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Another Cinderella Story and iCarly Shake Up The Tween Scene

2008-09-18T18:28:51Z

In an age ruled by Miley Cyrus and Jonas Brothers, it's easy to forget that so much tween-pop thrives, as it always has in the Radio Disney era, well below the radar. A lot never even crosses over into Top 40 mass culture: Just ask Hope Partlow or Skye Sweetnam or Brie Larson or Jordan Pruitt or Meg & Dia or Sara Paxton or Sofia Loell or Rose Falcon (all of whom have released very-good-to-great music this decade) if you doubt me. So listening to the new soundtracks to the Nickelodeon TV series iCarly and the Warner Premiere direct-to-DVD release Another Cinderella Story, I'm tempted to tell you to remember the names Miranda Cosgrove and Selena Gomez. Then again, maybe you'll never hear them again.

]]> The 14-year-old Miranda Cosgrove plays the title role in iCarly -- she's "Carly Shay, a teenager who lives with her twentysomething brother/guardian," a press release tells us, "and produces webcasts from a makeshift loft studio with pals." I've never seen the show, have no intention to, but Miranda goes a good two-for-four on the soundtrack: show theme "Leave It All to Me" is upbeat pop walking on sunshine, and "Headphones On," about how staying home bored behind closed doors listening to music can be a blast, is even better. And though the soundtrack is certainly no Darcy's Wild Life -- 18 of 35 cuts are dialogue snippets that fly right past me, and hackish pop-R&B-to-pop-emo picks from nobodies like Boys Like Girls and Tiffany Evans do more or less the same, as do Miranda's other two songs -- that's no reason to write it off.

The Lil Mama/Avril Lavigne hop-on-pop version of "Girlfriend" was one of 2007's best singles, and Sean Kingston's sadsack-reggae "Beautiful Girls" is likewise undeniable in its own twerpy way, so why not own them as squeaky-cleaned "Nickelodeon Mixes"? There's something halfway Hooters-like about the hiccups in Good Charlotte's "I Don't Wanna Be in Love (Dance Floor Anthem)," and the Stunners' slightly electro-rappy update of Deniece Williams' 1984 "Let's Hear It for the Boy" introduces an underrated teenybop classic to a unsuspecting new generation. But the real prize (annoyingly available only as a "bonus track" on "Fan Pack" and Wal-Mart versions of the physical CD) is Backhouse Mike's "Take Me Back," which starts out as a catchier AC/DC song than anything by Airbourne, then switches gears into pure pop for Jonas people.

If iCarly shoots for Hannah Montana, Another Cinderella Story has its sights set on High School Musical. The plot apparently concerns a working class girl falling for the most popular boy in her school (Drew Seeley); the girl is Disney Channel Wizards of Waverly Place star Selena Gomez, who People dubbed "the next Miley Cyrus" in May, and who was born in Texas in 1992 (three years before that other Texan Selena's tragic murder). Selena G. and Drew's duet, "New Classic," is an energetic slice of "P.Y T."-referencing New-Jack revivalism that gains power in its grittier live version, and Selena on her own is cute in "Funky Cold Medina"-referencing partially-talked Paula Abdul-icious dance-pop-transforming-into-guitar-rock mode ("Tell Me Something I Don't Know") and more fun than Rihanna in Afro-Caribbean-syncopated weird-wide-world M.I.A. mode ("Bang a Drum"). Drew, for his part, does an okay fake-Justin-with-Latin-freestyle-embellishments ("Just That Girl," easily misheard as "just a bad girl"), and holds his own elsewhere.

