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
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.
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