etheridge's former guitar player and on "La La" not only did she have the help of the former Mel. Eth. gitboy but also the help of a teengirl reality show star!

The point I am making is that it has become the mission of teenpop of the '00s to prove that rock confessional guitar strum and poppin dance pop are the exact same thing (cf. "Subterranean Homesick Blues"). Once you realize this, your dislike of Marit Larsen will disappear.

Re: Saint Kara

[koganbot]

Also Shanks & DioGuardi cover a much broader range than the Max Martin club, who write one song and then do it ten or twelve times until it's dead before writing another, whereas S & D will shift style from track to track, within tracks, they'll go from Jagger to Hawaiian in the flutter of an eyelash, they'll do barely competent reggae that Ashlee will redeem with her brilliance (I post about it in "music" under Frank Kogan's Interests but my screed is only up for another 11 hours so you gotta hurry hurry hurry), John'll produce boring sentimental slop that will become Bon Jovi's ticket to ride the country charts, and... well you never know.

Re: Saint Kara

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting thesis! I am not 100% convinced by it though - the ways in which I relate to eg 'My Happy Ending' and 'Oops I Dit It Again' are far too disparate - BUT some points at which the crossover happens are already springing to mind: 'Come Clean' for certain, and the Lil Jon rmx of 'Rumours' as well.

Re: Saint Kara

[koganbot]

I'm only 40% convinced by it myself, though I'd say "Oops" basically precedes the rock confessional era of teenpop - yeah, M2M had already scored a minor hit with "Don't Say You Love Me," foreshadowing the singer-songwriter onslaught, and Hoku have something in there, but the real girl-confessional wave is set going by Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like a Bird" and Michelle Branch's "Everywhere" (produced and co-written by the aforementioned Mel. Eth. gitguy) and crashes through with Pink's "Don't Let Me Get Me" and "Family Portrait" (prod. Scott Storch!) and Avril's "Complicated."

Re: Saint Kara

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

'I'm Like A Bird' is surely too sunny and light to be really confessional? Yeah, it's tres folksy, the pop version of Lilith's twee side, but it's miles away from the studied darkness of the new Lohan. Though I can see how 'Complicated' might be a Daughter of Furtado Mk1, and the early Branch/Carlton works (none of which I particularly liked, apart from 'A Thousand Miles').

It'd be interesting to see how the first wave of guitar-based teenpop, which was in the main quite positive (whether folksily like Carlton, or punkily like Lavigne), began to embrace quite dark confessionalism: there was Pink and her family portrait of course, and Xtina did much the same thing that year (but a lot better) - maybe the success of Evanescence was some kind of "get set - GO!" sign for Simpson Jr, Lohan et al.

Re: Saint Kara

[koganbot]

The thing about Michelle Branch's crucially important singer-songwriter confessional "Everywhere" is that it sounds singer-songwriter confessional without lyrics that particularly say anything. She's got a boy on her mind, is it, as far as I can tell. (David Moore invented the term "anonymous confessional," which I find hilarious and which might apply here, even if I'm not sure what the term means.) The point about Nelly F is that she was being, like, you know, poetic or something, and she got on Radio Disney 'cuz she's like a bird. Lavigne had "dark" stuff from the get-go, "Unhappy" especially, even if not on the radio - sometimes her sound is darker than the lyrics. And conversely, I don't think of Lohan as dark at all, even when the words say otherwise, since there's something so kid-like in her self-involvement, she's just splashing around in her emotions. That's how "A Little More Personal" feels to me, at any rate. Wailing to her dad and mugging around on "I Want You To Want Me" feel like the same thing, somehow.

Re: Saint Kara

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha the term "anonymous confessional" kinda applies to something v insightful Tim F originally said about Tori Amos: she always got pegged as a confessional artist because of her style, the occasional extremely confessional lyric, and the fact that her albums were presumably preceded by explanatory press releases saying "hello this is what the album is being confessional about". Yet this held true even when no one could even start to parse the actual words she sung! So thus Tori's appeal was not so much straight-up confessionalism but the difficulty in piecing together a confession. If we apply that to this, we end up with the appeal of Branch being the desire to confess, in a non-specific way, even when there is nothing particularly to confess => perfect for the teenagers.

I think one reason I see Lohan's music as dark, darker than Lavigne certainly (even if Lavigne is responsible for the ballads which move me more), is because of her very public car-crash of a career. All, it is made clear to us via tabloid pages, is Not Well with Lohan (and also Simpson Jr?). Whereas Lavigne seems pretty happy right now.

Re: Saint Kara

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I am reading this interesting thread cos it's coming to my inbox, but I bet nobody else is - maybe it could be nomadised and reformulated into a new post...?

Re: Saint Kara

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

That might be a good idea though I think Frank should be the one to reformat it as he is the one doing the main arguing and I am leading and going "um" a lot.

I have 0 idea what post this is even landing in.