The soundtrack's best tracks just might come from other people, though -- I'm still torn about Tiffany Giardina's "Hurry Up and Save Me," where overwhelmingly desperate emotion and over-the-top Flashdance disco-rock are undercut by, uh, the fact that lots of tween-pop in the wake of Kelly Clarkson sounds something like this. But I've got no doubts about "Don't Be Shy" by Small Change, Lil JJ and Chani -- roly-poly Quad City DJs/Tag Team-vintage early '90s post-bass/pre-crunk Florida-style rap with old-school group shouts. Heck, I even like Another Cinderella Story's incidental music -- in this context, the genteel dance-instruction rhythms of the Twins' Latinized "Valentine's Dance Tango" and John Paesano's ballet-pirouetting "Another Cinderella Suite" sound lovely. Selena Gomez may or may not wind up the next princess of pop. But either way, I'm impressed.

Jonas Brothers vs. New Kids on the Block

2008-08-25T20:20:02Z

by Chuck Eddy

I’m not the first person to point out that Jonas Brothers and New Kids on the Block have stuff in common. I was going to be the first, but then Dave DiMartino went and revealed on his Yahoo blog last week that both ensembles are “male, human, English-speaking, preferred largely by a young female audience, fantastic entertainers, and equally enjoyable in their upbeat video romps! Similarly, were they both to be mysteriously teleported into deep space, they would -- as air-breathers -- instantly suffocate!” He left out something, though - namely, that both groups have halfway decent melodic rock ballads called “Tonight”! And that therefore, even as we speak, moms and daughters across the nation are fighting over which one is better!

]]> NKOTB’s “Tonight,” as showcased on their occasionally great (but more often not) new Greatest Hits CD, was clearly their late Beatles music-hall-psych-with-exotic-intro move, and it’s not bad. Jonas Bros’ “Tonight,” on the other hand, is one of the more so-what pop-punk emo-leaning cuts on their also occasionally great new A Little Bit Longer. (Has anybody ever raised the Weezer “My Name Is Jonas” question? Okay, I just did.) Both songs flirt with pop-rock glory, but neither quite gets there, a shame given that “tonight” is clearly the most powerpop word in the English language - as previously proven by the Easybeats, Raspberries, Knack and Shoes ("Tomorrow Night," whatever), not to mention Def Leppard at the exact moment when Joe Elliott transcended the heavens with his line “I gotta know tonight” in “Hysteria.”

Interestingly, the new Jonas joint has a much more “Hysteria”-like song on it: namely, the lushly understated ballad “Can’t Have You,” which pulls off the terrific trick of crossing one of the loveliest rock ballad hits of the ‘80s (Lep’s) with one of the loveliest rock ballad hits of the ‘90s (Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979.”) And the Jonases come even closer to powerpop immortality with the muscular guitars and pretty harmonies of “BB Good” and “Got Me Going Crazy,” the latter of which reminds me of Creem writers in 1973 trying to convince skeptical readers that the Sweet’s “Blockbuster” rocked as hard as Deep Purple. Bazooka-rock, Robert Christgau called the Sweet’s stuff, and the term totally applies here. Other obvious ‘70s reference points would be the Bay City Rollers and the Osmonds circa “Yo Yo” and “Down By the Lazy River” (if not quite their even more metal “Crazy Horses”) - glam-rock disguised as bubblegum, powerpop with actual power. In the Jonas Brothers' case, Chris Lord-Alge’s mix no doubt helped.

The Jonases being siblings, the Osmonds comparison probably makes the most sense, especially given their shared blue-eyed-soul proclivities, which provide most of the chaff on A Little Bit Longer -- the Jonases will never pull off a “One Bad Apple.” Though I respect the Motown-basslined paranoia of “Video Girl,” despite it not boding well for their ethical future. And sorry, that gratuitous more-middle-school-than-old-school rap ending the Black & Blue-era Backstreet Boys simulation “Burnin' Up” is just too silly to hate on.

New Kids’ even more blue-eyed Greatest Hits has its own share of rapped ridiculousness from the five Beantown bad boys, of course - the most entertaining taking place amidst Marky Mark and Cole & Clivelles shoutouts and arguments about how positivity doesn’t mean being soft in the hater-baiting late-period “Games (The Kids Get Hard Mix).” Also groovier than you might remember: “Hangin’ Tough” (Sly Fox “Let’s Go All the Way” clank, Chakachas-like salsa-disco breaks, “get on the floor and do the New Kids dance”) and “Baby, I Believe in You” (Blaxploitation bass and strings and sax).

Super-smashes “Step By Step” and “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” still can’t pull off their respectively shrewd bubblegum Bobby Brown and teeny Time attempts, and the callow Delfonics cover still sounds way thin. But it’s possible the ‘90s never managed a more gorgeously vulnerable DeBarge/Stylistics falsetto after Joey McIntyre’s lead in the 1990 non-LP B-side “Valentine Girl,” maybe my favorite number here even if his bandmates can’t keep up. The only real competition is the similarly titled “My Favorite Girl,” a propulsive and wimpy Noel/TKA-genus Latin freestyle move from 1988 that lets the music play just right.

Otherwise, we’re given an unfunky bunch of bleh ballads, plus four pointless “bonus tracks,” the most tolerable being a Jordan Knight track called “Angel of Love” that pilfers its melody from the Commodores’ “Three Times a Lady,” and the most cringe-worthy being a “2008 New Kids on the Block Mega Mix.” Note to Hollywood Records: when you compile the Jonas Brothers best-of 15 years from now, please avoid one of those.

School's Out for the Naked Brothers' Summer

2008-06-06T16:28:44Z

by Chuck Eddy

So if Disney’s Jonas Brothers (whose next album is said to be inspired by the Animals, Young Rascals and Elvis Costello by the way) are the Beatles, would that make Nickelodeon’s Naked Brothers Band the Monkees? (Which would in turn make Hanson, um - Buddy Holly and the Crickets, I guess?) Okay, perhaps that analogy doesn’t hold water. Nonetheless, judging from the Nakeds’ new album, it might be time to start taking them seriously.

]]> I barely even made it through their self-titled album last year, though I admired the British Invasion tuneage of "Taxi Cab," and “I Could Be” had a kid awkwardly wishing he was a bird, a fish and Jay-Z. Occasional fake-reggae melodies suggested a less-good version of '70s Europop, and sometimes, I was convinced a grown woman was singing instead of a much younger male. But "Alien Clones" clearly had a seven-year-old-ish kid threatening to feed snakes and spiders to his annoying older brother - charming the first time through, though who knows what alien clones had to do with his brother. Still, the Coldplay-or- whatever attempt in "L.A." was fairly wretched, and lots of the rest just plain dull.

The new I Don’t Want to Go to School, though, strikes me as a leap ahead: The title track’s pop-rocking anti-homework screed may well be this year’s fifth-grade answer to “School’s Out”; “Mystery Girl” glues a New York Dolls title concept to some Little Eva girl-group confection; “I’ve Got a Question” is ace double-bubble white-boy falsetto soul; “Body I Occupy” is discofied mind-body-dualism weirdness with a theme at least partially descended from “Bodies” by the Sex Pistols, minus the latter’s anti-choice sentiments. And though some tracks (stomach-turning nadir "I'll Do Anything" for instance) admittedly sound rather bleh, most of the album holds my interest, from Lennon-style yelps to fake reggae about the sun to fake reggae about math to the part in “Great Trip” where they eat nachos for breakfast and the other part that goes “love is in the air/gel is in their hair,” and the other part still where they win at basketball by 20 points despite being short.

I don’t know - maybe this wouldn’t all seem so off the wall if I actually watched their TV show, or if I put the CD in my computer as instructed and connected to their website for “bonus video footage” and whatnot. Said strategy is a big deal with Jonas Bros albums, too; the biz has to reel in the post-physical-retail-era kiddies somehow, right? But me, I gotta draw the line somewhere. And besides - googling “Naked Brothers” make me uneasy.

