Like, what the hell happened? This album is a quantum leap in quality from No Strings Attached. It’s not even remotely close. Some of this is actually…good. And it really makes a case that, at least sometimes, it’s good that the talent take over from the handlers in the manufactured pop music space. Because, well, …
Tag: Teen Pop
Step by Step (1990) by New Kids on the Block
New Kids on the Block make subsequent boy bands sound sophisticated. Maurice Starr’s songs on their earlier records show a level of contempt for their fans that later boy band songwriters mostly avoided. (Both musically, in how unsophisticated and imitative his songs and musical ideas are and, especially, lyrically, as he realized that teens don’t …
Ooops!…I Did It Again (2000) by Britney Spears
A lot of people think pop music is supposed to be ephemeral, disposable. I guess that’s one reason I don’t like so much of it. One of my criteria for deciding whether or not something is “great” is transcendence. And, if pop music is supposed to be disposable, it should be very hard for it …
Nobody Else (1995) by Take That
Take that were way, way less of a big deal in North America than they were in the UK – like most if not all UK manufactured pop – and so I was barely aware they existed, except that “Back for Good” was an actual hit over here. But I basically only know they exist …
ABC (1970) by Jackson 5
This is a slickly produced Motown record with a lead vocalist who is entirely too young. I don’t necessarily blame the people alive in 1970 who celebrated this group for what happened with Michael Jackson, but did nobody stop and wonder about this? It was probably “cute”, right?
No Strings Attached (2000) by *NSYNC
I absolutely hated *NSYNC when they first become popular, much like I absolutely hated the Backstreet Boys. And, though time has softened my feelings, it was still a struggle listening to “Bye Bye Bye” and “It’s Gonna Be Me” as immediately my got up a bit, as I remembered being inundated with these songs and …
Millennium (1999) by Backstreet Boys
I hated the Backstreet Boys as a teenager – they representative everything I thought was wrong with modern music because they didn’t write their own music, they didn’t play any instruments, they produced music that seemed like pablum, they were successful in part because of their looks, and they seemed to have no agency because …
…Baby One More Time (1999) by Britney Spears
I’m not sure I can convey the loathing I felt towards Britney Spears when she first debuted. I hated both her music, the singles of which were catchy enough they were hard to ignore, and what she represented: manufactured pop. I told myself she was a puppet. In 1998 and 1999 it felt like we …
Hangin’ Tough (1988) by New Kids on the Block
I had turned 7 just a few days earlier when this came out so, though I am aware of NKOTB, and I’ve heard two of these songs way too many times as a child, this isn’t really the boy band that annoyed me. Sure, my step-sister had the tape, and I guess that was annoying …
Backstreet Boys (1997, 1998 Re-Issue)
I am listening to this for my podcast. (Well, not exactly this album, but close. I’ll get into that.) But I don’t know what to do with it for a number of reasons. I don’t like pop music like this and I don’t spend time listening to it. Here are some reasons why: