Category Archive

So here’s the thing: while part of me loves listening to songs in a vacuum—stripping away all the context of the act and place in pop canon and just taking it for nothing more than what it is—I love, love tracking the external factors. Positioning, re-branding, aesthetic, target demographic cues. Given some juicy material, I geek out. I intellectualise. I relish this stuff.

And here we have Ryan Cabrera. Ex of Ashlee, currently part of the Papa Joe stable; last seen with that hair, a strummily pleasant melodic guitar thing, that hair, some inoffensive Top 40 Billboard ‘hits’, and god, THAT HAIR. But now?

OK, a caveat. I understand that artist reinvention is a natural thing. People develop and learn and grow and blah blah, and what you like when you’re starting out isn’t necessarily what you want to do after years in the industry with influences and—whatever. Sure, you can wake up with a burning desire to change yourself, but I prefer to think of this all as strategic and designed. As the incorrigible Viva Cohen remarked, “I don’t see what’s so good about being genuine. Clog dancing is genuine. Isn’t being fake more of an achievement? At least it takes some inspiration.” Somehow, this all has more value to me if people have pored over listener statistics and chosen and discarded half-a-dozen alternative images. I want stylists musing, producers pondering and a table full of brilliant marketing minds crossing ideas off a multicoloured flip-chart. “Take him more surfer!” “But that Idol kid bombed with a ukulele.” “How about a grittier rock vibe?” “Max Martin has Carolina Liar coming soon.” “Damn. Oh wait, have you seen this Cobrasnake website…?”

Now we get to the aesthetics. I skew my meanings, but when I talk about the aesthetics of an act, I mean their image, styling, branding—all of the tiny cues that are—or should be—designed to connect with a certain target audience, even on the most unconscious level. This is the stuff I find far more interesting than content, because I’m that kind of girl. So the Jonas Brothers are wearing neon skinny jeans now, and it means as much about their positioning as the newer synth elements in their music. Rihanna had the harder-edged songs, but did she establish herself as a different kind of (acceptable, apparently-autonomous) pop act until she got that slice of a haircut? Hilary started hanging out at Misshapes and purged herself of any bright, primary colors to usher in the next phase of her career even when ‘Beat of My Heart’ was still crazy-awesome-pop fodder.

It’s not just styling. The party appearances, the relationships, the look and choice of videos—it’s all feeding into a particular aesthetic. If they hit it, they can capture an aspirational demographic even if the music doesn’t necessarily predict it: not the ones who live within that aesthetic, mind, but the ones who want to. That’s the power: of context, of strategy, of blatant manipulation. It’s branding, it’s product loyalty, it’s sales.

So now we get to the LA hipster scene. Or rather, the images of a set of LA kids that collectively seems to constitute the idea of a scene for all the kids not in LA to consume. Pretty young girls with dark, tousled bangs falling out of oversized sweatshirts and undersized tanks; leggings and headbands and those ridiculous sunglasses; dirty sidewalks, bare brick backdrops, chain-link fencing and flickering neon lights. And the men: older—oh, always older—with untrustworthy facial hair and fertility-threatening denim and so much alcohol and always their eyes on all those pretty young girls. I haven’t lived it, I don’t know it, but I think it says enough for me that the postergirl for this particular demographic clusterfuck is a teenager who doesn’t create, author or produce anything and exists as a relevant being solely through the gaze of that ever-present older man.

So here we have Ryan Cabrera again, but now you can see where this all comes together, where the re-branding starts to make sense. Where once, there was sunshine and guitar-strumming and a cheery kind of 2004 Californian beach town optimism, now we just have the cultural imprint of those Cobrasnake dudes to sell to the kids buying H&M wet-look leggings in Indiana—and man, he’s doing it right. He’s groomed the sleazy facial hair, those greasy Cisco Adler locks and the teenage model girlfriend to flaunt around town. The video speaks of late-night neon and dark VIP booths and cheating hipster assholes fucking around in hotel rooms, and, of course, so many flashes of that dude with those ridiculous sunglasses that it’s got to be cool, right? Because these are the cool kids nowadays, this is where it’s at. The contrast is turned too high, and everything’s kind of burned out and sleazy and leaving you with a cigarette after-taste and that numb, hollow morning-after feel. In other words, the scene, constructed from the storyboard up.