Teen Fiddle Phenom Amanda Shaw Shows NY How It's Done

2008-04-07T18:53:04Z

by Chuck Eddy

So I caught 17-year-old New Orleans fiddle prodigy and redheaded potential pop star Amanda Shaw at B.B. King Blues Club in Manhattan last week, playing for a bar full of bridge-and-tunnel Bo Bice fans, more than a few of them wearing mullets, mostly middle-aged couples seated at tables. Weird for me -- the last concert I saw there, by Swedish gloom-metal band Katatonia, sure wasn't a sit-down show -- and weird for Amanda. She and her backing trio the Cute Guys (all of whom clearly have a few decades on her, much of those years spent playing all the rootswise-and-otherwise genres they're now incorporating into her music) are used to people dancing -- doing cajun two-steps, Amanda and her longtime drummer Mike Barras told me backstage after their set, even when they cover the Clash.

]]> They didn't do their version of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" (from an album that Amanda self-released when she was 13) at B.B.'s, but they did do "The South's Gonna Do It Again" by Charlie Daniels-- somewhat incongruously, since NYC isn't exactly rebel country (plus she changed one self-referential lyric from "CDB" to "the CGs"), but CDB songs means fiddle solos, and that particular jam has always a good one for showing off swing chops, thanks to its Glen Miller break in the middle.

The set -- like Amanda's new Rounder Pretty Runs Out, one of 2008's best albums -- also featured Led Zeppelin-rhythmed rock ("Easy On Your Way Out"), heavy fuming funk ("Woulda Coulda Shoulda," which Amanda explained to me was inspired by a boy who didn't thank her for a fragrant candle she gave him as a gift which he clearly needed since "boys are smelly"), countrified new wave sung in a gravely Rachel Sweet twang ("Pretty Runs Out," which warns "you can bet your Botox that beauty fades"), Latin-tinged gumbo praising Mexican immigrant construction workers ("Chirmolito"), a Dianne Warren-penned country-pop ballad that Taylor Swift fans might like ("I Don't Want to Be Your Friend"), a few of the French-sounding cajun reels that are Amanda's specialty (though she says she actually prefers dancing to zydeco herself because it's funkier), and a magnificent virtuoso fiddle finale in case anybody wondered whether Amanda had been classically trained since she was four years old. (She was, though her teachers back then called it a violin.)

What the set demonstrated, and what might just make Amanda Shaw unique on the planet right now, is that her music conceivably has the potential to appeal to both Foghat devotees in their 50s and their 12-year-old daughters who prefer Miley Cyrus (just for starters -- Juvenile's people have checked out her gigs too, she told me). Amanda actually has a background in Disney Channel movies (and also co-narrated a 2006 documentary about Katrina called Hurricane On The Bayou), and from her go-go shimmy moves to the slinky shiny silver number she was wearing on stage, she radiates a bubbly teen-pop presence that doesn't get stodged down by the supposedly "traditional" nature of much of her music. She told me she wants "to be like Tift Merritt when I grow up" (she likes Amy Winehouse, too), but she's also a major fan of ice cream. It's not hard at all to imagine little girls looking up to her as a really cool role model. In New Orleans, I'm told, they already do.

Best Children's Music of 2007

2008-01-15T22:20:10Z

by Sarah Bardeen

Okay, we know that "best children's music" might sound like a bit of an oxymoron. But children's music is undergoing a renovation these days, and it's time we celebrated it! Things started changing when former Del Fuego Dan Zanes made a pact with the devil, erm, that is, Disney and brought his literate, inter-generational folk to a wider audience. The process of kids music-hippification was furthered along by the wonderful For the Kids compilation series, which has brought the music of Jolie Holland, Tom Waits and Robyn Hitchcock to the pint-sized set. And we can't leave out They Might Be Giants, whose Here Come the ABC marked the band's tacit acknowledgement of their natural fan demographic.

But what about the best albums of 2007, you ask. Well, for starters, did you know that Andre 3000, the wild child of hip-hop duo Outkast, released a children's album?

]]> We're not messing with you. Spinning off from his Cartoon Network show Class of 3000, the man released an album that probably most accurately reflects what kids actually want to hear these days. It's weird and smart, and best of all, it's fun to listen to.

