1. Jackin' Pop ran yesterdayish, my ballot's right here (identical to the Voice ballot, I think). Here's probably not the place to respond to it, but why not...this came up on ILM (welcome Rolling Teenpop 2007!) re: Frank Kogan's Idolator comments:
What the "...when the internet came..." quote is looking snidely upon ISN'T manufactured pop idols -- or even duplicitous music marketers or white tastemakers! -- so much as the (yeah, maybe strawmanish) idea that the pitchforkstylusilxbloggernapster revolution is really quite the sea-change it's sometimes hyped as being. That's all.
OK. But how's about this, re: Fergie:
THE WHAAAA? Listen Up pointed out what was probably the report's most head-shaking statistic: Fergie's supersucky "Fergalicious" set an all-time record for most digital song sales last week, after 295,000 people who apparently don't own any JJ Fad MP3s bought it. Clearly, we need to take some action, so we've posted an MP3 of "Supersonic" below; feel free to pass it along to any errant Fergie-downloaders in your household.
Or re: ILM:
Those of you who are still trying to get the end-of-year list-processing out of your system might like to know that the message board I Love Music--where pop obsessives who aspire to be music writers, or just argue endlessly on the Internet like them, dissect the musical curios floating around their hard drives--has reopened after a few weeks of downtime. ILM (as the regulars call it) is sometimes bogged down by the sorts of endless, circular debates that keep the online "grouch" quotient hovering around 10%, but we have a long-standing, if grudging, affection for its ever-expanding definition of "pop music," and we're happy to see it back on its virtual feet.
Ever-expanding definition of "pop music"...MAYBE that's neutral, but those scare quotes make me nervous. What sort of music being discussed on that board merits quotation marks around POP MUSIC? I don't want to jump to the conclusion that they're talking about "popist fascism" or whatever, but it's very difficult for me to give Idolator the benefit of the doubt here when there's ample evidence that it IS about the "manufactured pop idols" etc. etc. etc.
But my resolution this year was less griping of this sort (repeating myself and throwing a hissy fit) so on to #2:
2. There's a DANCE REMIX of "Mony Mony." I discovered this accidentally in a bar tonight.
3. Fefe Dobson doing "Get You Off My Back" live.
4. So the best lines in two of my favoritest
5. The Beaties' repertoire grows with each passing dull work day. About six songs strong. "I'm Low" has become a nice "No Fun"-ish Stooges number with the best lyrics I've ever written:
I'm low...oh no.
I'm low...oh no.
I'm low...oh no.
I'm low...oh no.
Gimme some sugar
Gimme some sugar
Gimme some sugar
Gimme some sugar
(repeat)
Toyed with "Feel like I'm gonna die/ Lie on the grass and stare at the sky," but it reminded me of a !!! song. Also wrote a country ballad called "Watch Me Go" ("Will you stay long enough to watch me go?") and a new wavey nu-Lillix number called "Relax" (not like Mika or Frankie). "You told me to relax (relax relax relax relax relax relax)/ Now I'm never comin' back." And the Beaties' theme reads curiously like a Veronicas outtake...COINCIDENCE? BUT, the crucial part (the chorus) reveals that the flirting and seduction are really a ploy to get the Beaties into a SERIOUS COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP with someone who will help them day to day getting their lives back together.
It should be pointed out at this point that the Beaties are, if you hadn't noticed, BAD DIABETICS. Their A1C's hover between 9 and 10. They bolus AFTER meals instead of before. They do not own emergency glucagon kits, except for ones that expired in like 2003.
Look, bad girls are all well and good, but these girls live VERY dangerously!
6. What is teenpop? I don't know. But it might be similar to whatever ethnographic film is:
Ethnographic films cannot be said to constitute a genre, nor is ethnographic filmmaking a discipline with unified origins and an established methodology. ...[The] term has served a largely emblematic function, giving a semblance of unity to extremely diverse efforts in the cinema and social sciences.
I guess this could apply to pop music in a more general sense, although obviously there are parts of this that are very specific to ethnogrpahic filmmaking. These connections are tenuous, but I've been thinking about it a lot and the theory has been a big help in freeing up a thought jam. My columns from here on out will be leading up to the EMP paper, whether or not it actually happens. (If it doesn't, they'll lead up to the hypothetical paper.) Next column is (right now) called "Britneyesque," about a lot of the social assumptions that go into what defines a (female) teenpop star -- particularly the paradox of agency: the audience (presumed to be young girls, which may be true) is said to lack agency in their ability to, for instance, take what they want from a song (e.g. Britney's supposed harmful influence c. 2000 onward as a sex symbol), while the artists themselves are given an inordinate amount of agency in many aspects of their career that are out of their control, like how they're being marketed (if this is even the case) and how they "represent" or "perpetuate" a broader, possibly institutional or at least embedded social concern. Still working on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment