Who knew that these kids would take over the world?
I suppose that after being emailed the NYT article about Disney's High School Musical project, I should post about this.
This week, "Breaking Free" from the soundtrack to the Disney film rose 82 places on the Billboard Hot 100 to No. 4, the biggest jump in history. Currently there are something like eight or ten songs from the film in the Top 100 singles.
This marks a few notable firsts and trends:
1. To my knowledge, this is the first time a single originating from Radio Disneyland actually hit big on Billboard before it did on Disney. This is due perhaps to a communications gap: while Billboard has recently included SoundScan results in their tabulations, Radio Disney still relies only on call-ins. That means that while "Breaking Free" has been voted #1 in the Top 3 on RD several days in a row, it has only crept up to something like the #23 spot in the website's Top 30 (though I would imagine that at local stations, "Breaking Free" and other songs have done better in Top 30 results...and that by next week, the song will be #1, with Crazy Frog right behind).
2. This may also be the first time that this kind of RD to Top 40 crossover, which is more common than you might think (recently: Hilary Duff, previously: Eiffel 65's "Blue" and Smashmouth's "All Star"), has split the intended performer credits between Disney (who credits "Breaking Free" to "Troy and Gabriella," the character names in the film, on both RD and at iTunes) and Billboard (who use the actors' names). Here, potentially, is an interesting example of the resistance of mainstream music channels to embrace legitimately manufactured pop.
The stigma of "manufactured" MUST be overcome if we want Disney to move ahead with their global teen pop saturation plan -- performer image is a major factor in keeping people who may secretly be inclined to like chart pop from fully embracing this music. This is why so few people attacking Ashlee Simpson's public persona have actually LISTENED to her albums. Oh, but "Since U Been Gone" is OK. Right. (Edit: why do I care about this hypothetical "closet chart pop" audience so much? Am I projecting here? Screw these theoretical people, HSM does just fine without em, am I right?)
Not to belabor the point, but could you imagine if the Archies had been formally credited as "Ron Dante" etc. in the charts? Actually, I can imagine it -- before the re-emergence of bubblegum-indebted pop in the mid to late nineties as teen pop (i.e. in the 1960s) it didn't MATTER whose name was on the damn song. One of my top five songs of all time, "Lightnin' Strikes," was performed by...anyone? Anyone? Lou Christie. I still have to look that up occassionally! (Can you imagine if he'd stuck with "Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco"? Forget about it.) Point is, in this kind of music, the alleged author (or more accurately, the performing artist credited) does not need to be the selling point. So let's keep it at Troy and Gabriella, or whatever, and not turn all of these child actors into Hilary Duff, who maybe should have been promoted as Lizzie McGuire from the start! Or maybe Hilary is a special case.
3. Clearly, I need to purchase this album. Downloaded a few songs (including "Breaking Free") on iTunes and so far don't totally understand this phenomenon. It really does sound kind of like a high school musical! Or at least karaoke -- vocals pushed WAY forward, very faceless studio vibe (which is OK by me, just wouldn't expect it to do so well on the charts). (Hm, I remember making the observation a few years ago that SNL had turned into a series of high school musical sketches, where punchlines were replaced with awkward musical numbers for people who couldn't sing. Little did I know that what I then called a lack of ideas was a sea change!)
4. One of the HSM songs, "Stick to the Status Quo," is a cute play on high school stereotypes...Zeke, the jock, likes to bake (Jocks: "No no no! Stick to the status quo!"), Martha Cox, the brainiac, likes hip-hop (what are brainiacs supposed to listen to? They Might Be Giants? I bet they all listen to Sage Francis now), the skater dude plays the cello.
A few points about "Status Quo": first, this song is 4:28, complete with musical theater spoken word break-down pushing forward the plot (Gabriella, fretting about call-backs: "I can't have people staring at me, I really can't!" etc.), making it less than ideal as a single. But it's at #43 on the Hot 100.
Lots more to report on this, but it certainly supports the distinctly Disney direction that this blog has taken. Disney is the center of the teen pop universe, and it may soon become the center of the pop universe, period.
At any rate, I must see this movie. Like, now.
KILLER TUNE WHOSE ENJOYMENT IS NOT DEPENDENT ON THE NAME THAT PRECEDES THE SONG TITLE!
Lou Christie (nee Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco) - Lightnin' Strikes
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