Here, in no particular order, are a few more new and noteworthy albums for the discerning parent -- and adventurous kids

Father Goose, It's a Bam Bam Diddly
This former dancehall emcee is a Dan Zanes prot�g� and has collaborated on some of Zanes' most memorable tracks. Goose, aka Rankin Don, describes his role on this album as the spice that ties the songs together. He doesn't take center stage, but instead invites in everybody from Sheryl Crow (yawn) to reggae's Sister Carol and Screechy Dan to explore classic Caribbean kids songs. The most beautiful moments are the least commercial ones: when he invites Haitian artist Gaston Jean-Baptiste to sing a Creole song, you'll probably find yourself near tears after Goose's introduction. Also, the kids like it. One downside -- no train songs, though "Flying Machine" nearly suffices.

Sweet Honey in the Rock, Experience 101
Universally lauded, this is kind of a bizarre release -- moving beyond granola and into rainbows, moonbeams and soy nuggets territory. But just because it's good for you doesn't mean it has to taste bad, and despite a few mis-steps (it's not fun to learn about a country's exports) Experience 101 has enough transcendent moments to warrant putting it in heavy rotation.

Renee and Jeremy, It's A Big World
Rumor has it that Renee and Jeremy's album was on the short list for a Grammy nomination. They didn't make the cut, and it's too bad. This kind of delicate music can help kids calm down and center -- and help parents slow down and remember why they got into the parenting gig in the first place.

Los Lobos, Papa's Dream
"Papa's Dream" takes a bit more concentration than a younger kid can offer, given the amount of narration between the songs. Nonetheless it's a strange, enjoyable and intriguing ride that sends a bunch of fictional kids to Mexico in a hot air balloon and features very folksy renditions of classic kids songs like "De Colores."

Recess Monkey, Wonderstuff
The band's double-entendre name was enough to make us fans, but their dreamy, jangly pop pushed us over the edge. Is this really for kids? It sounds like Marc Bolan was reborn as a devoted parent. My husband says it's "wimpy" but I say it's neo-British Invasion. You'll love it, trust us.

Buck Howdy. Chickens
We're still lamenting the lack of fart jokes (a mainstay of previous albums) but Buck Howdy did so well with this album of chicken-fried kiddie country that we're prepared to forgive him. Howdy teamed up with BB, his longtime collaborator, and the male-female vocal mix is very engaging.

Ella Jenkins Catalogue

Smithsonian Folkways pushed all of this classic children's singer's albums to digital last year. Jenkins' diction is impeccable, her politics unassailable, and her heart so generous it comes through in even a rendition of "Baa Baa Black Sheep." Ella Jenkins is the rock of Gibraltar in this genre; if you haven't heard her, you must. Such clear-eyed moral vision rarely emanates from children's music.

Not Necessarily New, But New To Us

My favorite discovery of 2007 (and I'm a bit behind the times) was Elizabeth Mitchell, of Ida fame. Her three children's albums (also on Smithsonian Folkways) are revelations -- delicate acoustic folk introductions to the American songbook that make for great quiet time music. We also have to commend the Asylum Street Spankers for their funny name and good album -- and give a shout-out to San Francisco kids-edelic rockers the Sippy Cups.

And of course I have to end with my kid's current favorite dance song, an oldie but a goodie: the Dubliner's "Mountain Dew." Yes, it's about moonshine. Yes, it features Shane MacGowan's slurred vocals. But we have a post-bath dance party to this song every night (or an Irish cultural indoctrination moment, take your pick) and we're not tired of it yet. Give it a spin.

Looking for more cool children's music? Check out the definitive blog on children's music, Zooglobble.

Further Listening

Father Goose It's A Bam Bam Diddly
Andre 3000 Class of 3000
Ella Jenkins Growing Up With Ella Jenkins
Sweet Honey in the Rock Experience 101
Recess Monkey Wonderstuff
Renee and Jeremy It's a Big World