1. Edited in the last message, but there are some limited copies of Fefe Dobson's new album circulating. I ordered one online.
2. Myspace is impelementing a plan to restrict 18 y/o and over types from friending 15 y/o and younger without specific personal details. Parroting from Tommy2 again (ew, sez that Superchic[k] are playing something called the Pro-Life Music Festival)...my question is whether or not this will affect 15 and under teenpop artists' ability to network! I doubt it, most artists are, for whatever reason, 102 years old. Still an interesting (further) glimpse into widespread internet paranoia, challenged in Wendy Chun's Control and Freedom. An excerpt:
On the Internet, others mirror one's perversities; one recognizes in others one's personal idiosyncrasies. On the Internet, one becomes a statistic, but through this reduction, one's "personality" is reinforced... This validation of so-called private desires, also described as community, leads to broader questions of computer networks and crises of discipline -- questions foreclosed by the emphasis on children. This myth of the agentless child victimized by cyberporn "simplifies" issues (just as focusing on pornographic materials simplifies the issue of electronic exposure); it enables adults to address issues of vulnerability without acknolwedging their own, and enables parents to admit their deficiencies as disciplinary agents without fear of condemnation.
Anyway, I don't think any of this has any direct result on artists, but it's disheartening to see paranoia continue to overwhelm any meaningful discussion of internet communication. I have a (paranoid?) feeling that Myspace is on the verge of collapse of some kind, that it can't continue to make concessions to so-called "privacy" without the primary reason for its popularity (and maybe its existence) being fundamentally undermined and destabilized.
3. Speaking of paranoid reactionary rhetoric aimed at kidz, Aly and AJ have a new single called "Chemicals React." No, it's not fundiepop's answer to "I'm Straight" (I bet there are about a million of those already); A&A are flexing their Ashlee muscles:
Were you right, was I wrong/ Were you weak, was I strong, yeah/ Both of us broken/ Caught in the moment/ We lived and we loved/ And we hurt and we joked, yeah/ But the planets all aligned/ When you looked into my eyes/ And just like that/
Watch the chemicals react
Aly/AJ, sit down a moment, I need to explain something to you. See, when you use the "chemicals react" metaphor for that tingly sensation you feel with the scumbag boyfriend who makes you feel "broken," you're referring to a desire for sexual intercourse. Your parents may not have explained this yet, but...well, sometimes in pop music, thinly veiled euphemisms and metaphors are used as a means of overcoming censorship issues stemming from ideologies very closely resembling those that you've chosen, however autonomously, to embrace. This has actually been a good thing, because it introduces new and unique (and often very funny) ways of expressing lust than, say, "I want to have sex with you immediately." I just want you to know that it's OK to write songs about sex; I even encourage it, so long as you can think of something more interesting than "chemicals react." Just thought it might be appropriate to spell things out if it wasn't obvious already. PS - the "broken" stuff isn't working for you. This seems more like a song about how your ingrained impulses toward chastity are at odds with the intense biological demands of your hormone-addled post-monkey body...follow it through! There's a great song in this idea somewhere. (Oh wait, it's called "The Bad Touch.") And then you can write a song about how great the HPV vaccine is, and why you support its FDA approval wholeheartedly.
4. Sugar Shock #2 published yesterday and the Confessional Jamz mix is available on the Summer Jamz feature, third one down. I think it turned out OK, although I'd like to write more about "Family Portrait" (and pop trauma) later. We had a very interesting discussion about it the other night, but now I forget most of what was said so I'll bring a tape recorder next time.
5. Final thought for the day is about the Ashlee/Orange Bowl incident. I'm planning a longer essay comparing the rapturous experiences of (certain) members of the Beatles' audience with the vitriolic response that followed Ashlee's performance, possibly establishing a kind of audience participation dichotomy and exploring what that event meant, not only in terms of Ashlee's career but also in terms of audience participation with live pop music. I don't want to suggest anything too definitive, ultimately I just want to compare two similar phenomena that interest me; it's not like no one's ever been booed off a stage before, but there is something so deeply unsettling in that performance, I want to figure out why what happened was so disturbing to me when I finally saw it. Working from Meltzer again, I think that the "baffled, indifferent" males who met the Beatles with a kind of incredulous fascination constituted the majority of Ashlee's audience at this event. Everyone was skeptical, everyone crossed their arms, and what followed is what happens when enough arm-crossers are given free reign to express themselves. I'll bet a few people booed the Beatles, too, but you couldn't hear them -- you couldn't even hear the music, ever. And frankly you can't hear Ashlee, the sound is terrible even from the TV feed, can't imagine it being any more intelligible in a giant stadium. More later...
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