1. WOW middle school. A lot happenin' in music, and plenty more not happening on the P&J charts, like, uh, MY HEART WILL GO ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON EVEN WHEN YOU PUT SOUTH PARK VOICES OVER IT [EDIT: I can't find this anywhere, so maybe I'm making it up or something, but I swear I remember a parody of the song with the bits from Titanic replaced with lines from "South Park," which premiered the same year if I'm not mistaken...if this DOESN'T exist, then I'd like to know what on earth I could possibly be thinking of...]. Missy, Jay-Z, Spice Girls (stateside), Hanson, Lauryn Hill, Daft Punk, Harvey Danger. "Flagpole Sitta" still great. Biggest omission from my list that I should probably rectify is Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?" Counts toward an HSR ['98], I guess, along with semi-OK Propellerhead w/ Shirley Bassey - "History Repeating." [EDIT: y'know it occurs to me watching the video that I actually knew this song pretty well when it came out, totally forgot that it's from Dr. Doolittle, at the time it was "that weird-ass baby song," and both of my roommates just said "is this the song with the baby crying? I love this song!"] No SBDs or HSRs in '97, though. In fact, this ('98, that is) might be the only poll within my child/teenhood with a song on it that I have zero memory of from the time but fell in love with much later (Stardust, which I almost overlooked! I think I like "Music Sounds Better with You" more than "Rosa Parks").
Anyway, sociological analysis of my middle school years...uh, no, not enough energy to go there this time out. Suffice it to say that those two years, when all us ugly terrible kids got sealed up in the middle of nowhere isolated from everybody, were some strange times. I keep going back to THE DANCE, which I always felt uncomfortable at...there were a lot of them, every Saturday night was TEEN NIGHT, usually not cool enough for the 8th graders, plus two or three yearly dances. FEMALE CONTACT! I think I "dated" like twelve girls in middle school (counting the ones that did it on a dare, OK that was just once and of COURSE it had to be the day I was wearing my oversized neon VISIT THE CARIBBEAN T-shirt, but I did get broken up with twice in one day, with one of the great all time clunkers from a nasty best friend of said two-day gf whose name I won't reveal..."Do you like dump trucks? 'Cuz Rachel does!" Jokes on you because my heart will go on, also counting the ones where one person asks the other person out and then breaks up SAME DAY DELIVERY over the phone, ending a platonic friendly relationship with the girl you actually liked! Or passing lewd notes and snickering until it kind of goes a little too far and ANOTHER platonic friendly relationship ends, or ANOTHER girl likes you on Thursday, which is Valentine's Day, so you have to say you're going out with her until at LEAST the next Monday, and then in two years she's preggers! And there's that rotating cast of on-again-off-again(-but-mostly-off) girlfriends with whom you stay friends and visit their lovely apartments in Boston and bookmark pro-Paris sites and talk about Disney's control of a new dominant demographic and unstoppable market force, lots of middle schoolers between less crucial catch-up conversation)...fascinating approximations of "adult" (later-teen) relationships. They should totally comment here, too.
2. Reading Lester Bangs again, particularly interested in some of his comments in the Troggs essay, or maybe it was the Pop Pies essay, which I might try to sneak into an upcoming column on CLUNKERS, CLICHES, N' THROWAWAYS trying to figure out how the "filler" in a lot of teenpop functions. Forgot what the context for thinking of that was, maybe a description of that great Stooges line, oh my, boo hoo (which he mis-transcribes as "my my, boo hoo"). Haven't read it in almost five years, and I realize that I probably missed the point -- or maybe got it in a sort of short-lived giddy rush and then promptly forgot it -- at the time. Also helps that I understand who/what he's talking about a little better. So anyway, I'm interested in how and in what (lyrical) context artists like Ashlee and Aly/AJ deliver their best lines, padding them with cliches or weak lyrics. Meaning maybe (and this is a pretty tenuous connection) that the structural support of cliches and bad poetry give these artists a sort of "cover" (not that its an intentional one), and they're keeping the PARTY -- and this isn't really Lester's party, of course, PARTY maybe having a similar function as the "extreme" in "Extreme Pop"? -- alive by making everyone else think they're a buncha wholesome dorks. At least, I think that's what Aly and AJ are doing, draping themselves in Disney ears so you won't notice those totally devastating moments, even if you can kind of get the undercurrent if you give it a fair listen.
3. OK...what I actually wanted to post about was DEVO 2.0 because I bought CD/DVD at Tower today. 90 mins of footage on the bonus DVD, detailed report to follow. Doesn't make my Top Ten, maybe Twenty, but it's pretty righteous and awesome. Also picked up Supa Dupa Fly for about six bucks, speaking of middle school.
4. Didn't contribute to Stylus Jukebox this week, but the Kim-Lian hate is INEXCUSABLE. That's what I get for not wrecking the curve.
5. Look, this teenpop covers thing just isn't coming together. I'm gonna turn it into a column and CROSS POST w/ the blog to ensure the maximum number of comments.
6. Ross tipped me off to this Stylus feature by Andrew Unterberger, which he also linked. Really great piece, especially after the 90s P&J polls.
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