I'm all about Pandora radio these days for the following reasons:
1) Hot damn, extensive selection!
2) No Radio Disney access in Ithaca (come on Diz, send a battalion of your IP lawyers over to eDisney HQ and start jailing a few token preschoolers so'se we can listen on the Internet! Damn, man...)
3) No commercials! See number 2, too.
Pandora allows you to fashion your own radio station via the Music Genome Project, which assembles an immense catalogue of music by genre, style, and characteristics: for instance, I am currently listening to Sheena Easton because (according to Pandora) "it features pop rock qualities, a subtle use of vocal harmonies, mild rhythmic syncopation, a vocal-centric aesthetic and major key tonality." They have me pegged, all right!
A few other nifty features: you can fashion your station by adding artists and songs to a master list that spews out, on occasion, totally random songs you may or may not have ever heard on based on your preferences (hence Sheena, who I didn't hand pick). Also, they have an RD-esque "pick it or kick it" function, whereby you give thumbs up or down to gold or shit, respectively. Careful, Roger Ebert has that appendage TRADEMARKED.
So! In keeping with my other weekly feature (you know which one) that forces me to get on my ass and blog once and a while, I'm going to attempt a weekly Pandora overview. I kind of liked my free association Radio Disney post a while back (despite wildly inaccurate info I probably should have fact-checked...sorry again, Casper, didn't realize you were a wedding/bar mitzvah/elem. school dance SUPERSTAR!).
One impetus for this is to start forming a rough genealogy/working definition of "teen pop," inserting all data I have at hand into the machine and seeing what it spits out. (For instance, it just spat out Brie Larson. Hey, this song is great!) Example: do Top 40 crossovers (Black Eyed Peas, Yellowcard, whatever else) fall under the umbrella of teen pop or does that qualify more as a peripheral distinction? Maybe we'll find out!
If anyone has suggestions for artists/songs to include in the list, lemme know. I'm revisiting a few threads/reviews/etc. to try to include stuff I might otherwise overlook: Go Betty Go, Krystal, Steps, Lillix, etc.
I'm also thinking about starting a parallel station that emulates CLASSIC (1996-2000) Radio Disney programming, mixing in late 60's bubblegum, Motown, novelties, etc. with modern teen pop.
Before I start this experiment, a few random things, in list form as always:
1. Finally tracked down and watched Skye's "Switched" episode, which was great! The girl that took her place actually had a weird (but it kinda works in its own way) punk affectation thing going on...actually, she kind of sounded like Ian Curtis or something. (When will Joy Division break through to the tween set? Never? Does "Confessions of a Broken Heart" count sort of?) Will discuss further on Skye Friday.
2. Ordered the only Daphne & Celeste I could afford or get my hands on, "Ugly Pt. 1" single. Only a dollar, but their full length is out of print. When I get a lot of money I'll pay some exorbitant out-of-print price along with Fantastic by Toy-Box.
3. Monkee's box set for $25 via BMG, who are brutal totalitarian tightasses but dammit have the best prices in town. Less than half the Amazon price, a little over a third of the list price.
4. Hey, I kind of like "Nth Degree" by Morningwood. Vocals are WAY thinner than I thought they'd be...if M83 kept moving in a bombast pop direction they could have made a more pretentious version of this song with a shittier spell-out chorus. (M-8! M-8! M-8-3!) MW aren't doing themselves any favors by repeating "MOR" a bunch of times, though, stop giving the presumptuous hatas ammo off the bat!
OK, enough of that.
TEEN POP MEGA HYPER SUGAR SET: 1/28/06
1. Hilary Duff - "Come Clean": Nice kick-off song (an aborted playlist actually started with "The Math").
2. Backstreet Boys - "Don't Want You Back": Great song, should have been released as a single, maybe. Was it? More playful than some of the slop in the second half of Hits Chap. 1
3. Jennifer Lopez - "Play": Eh. OK beat, but J-Lo should probably go (ho ho). THUMBS DOWN.
4. Britney - "Baby One More Time": Hell yeah. Sounds so much better in radio format, I've been Britney-binging...these songs were made to be dispersed.
5. IIO - "Rapture": No idea, it's on some club mix. Pretty boring. THUMBS DOWN
6. LFO - "Simon from Sydney": Wrong LFO, assholes! Had to plug in "Summer Girls" separately...not bad, but now I've got a bunch of moody electronica clogging up my playlist! Thpth. THUMBS DOWN
7. DJ Me DJ You - "People Together": WTF? Kitchen sink DJ/acoustic with guitar, horn section, and an LFO (the correct one) wimp-rap chorus. I kind of like it! Something about eating chicken wings with the girl of your choice.
8. Steps - "Chain Reaction": From the Metal Mike Voice kiddie encyclopedia:
Steps: What the hell is "5,6,7,8"? A song, a hoedown, or what? Steps are a great five-piece walking example of what NOT to wear, how NOT to dance. DAFT. Despite that, I kinda like them. Most of their U.K. singles are truly catchy, and they have two almost identically sounding lead singers with excellent voices (but NO rhythm). The red-haired girl who can't sing is MEGA-cute, huge teeth and giant Elizabeth Hurley accent. The two guys are strictly from Planet Doofus. One of 'em looks like he's wearing a life preserver onstage. And what is with wearing all-white? Did they take acid at an Angel concert before they were born? They dance so bad it would make Mandy Moore feel good.
