Cave 17.

Hello. I’ve been given keys to the jeep here as well, so I thought I’d start out writing my New Year’s Resolutions for 2008, plus musings about 2007 (including musings about 2004-6).

My own blog is The Cure for Bedbugs, which is mostly a teenpop and teen pop and teen-pop site and conversation catalyst for a lot of great people (whom I hope will comment here, too). Most of my posts are written liststyle and freeassociationstyle. Which brings me to Resolution #1: Write better long-form stuff here. I’m hoping that at least once a month I’ll be able to write a piece that’s more in line with my Stylus (RIP) column, Sugar Shock. I want to talk about Cassie, I want to talk about boys that code “girl,” I want to talk about why kids don’t just get “marketed” into liking the music they like.

So 2007: Biggest last-minute surprise, aside from my credit card bill, is that Miley Cyrus (a.k.a. Hannah Montana)’s “See You Again,” her best song by a mile is inexplicably moving up the Billboard charts. It’s somewhere around #30 in airplay and #60 on the Hot 100, and Disney hasn’t TOUCHED this song since they stuck it on the bonus Meet Miley Cyrus CD on the Hannah Montana 2 OST. (Produced by Antonina Armato and Tim James, formerly of Hoku “Another Dumb Blonde” fame and currently of Aly & AJ Insomniatic fame.) The significance of it is that this might the first time since Disney started producing and distributing the music they play on their radio station that the Billboard charts beat them to the punch. Usually it works the other way around; the song is released and promoted by Disney, makes its way up their homegrown Top 30 charts, then crosses over to Billboard (or, depending on the iTunes sales, winds up at the top of the charts so that entertainment journalists can write thinkpieces about the state of the music industry). I’m hoping what happened is that a bunch of people (including Miley herself, who wrote on her webpage that “See You Again” is her favorite song) just liked the song and it wound up in the charts. The optimist in me tells me that the Disney monopoly may not have a total stranglehold on their music, even if there isn’t really any other game in town.

Anyway, going alphabetically by artist (first name), two sentences or less. Largely swiped from the Rolling Teenpop 2007 Thread on the I Love Music message board.

Alicia Keys: Over the weekend, Alicia Keys single No One received a 59% kick on the Radio Disney Music Mailbag. :`(

Aly and AJ: Other teenpop enthusiasts will vouch for their new album, Insomniatic, more than I do only because I like them the most when they make me uncomfortable, and their new album just about 100% kills in the pop sense of the word. But I dug their former terror/bliss divide, which only comes up in earnest (pun intended) in their conflicted song about premarital sex (“Blush”) but used to come up more frequently in confessional rocker “Into the Rush” and truly frightening child kidnapping song “I Am One of Them” and total Xmas downer (best teenpop one-off Christmas tune of the decade except for Skye Sweetnam’s “Why Doesn’t Santa Like Me”) “Not This Year.” See also: “Bullseye (Acoustic)” and “Like Whoa”

Amerie: A few great posts compared the underappreciated Because I Love It to Rihanna’s overappreciated Good Girl Gone Bad, from Clap Clap and Poptimists. They sort of break even somewhere around #20 album of the year.

Amy Diamond: Preteen Swedish cipher who until now hit biggest with two bubblereggae singles now teams up with fellow Swede Max Martin for a song (“Stay My Baby”) in which she sounds (slightly) older than usual despite the fact that the subject matter is younger than usual (favorite topics being oppressive and/or anarchic societies threatening our well-being ["Hello" and "Big Guns"], the need to take a “bite” out of the city even though it will ultimately destroy you ["Welcome to the City"], and a bunch of Celine-ish power of love type stuff). See also: “So 16″

Ashlee Simpson: Cripes, she’s lobbed off most of her face and teamed up with Timbaland, who helped make “Outta My Head” a pretty great song that has just about nothing in common with the rock stuff I really connected with up to this point and makes me wonder whether or not her new album will be a total mess. See also: “I Get Away with It (Murder)”

Ashley Tisdale: Cripes Lite, also lobbed off some face but she’s only good for about four songs anyway — the best, a strong contender for (ad hoc subgenre alert) Confessional Dance Single of the Year, is “Not Like That,” her kiddie club banger in which she tells us she’s not the sorta girl who likes to go to clubs. Probably the best High School Musical alum. See also: “He Said, She Said” and “Be Good to Me”

Avril Lavigne: Went cheerleader, had a #1 (Lil’ Mama remix is better). Still hate her. See also: “Hot”

The Beaties: This is the all-diabetic girl group I launched in January, 2007, with tunes like “We Got the Sugar In Our Blood (Beaties Theme),” “I’m Low,” and most recently, hyphy-like pop craze and demonstrator of exceedingly poor judgment, “Ride the Pump” (”riding the pump” is when you blindly give yourself a boatload of insulin and then eat lots of candy and cake to prevent yourself from going into insulin shock). See also: The Pump Girls

Brie Larson: Didn’t really put out any music this year (except for her cover of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” on her MySpace page) but she did do a pretty cool interview with me for Stylus. See also: Bunnies and Traps

Britney Spears: Found a brain, lost her mind, lost her kids, shaved her head, put out the album of her career. Parties like a rock star. See also: “Get Naked (I Has a Plan)” and “Freakshow”

Cassie: My most overlooked act from last year (Cassie is probably one of the best pop albums of the decade) now has three new tracks out, all of which are really promising. The highlight is menacing, melancholy club track “Turn the Lights Off.” See also: “Is It You?” and “In Love with the DJ”

Cobra Starship: Excellent emo-dance “supergroup” formed to help soundtrack Snakes on a Motherfucking Plane. I think their debut latest album is better than the new Fall Out Boy record. See also: “The City Is at War”

The Dollyrots: Put out a great novelty single (“Because I’m Awesome”) that’s probably attached to a great novelty album. But for some reason I still haven’t listened to it yet.

Emily Osment: Yes, “Hannah Montana” is threatening to turn Haley Joel’s little sister into a pop star. She’s got a c. 2000 cheezy teenpop sensibility (think “Like Wow” by Nick Carter’s little sister Leslie), but the song is pretty awful.

Fall Out Boy: I still don’t like them — trying to listen to their albums is like trying to swim in maple syrup. Maybe if they just embraced their maple syrupness (er, bubblegum, same difference) more I might like them better, but they still try too hard to sound “edgy” or something.

Fefe Dobson: Her great second album was shelved when she was dropped from Island, and some of us ’round here found it anyway and proceeded to enjoy the crap out of it (Matt: “It’s so pop-metal-disco, no wonder the government wouldn’t let it come out.”). This year she wrote “Start All Over” for Miley Cyrus and the ungrateful brat wouldn’t even give her a lousy cameo spot in the video. See also: “Initiator” and “Get You Off” (and this awesome live clip of “Unforgiven” from her first album, which I only found back in July)

Fergie: I pretty much finished flipping out for her album last year, but a bunch of songs stuck around all year. Best unreleased track remaining is P!nk-like “Pedestal,” in which she waves to/flips off her innernet critics. See also: composer Galen H. Brown’s hilarious mash-up of Dvorak and Black Eyed Peas, “My Humps (New World remix)”

Gwen Stefani: “Sweet Escape” just barely qualifies for 2007, but her best single from her 2006 album is a ballad, “Early Winter.” I wonder whether or not Gwen can keep up her weirdly mismatched, WTF pop star status with so many people angling for the spot.

Hilary Duff: Girl’s WAY more of a mess than Britney, she’s just better at hiding it. Unlike Britney, she actually sticks the mess into most of her music — check out her dad as the Stranger, her step-mom as the Gypsy Woman, and Hilary herself as that girl who’s terrified of getting Burned because she could never trust anyone (paging Dr. Freud…er, Kelly Clarkson) — it’s like the saying, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t talk shit about other really famous twentysomething former teen stars. See also: “Happy” and “Dignity”

Jonas Brothers: I think my interest in Radio Disney disappeared with Nick Jonas’s natural falsetto. Couldn’t tell you what any of their 2007 songs sound like (except “S.O.S.,” which I listened to once on Youtube…wait, twice now) but I guess I should probably check out “This Is How We Roll” for the title. See also: Idolator, which has surprisingly become the most reliable source for Jonas Brothers news on the web.

Jojo: Just wanted to remind y’all about Toto-sampling “Anything” from her last album.

Jordan Pruitt: Another one from Disney’s Hollywood Records, great singer with a mixed bag of an album that’s got a couple of songs I really like on it. N.B. for some reason I get a kick out of totally overwrought descriptions of the sorta high school angst depicted in movies marketed mainly to preteens. (Case in point,) see also: “Miss Popularity” and “Teenager”

Jordin Sparks: Won “American Idol” this year but I might care about her even less than Taylor Hicks (I haven’t heard her whole album yet). Nah, I take it back. See also: Shy Boy

Katharine McPhee: An Idol runner-up, whose album I claimed the other day I could only remember one track from, the ode to upper middle class-style shopping binges, “Open Toes.” And then I remembered this one and this one and this one. See also: the rest of the album, which is probably better than I remember it being.

Katy Rose: Former Avril-Liter Katy released a collection of dark & bizarre dance-pop tracks she produced between the release of her first album and now. Name-drops heart attacks, pornography, and wisdom teeth, among other stuff. See also: “Sloth” and “Happy Crazy.”

Keke Palmer: I’ve been calling So Uncool the sleeper teenpop album of the year. Julianne Shepherd calls it the #2 album of the year, so you should listen to it, especially if you hate Madden. See also: “Keep It Movin’” and “Hood Anthem”

Kelly Clarkson: Best album with worst press reception of the year (wait, how’d everybody like Travis Morrison’s new album?). Whatever, any album with “Hole” and “Judas” and “Irvine/Chivas” on it can’t be that bad, can it?

Lauryn Hill: “Lose Myself” pastes Lauryn’s weathered soul vocals over manic Europop bounce. It’s one of my favorite singles of the year, but its only release was on the Surf’s Up soundtrack.

Lauren Rose: Recently had some UK chart success with “Hava Nagila (Baby Let’s Dance)”, looks like a perfect cross between old-Ashlee and old-Ashley.

Lil’ Mama: Improved at least two songs that just about everyone liked more than me with remix versions (“Umbrella” and “Girlfriend”), taught me about lip gloss, still got her album pushed back to “sometime in 2008.” WHY? See also: “G-Slide Tour Bus” and “Shawty Get Loose”

M.I.A.: I love how the kids in “Mango Pickle Down River” find so many words to rhyme with didge’. See also: “Paper Planes”

Mandy Moore: Despite a really shitty attitude about her former Britney wannabe days (free tip: do not disown your best song), she admittedly put out a genuinely pretty — if not totally memorable — singer-songwriter folk/country sorta album (Wild Hope) that was nice to read to. She also did this during an interview: “When asked if [Zach] Braff’s famously indie taste in music had influenced her, she scrunches up her face and simulates barfing.” See also: “Umbrella” and “Looking Forward to Looking Back”

Mia Rose: Sleepy singer-songwriter in inflated Youtube ratings SCANDAL! Meh.

McFly: Do the Queen-by-way-of-MCR thing. Kinda rule.

My Chemical Romance: Get a few good songs from their 2006 album into the charts, one of which is a little terrifying (because I don’t know exactly where Gerard Way places himself on his weird “teenagers” map). Also kinda rule. See also: “Teenagers” and “I AM NOT AFRAID TO KEEP ON LIVIN’: THE SONG”

Naked Brothers Band: A rare Nickelodeon attempt to cross-platform a TV star into pop music. Good for a couple of power-pop tunes from what little I’ve heard, but no match for the Dizgemony. See also: Crazy Car

Paramore: Avril Lavigne in emo-group form — “Misery Business” is the straighter-faced version of “Girlfriend,” or maybe “Sk8er Boi.” Very dense (in a couple senses of the word) but undeniably catchy. See also: “Hallelujah”

Paris Hilton: Got arrested, was defended by socialists, decided to concentrate on her music career. I hope she’s serious (I’m serious).

Prima J: Latina teen duo responsible for the best song on the Bratz movie soundtrack, “Rock Star.” Fun!

Rihanna: The girl’s crazy (you can’t just do “Unfaithful” and then pretend it didn’t happen), and she’s getting a ton of great songs thrown her way. Unfortunately, only a couple of them really emphasize the fact that she’s COMPLETELY NUTS (“Lemme Get That,” “Question Existing”) and they’re unceremoniously stuck on the second half of the album. See also: “Cry”

Siobhan Donaghy: Ex-Sugababe solo record has a few great songs on it, is also Maura Johnston’s album of the year. I love about half of it, the rest doesn’t stick in my head — catchiest tune is “12 Bar Acid Blues,” prettiest tune is “Medevac.”

Skye Sweetnam: I’ve been stumping for Skye for about two years and I won’t lie by telling you her new album’s not a mess — that the socal stuff she did with Tim Armstrong is better than nearly any of the tracks she did with the Matrix doesn’t exactly bode well for the album as a whole. But that doesn’t mean that “Music Is My Boyfriend” isn’t good (better video) or that I won’t be anticipating her next album, provided she fires her “good” producers and finds some…y’know, good ones (her Max Martin/Dr. Luke collaboration is still shelved somewhere in Sweden). See also: “Ghosts” and “Human”

Soulja Boy: Already wrote this one up about as much as I’m going to: “I’ve decided that this album is (1) annoying as all fuck and (2) pretty good.” No updates on my (in)ability to successfully complete the Soulja Boy dance.

Vanessa Hudgens (a.k.a. Vanilla Hudge): Another HSM alum, has one great song to her name, “Don’t Talk,” a bonus track which I’ve talked about extensively (as it relates to my enduring middle school angst) here and, in conversation with Hudge-sympathizer Nia, here.

Veronicas: The Australian twin sisters’ second album isn’t totally my speed (literally — the songs are really fast!) but the album is way more consistent than their last one, which is also sort of what might (fail to) rub me the wrong way about it: there are a couple of really good songs and singles but I don’t care one way or another about any of them; there’s not enough personality in ‘em. Not to say that they had that much personality to begin with (they’re basically interchangeable), but now they’re approaching zero (which still makes them about as good as Roisin Murphy and Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Girls Aloud and the Sugababes, all of whom I skipped over). See also: “Revenge Is Sweeter (Than You Ever Were)” and “This Love”

Yo Gabba Gabba!: I still haven’t seen this. Parents in the house w/ cable — is the rest of it as good as this song?