Never seen/heard this band or "5,6,7,8"...description sounds about right. Really bizarre Euro dance lite, like later A*Teens but even less good. Kind of fascinating, though...what the hell is up with the crooked-ass beat?
9. Pizzicato Five - "Playboy Playgirl": Sweet! What a strange but pleasant surprise...so are Pizzicato Five "teen pop"? Is there a name for teen pop that caters exclusively to a hipster audience? Like "metapop" (ugh) but younger...I hereby dub it "tweenster pop." (Hint: rhymes with "scenester!" Clever!) Trademarked.
10. Sheena Easton - "Telefone": Not familiar with Sheena Easton, really. Not bad, I guess.
11. Celine Dion - "I'm Alive (live)": ACK! ABORT! ABORT! THUMBS DOWN!!!
12. Puretone - "Addicted to Bass": Boring techno. Reluctant passable grade.
13. Crazy Frog - "Axel F": THERE it is. Have you listened to the Kidz Bop version yet?? Check yesterday's post! I'ts so cute!
14. David Carretta - "So Lonely": Siiiigh, boring techno! Constipated Europeans saying random shit over stupid beat = THUMBS DOWN!
15. Ashlee Simpson - "Giving It All Away": Damn, I gotta get Autobiography. It's on the way.
16. Brie Larson - "Hope Has Wings": This song rules! THUMBS UP!
17. Huckapoo - "Perfectly": Sweet! Could this be a KILLER SEQUENCE in the making...?
18. Brendan Benson - "Sittin' Pretty": Bleah. Guess not. Not terrible, but learn how to write a pop song! Too undergraddish pop-up collar-y...stop hiding your hooks in campus center makeshift stage goofball vibes. Reluctant pass.
19. Morningwood - "Nth Degree": A grower, liking it more with each listen. This song is pretty much all-awesome (louder! Harder!) Except you REALLY have to mean it, still seems half-assed...bring Andrew WK in on this and avoid a smirkfest, it's not CUTE and it's definitely not IRONIC (and META still is not a word) but it could be REALLY GOOD.
20. The All-American Rejects - "Dance Inside": I'm hearing some Killers, some emo, the semi-glam (pseudo-glam?), a couple of OK ideas. Eh, pass. (I've heard of this band, right?)
21. British Sea Power - "Fear of Drowning": Totally unacceptable. Is this some kind of indie rock saturation conspiracy? Plus I just saw BSP in BMG's "pop" section. Not a bad song...actually, I guess it is a bad song. THUMBS DOWN
22. Kelly Clarkson - "Before You Love": American Idol era. Girl can sing, but (obviously) good songs and a good producer are of greater importance than pipes.
23. Jesse McCartney - "Because You Live": Nice. The boy bands clearly only needed one guy at the helm + studio backup...hm, increasing reliance on a unified (i.e. one person) public image? Back to weird standards of identifiable singular authorship? What's great about the boy band model is that it encourages anonymity, discourages individualistic achievement/authorship and promotes collective creation. Q: Were BSB kinda sorta Marxists? (A: No, they were Maxists!)
24. Fleetwood Mac - "As Long As You Follow": Well, Lindsay makes a case for Fleetwood Mac as teen pop. But I say it goes -- at least this song. "Edge of Seventeen" is a different story. THUMBS DOWN
25. Fefe Dobson - "Everything": Skye got her start with Fefe Dobson, also from Toronto. Hadn't heard her before now, I like! THUMBS UP
26. PJ Harvey - "Sheela-Na-Gig": I like PJ Harvey enough not to kick this one.
27. Giant Drag - "High Friends in Places": But now I have to put the smackdown. Don't test me, Pandora!
28. Britney - "Boys": OK. But my interest is dwindling.
29. Ashlee - "L.O.V.E.": Yeah, yeah, yeah...good...let's wrap it up...
30. Madonna - "Bad Girl": A computer is clearly responsible for the following and final stretch of this playlist. This song is TOO LONG and TOO NOT GOOD. THUMBS DOWN.
My patience has been tested with what feels like a poorly executed "teen night" cool down. I never did get to ditch early to go make out on the soccer field (there were parental commandos everywhere even if I could find someone. I remember two 7th graders walking up to me and saying, "you know everyone thinks you look like an idiot dancing, right?") Boring Japanese diva (Ayumi Hamasaki, "P.S. II"), TERRIBLE self-serious LFO (the correct one) ballad ("I Don't Wanna Kiss You Goodnight") and...Kraftwerk??? Fucking computers. Pandora sez:
Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features disco influences, chill rhymin' [?], prevalent use of groove [??] and many other qualities identified in the music genome project.
THUMBS DOWN, THUMBS DOWN, THUMBS DOWN, AND I'M OUT!
No comments:
Post a Comment