By this point, the song itself is incidental, but here’s the thing: it’s really, really good. Great, even, if you’re like me and loved the last couple of Good Charlotte offerings—and by extension, Hillary’s ‘Wake Up’ era experiments. The synth line underpins the melody with just the right amount of polish, setting the scene as something dark and glittering; the cadence to his delivery on the verses blends with that fast kick of drums to give a rat-ta-tat weight that those lyrics can’t push alone. But more than anything, there’s an irresistible flow to the whole song, a structure that bleeds like that neon between each part: the sing-a-long chorus cry, that inevitable drop-out two-thirds through, the build and crash of melody in a perfect crescendo and man, the one-liner this all sprung from. It’s easy, and inoffensive, sure, but more than that, it’s good, the aesthetic cues doing all the work that the melody itself won’t touch, because here’s the secret: this is as edgy as his new album gets. Despite the hair, the clothes and the video, Ryan’s hipster leanings are all talk: aside from this vaguely synth nod, it’s all by-the-book strummy-strummy-la-la after this. But this is why pop works for me, this is why I couldn’t care less about the rest of that album. The almost-reach to new grounds, the not-quite leap to change it all, and still, regardless, one great song. This, alone, is everything.

There’s no picture for this post, simply because the world doesn’t care enough about my current reality TV crop to have decent images floating around google. Apparently, I’m the only person who thinks Mookie Morris is going to win Canadian Idol  (even though Amberley Theissen totally deserves to); that Ashlee Hewitt is walking all over her competition on Nashville Star and that Chelsea and Mark are all kinds of awesome on So You Think You Can Dance? season 4. 

Let the video embedding commence!

Mookie doing his awkwardly-annoying rock boy thing last week–in a field of bearded rock dudes who seem to want to be Chad Kroeger-lite:

Ashlee killing You Drive Me (Crazy) on pop week:

And finally, Chelsea and Mark just being beautiful, all the time:

Dear neighbours, passers-by, and diners on the terrace of the Greek restaurant downstairs,

I realize that playing ‘Start All Over’ by Miley Cyrus on repeat with my balcony door wide open at 11pm on a weeknight might strike you as selfish at best, down-right sadistic at worst, but bear with me please. This song is awesome, and the only thing that can keep me awake long enough to burn through the rest of this chapter. That is all.

Love, Abby

About six years ago, I had an idea. I was in the bath at the time (where, strangely enough, I have most of my good novel ideas), trying to think up a plot for a feminist chick-flick. I’d just seen ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’, and as much as I’d enjoyed it, the final scenes had me cringing with the usual pain - as yet again, the heroine compromises her dreams and ambition for shiny shiny luurve, etc. ‘Why couldn’t there be a sharp, breezy, fun movie that didn’t make my inner feminist shriek in anguish?’ my seventeen-year-old self mused. And so, the plot for such a movie took shape amongst the bubbles: a story of young twenty-something women, their place in this supposedly post-feminist world, the choices and compromises they faced for success, and the peculiar intimacies of female friendship.

Over the years, details changed and the story evolved: the idea switched to a novel; it began to draw on my experiences in music journalism (rich ground for issues of gender, image and male-dominated work-places); the location switched from London to New York and then back again; supporting characters and sub-plots were taken up and discarded; and many friends will attest to the many drafts I went through. It became a book about cultural consumption and feminist legacies, about the endless personal branding we’re encouraged to perpetuate, about pop music and mainstream culture and the chilly transactions underpinning every relationship. But through it all, the heart of the novel remained: the story of two women, the scars of their former friendship, the harsh truths of success and the different paths both had taken to make their mark on the world. 

I nicknamed the novel The Book O Doom, simply because I felt like I was doomed to write, and re-write, and re-write this story until it went somewhere. It wasn’t the bad kind of doom, more the calm resignation that these characters, Katherine and Lauren, and their story, would stay a part of my life until somebody else believed in them as much as I did, until they would be delivered to the world.

And they will.

In August 2009, Arrow Books will publish The Popularity Rules. And maybe, just maybe, this book will mean half as much to you as it does to me.

High School Musical > Bring It On 3 > Stick It! > Camp Rock > Bring It On 4. 

Dubious honors, I know.

Also, I sold another book. As any author will tell you, this is good. This is rent, and summer dresses, and plane tickets back home to see my beloved cat parents If you check out the ‘Books’ section up there, you’ll find a somewhat complete list of all my upcoming projects: four books in two years, for both adult and YA stuff. And yes, that is a little daunting (since I’m not Meg Cabot), but hopefully soon I’ll have finished s2 of the Tudors, and thus have nothing (except, you know, 2 seasons of Weeds and all the Wire ever made and SUMMER) standing between me and productivity. 

I won’t go into the tale of taking these, but suffice to say it was long, complex and involved my tiny digital camera balanced precariously on a shelf, ten books and an antique sewing machine case. There were also smashed plant pots, three different light sources and a rather vivid shade of (quickly discarded) rhasberry lipstick. Oh, wait, does that take away the glowing mystery of it all…?

That is my fun, avoiding-eye-contact shot. Now for the straight-on, vaguely serious one:

I know, hardly sad young literary woman stuff, but what can I say–my books will have candy-hued covers, alliterative titles and maybe, possibly, hopefully adorn many a beach-reading list.

But honestly, did anyone REALLY expect R. Kelley to be convicted of ANYTHING?

‘Definitely Maybe’ shouldn’t be good. It’s written/directed by the man who gave us the excruciatingly abysmal ‘Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason’ and led by Mr Frat-Boy himself, Ryan Reynolds. And, you know, it’s a romantic comedy made in the past five years, which means more likely than not it’s a clichéd, vaguely misogynistic paean to consumerism. But hey, I decided to give it a shot. After all, it doesn’t star Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Seth Rogan and/or John C Reilly—and god knows, that’s an achievement worth celebrating in itself.

It was wonderful.

I know of course, that the portrayal of women—especially in these kinds of movies—has reached the bottom of some kind of deep, dark pit of crass bile littered with broken dreams and old copies of the Daily Mail, but it’s only when faced with a cast of female leads that actually, gasp, resemble real, live women that I was reminded just how despicable Hollywood has become. ‘Definitely Maybe’ has not one, but three leading ladies: Isla Fisher, Rachel Weiz and Elizabeth Banks, and all of them are complex, endearing, intelligent, articulate characters with personality, ambition, dreams and wit.

I repeat: they are complex, endearing, intelligent, articulate character with personality, ambition, dreams and wit.

DO YOU REALIZE HOW FREAKING RARE-TO-NON-EXISTENT THAT IS?

(And yes, caps-lock is entirely necessary)

They didn’t trip and fall all over themselves. They weren’t hilariously embarrassed by bodily functions. They didn’t spend approx. $10,000 of consumer debt on shiny things. They didn’t subject themselves to public humiliation as a sign of their apparent devotion at the third act climax.

They were just engaging, interesting and <i>real</i>

Ryan Reynolds managed to be understated; the back-drop of the Clinton campaign was unusual and added some depth, and Abigail Breslin took a kiddie role that would usually make me reach for a sharp implement and made it quiet and sweet.

Oh, would that mainstream romantic comedies could be thus!

–

And right now, the pot wafting through my window is so strong I might just get high off the second-hand smoke. Oh, Canada.

My DVD boxset of The Tudors s1 just arrived. Every minute that I do not spend sprawled on my sofa watching is an ACHIEVEMENT, people!

I was wrong. There, I said it. And it’s not the first time…

Back in the early days of PopText, my tag line was “Because life’s too short to listen to Snow Patrol”. And then I began to really, really like their last album. So I changed it. To “life’s too short to listen to Coldplay.”

(You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you?)

I’ve just spent the afternoon with Viva La Vida on repeat play. And I love it.

So yes, I was wrong.

I guess I don’t need to worry about the future. According to E Lockhart’s MASH game:

You will live in a Apartment.
You will drive a pink convertible.
You will marry Clive Owen and have 8 kid(s).
You will be a cake baker in nyc.

Sounds good to me!

When SATC first aired in England in 1999, a year after its HBO debut, I was fourteen years old. According to my mother, I wasn’t allowed to watch the show, as it would give me a damaged view of relationships. With that decree, I just watched it on the old TV in my bedroom with the volume low, creeping quietly so the floorboards wouldn’t creak. To me, there was more damage in Ally McBeal’s waif-like passivity and constant, aching loneliness than the defiant, hopeful energy of Carrie and friends. They had careers, dreams, and most importantly, each other; the much-touted sex was simply a distraction from all those beautiful shoes.

At least, at first it was.

(full feature for the Tribeca Film Festival website after the jump)

So, good news. Excellent news, in fact, and plural at the same time (newses?). First, the thing I can share right now: we sold Dutch translation rights to Sophomore Switch! There was even an auction, which is amazing, and so come 2009, the Netherlands will experience the joys of Tasha, Emily and The Hot-Tub Incident.*

Amazing News 2 is even bigger and better, but sadly also Super-Secret for now. I will tell you that The Book Of Doom can officially get retitled now…

In other thoughts: SYTYCD returns tonight, which is great, because watching bad reality dancers audition is 1000 times more bearable than watching bad reality singers. And, you know, DANCING. I was thrilled and relieved to see the muppet defeated on American Idol, so that D. Cook can go on to bring us the Greatest Middling American Rock Album Of All Time, circa 2003. He should get some songs from these guys (who my friend sung back-up for last night) who are but a stylist and the Augustana producer away from owning US rock radio. 

And I’ve been branching out into some film blogging too. Think of me as the US Weekly guide to Cannes..

*Not together. I don’t want to mislead anyone by billing this as a Girls Gone Wild lesbian orgy of awesomeness. Sorry.

The weather was grey and depressing today, so I did the only thing that can lift such gloom: I baked. My project? A cupcake version of Nigella’s divine Butterscotch Layer Cake, complete with caramel drizzle and enough butter and sugar to kill me—with pleasure. Despite the fact my mum is the least domestic woman ever (but a goddess nonetheless), I somehow managed to cast off her hatred of the kitched and wind up adoring baking, and cooking, and any process that involves the production of amazing edible treats. In fact, such is my devotion that I have a special baking apron that I bought in Santa Monica last year (despite the fact that my luggage couldn’t physically hold another thing and I had to bounce up and down on it to make the thing close) and packed right away for my move to Montreal (despite the fact that my luggage couldn’t physically hold another thing… etc).

Exhibit A:

So, cupcakes. Simple, I thought. Take a bunch of ingredients, throw in a bowl, mix, put in oven, gorge until sick. Perfect! Only..

It was at this stage, I realized I forgot the baking soda. In England, we use self-raising flour. Not so much here, so you’re supposed to add soda to make everything rise. Whoops. But cake is cake, whether light and fluffy or dense and delicious. I mean, adding air just dilutes the awesomeness, if you think about it. so, I give to you, un-risen cupcakes!

Which, I’ll admit, look a little forlorn. But not once they’ve been smothered in an assortment of icing… Lemon drizzle, Pink Vanilla and Butterscotch Joy. 

And now it’s sunny, so apparently I’ve restored the natural balance of the world. Go me.

It’s that special time again—that blazin’ hot molten lava of a time—oh yes. It’s American Idol time…

Lil’ Archie is first up, and the most I can muster for this boy is a wholehearted ‘meh’. Billy Joel? Simon, of course, is secretly salivating at the thought of bringing out the entire Westlife back-catalogue for a whole new generation. Just think, ‘Flying Without Wings’—the junior years. Lil’ Archie in that powder blue suit, rising from his stool at the key change, spreading his arms wide with puppyish love and devotion…

Please, lord, no.

Syesha, on the other hand, they’re determined to send packing. Why else would they give her an Alicia Keyes song? Hell, if they gave Mariah Carey an Alicia Keyes song, she would end up sounding like a pale imitation, so poor Syesha does an awesome job just managing to sound half-way decent. She’s also brought out the gold sequins for like, the fourth week running, as if she’s decided that it’s not the voice, song choice or crazy obsessive fan factor that’s been pushing her through, oh no, it’s because she’s been DAZZLING them with her GOLDEN BRILLIANCE.

Which leads us to D. Cook, who I can’t help but like despite a) the hair, b) the facial fuzz and c) the oodles of smug. ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’. Honestly, the best thing for his long-term career would be to fail, and fail hard at this point, but here he is, doing his soft start/hard finish thing, but god, I wish he’d stop being so damn controlled! Lose it, freak out, just show some passion, boy, instead of the Scott Strapp school o’ messianic rock.

But that’s nothing, because oh. My. God. Lil’ Archie just said “My boo.” And “Lil’ mama”. And he’s bobbing! He’s swaying like it’s junior prom, and all with that fixed thousand-yard beam. This is bad, people. This is Jason Castro butchering Marley bad—the kind of cringefest that ensues when an awkward white boy tries to bring out reggae or hip hop or in this case, squeaky-clean chart r ‘n’ b, and shows how entirely without game he truly is.

Someone who has game, eons of it, is my girl Syesha. Silver sequins! This girl’s got range, y’all. And a chair. AND AWESOMENESS. The judges all despise her, obviously, for standing between them and an all-David, all-profit finale, and I understand that, I really do—I mean, what kind of fight can Syesha put up in a marketplace where even Nicole Scherpussycatzinger lies dejected in a heap of unwanted fishnets in the corner? But she’s a FIGHTER. With a CHAIR. And dude, I’d take her cabaret performance over the freaking cartoon Pinocchio bleating on, because despite all his protests to the contrary, he is so not a real boy.

Meanwhile, I’m too relieved that the rumors about Cook breaking out the Collective Soul are false to care that he’s replaced it with Switch-freaking-foot. And his voice is so… wrong. Wafty and wavery and surprise, it’s starting slow but FINALLY he gets some damn emotion in his delivery and then… It’s over. Huh. And Paula agrees with me? I’m scared. I’m not sure I want to be on the same wavelength as somebody traveling through time and space to an Idaho prom store in the late 80’s to buy their dresses.

And now it’s even worse because Lil’ Archie READ MY MIND. Powder blue shirt, stool, squinty emotion—and why the hell is Randy freaking out over that? But sheesh, the dullness! And when Simon complains about the saccharine-content of a performance, you know it’s bad, because people, this man inflicted ROBSON AND JEROME on the general British public.

Yup, they hate Syesha. ‘Hit Me Up’? I don’t even know this, but it’s totally a Lumidee/early Rhianna type jam and it’s so too much for her. The white sequins have diminished returns. Sad.

Umm. ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’. And Diane Warren is there to see the sacrilidge, with weirdly OTT production: violins and guitar and a METALLIC CRAVAT. Or is it an undershirt? Does it even matter? I mean, we all know he’s going to be a finalist, tied to a 19 Management contract and a debut album of syrupy Goo Goo Dolls cast-offs and regretting forever his choice to prostrate himself at the alter of American reality capitalism. So, metallic under-garments or not, dude is screwed.

I’m a bad blogger, I know. Just terrible. I don’t even have a good excuse, because most of my current projects are out with other people and I’m just waiting on them - and by waiting, I mean strolling around parks, eating Bilboquet ice-cream and Cocoa Locale cupcakes and humming along to fragrant indie playlists. See, I’ve sort of hit a block on one book (we’ll call this The Book O’ Doom), so I’ve had “Chapter Eleven” blinking at me for three weeks now. It doesn’t help that I’ve technically written TBO’D four times over already, and this is just another guise; another year, another draft - and it’ll pretty much keep happening like this until it actually sells. Anyway, the characters started talking to me again today - well, not me, they started talking to each other in my head as I did the washing up - so maybe something will break through soon.

(And yes, the ‘characters talking to each other’ is actually a good thing, not a mental health red flag.)

If there’s a web-monitoring watch-list, I’m probably on it by now. 

My google search history currently reads: nuclear missile sites america; terrorist targets; supreme court building; washington landmarks; anfo.

It’s teen book research, I promise!

The Great Okkervil River Conspiracy of Spring ’07 was designed by my best friend to keep this band from my innocent ears. She banned them from car stereos and playlists and mix CDs for months in a determined campaign that climaxed with a grand live show in a shack in Providence, RI. See, she figured I’d hate them, and would boycott any pilgrimage to see them if their indie musings ever entered my orbit. Obviously, she was wrong. Maybe if I’d had time to absorb their music, I would have spent that wonderful show focussing more on Will Scheff and his posse of melody makers, and less on making out with the random cute bearded boy (although then I suppose that whole weekend in Connecticut would never have happened…), but in the end, I didn’t take this band to heart until my next trip across the Atlantic in the Fall.

It was October, and a book of mine didn’t sell—as books of mine are wont to do sometimes. I took my iPod and the dull ache in my chest and slipped into a bookstore full of wood and crimson sweatshirts and a sweeping staircase. There was a corner upstairs I tucked myself into, surrounded by all those books that had sold, and I wrapped myself in Will and his plaintive stories and waited for the pain to ease a little. It took a while, and a few tears, but I suppose it did, because that’s just the way it goes. But I remember the intensity, of his prose and my small grief, and this recent rooftop serenade makes it all seem like yesterday.

Also, this Modern Love distils all the reasons why I try not to date a) indie hipsters and b) musicians into one neat tale of dude-ish casual incompetence. Unfortunately, Montreal seems to have nothing but, so I might have to relax that one…

Ashlee let me down. All that time I spent cheerleading teen-pop, defending her honor and persuading people that “really, she’s not bad at all!” and then she gives me this, this mess of an album. Sigh. I wanted Pete to be her Benji and/or Joel (I always get those Good Charlotte boys mixed up, and now that they’re double-dating Paris and Nicole, it’s like 2005 all over again). See, once he got involved in Hilary Duff’s work, she went all Killers-lite with interesting synth squiggles and electro musings, and Fall Out Boy may be approaching their cultural nadir of annoyance (shilling for Walmart? With Rumur Willis and the awesome-yet-undeniably-Z-list Kristin Cavalleri? Oh really!), but they write damn good pop songs.

But it was not to be.

Other than that, spring is finally springing. There is green on the trees, and in the afternoon, I can sit bare-legged on my balcony and eat home-made grape popsicles and try not to drip pink splashes onto the pages of wonderful books like ‘The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks’. I enjoyed E Lockhart’s Boyfriend List books, but they pale in comparison to the magnificence of this tome, which is more explicitly feminist than any YA I’ve read in a while and yet maintains joyfulness through steam-tunnel escapades, sassiness, really well-written boys and a blissful absence of any silly morality concerns. Seriously, seek it out. Read it. Marvel.

(She’s right over there in my links list.)

My schedule is pretty flexible, which is usually great because it allows me to shift things around based how beautiful the weather is, what time I ended up in bed or which episodes of what downloaded overnight. Most of the time, I manage to keep things pretty balanced, but then there are the times I’m working to a deadline (either for my editor, or like now, one of my agents), and all of my good habits disappear.

Say hello to Zombie Me.

My roommate pointed me to this great article about freelancing, which wisely says, “it’s critical for your mental health to leave the house at least once a day and interact with real, live humans — even if you are only talking about Starbucks “. I read aforementioned article at 5pm yesterday, still in my pajamas, having stared blankly at my screen and worked through for ten hours that day. Yes, not good. I used to believe in the café version of writing life. Who wouldn’t want such an idyllic work-day? Get up, take laptop, stroll to a local spot full of interesting artsy types and then sit, working productively all day, fuelled by baked goods and vegan salad… Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work out that way for me. My café routine is more like: get up; eat something; check mail and blogs; look for something to wear; realise that I need to do laundry; put laundry in; take a shower; realise I still need to wear something; assemble an outfit of available clean clothes way too formal for mooching around a café; check mail and blogs; have some early lunch; leave; arrive at café and set up; check mail and blogs (it’s been a whole fifteen minutes!); buy drinks; gaze at cakes; gaze at cute men; gaze briefly at my work-in-progress; gaze at cakes again… You get the picture. It’s like I’m doomed to be either a productive, unwashed, anti-social zombie or a fragrant, friendly girl who never hits her daily word-count. The choice!

On a brighter note, I had a great weekend that featured my first Prom. Yes, it was a post-ironic hipster fashion erotic zine event, but still: Prom! There were streamers and lights and dance-cards and nothing but slow-dances all night. See, being English, I never had a real Prom. There were a couple of formal dances when I was in school, but they were always boat party events; I decided that since I wasn’t a good swimmer, being trapped in a confined space with so many people I hated and surrounded by water wasn’t exactly the recipe for a night of fun and frolics. I also went to one formal ball at Oxford, which took place in the dead of winter—outside. I was invited by a boy with whom I’d been involved in one of those ‘is something more going to happen?’ back-and-forths for literally months so I figured that The Most Amazing Ballgown In The World would decide it one way or the other (floor-length, fitted black satin, like something Catherine Zeta-Jones would wear to the Oscars). It did, he didn’t.

The lesson here? Never cook garlic-lemon roasted chicken for anyone you’re not already making out with!

Introduction time!

It’s kind of strange to be doing a formal introduction after three years of blogging. Anyone who’s read the poptext archives probably knows more than they should me from an emotional perspective, (because the pretence of anonymity is a powerful thing) but now I’m putting a name to this, I figure it’s time to fill in the blanks. I’ll be the first to admit that the blurb on the About Abby page is somewhat obnoxious (and the authors amongst you will know that panic that descends when your agent wants a bio), so I thought I’d do a translation to round it out…

Abby McDonald was born and raised in Sussex, England

In a hippie village utopia, to be precise. We have rolling hills, organic farms, a co-operative health food store and, once a year, a barn dance. No, really. It’s ridiculously charming, but impossible to take for more than a month at a time without a) becoming addicted to daytime TV, b) getting pregnant to pass the time, or c) developing a low-level dope habit.

and studied Politics and Philosophy at Oxford University. She began writing at college, becoming music editor of the student newspaper and completing her first manuscript at nineteen.

Getting involved with music writing probably got me through college. In addition to meeting a great group of people (who weren’t committed to saving the world/running five different student organizations/becoming an investment banker), I discovered that it was possible to interview your favorite bands. As a career! In my first year, I also decided to write the Uber Chick-Lit novel. That was actually its title on my computer for a really long time. Anyway, what ensued was the kind of traumatic saga that most writers go through when they’re starting out. Mine spanned two years, three agents and more tears than I can count, and in the end, it never even made it out to editors. Again, common in this business.

(FYI, the YA that’s being published next year (working title, Sophomore Switch) is actually Book Four, but I’ll tell that story another time!)

After deciding that the ‘real world’ of nine-to-five would interrupt her busy schedule of napping and watching teen DVD box-sets, Abigail graduated to writing full-time.

Also known as ‘moving back home for a year after graduation and trying to avoid options a, b and c listed above’. I was a receptionist, data clerk, editorial assistant and sub-editor in my sleepy village while my friends swanned around London being all urban and interesting. So I wrote more books.

Since then, her work has appeared in the NME, CosmoGirl and Plan B magazines.

There was a period when I figured working in teen magazines was the career for me. After all, it would put to use the vast array of celebrity gossip and pop culture trivia I have floating around in my head, and then I would be totally vindicated. “See, mom—watching that Laguna Beach marathon was RESEARCH!” But a few weeks of interning kind of put an end to that dream. It’s one thing to entertain a passing interest in Gossip Girl or who Jessica Simpson is dating, it’s quite another to have that be the sum total of your entire working day.

Her debut novel will be published by Candlewick Press (US) and Walker Books (UK) in Spring 2009.

I still sort of squeee with delight every time I see this sentence.

She just moved to Montreal, where she is eating her way around the city. And adjusting to writing about herself in the third person.

I spent a lot of last year in Boston, but then immigration got annoyed with me coming in and spending all my money on books and baked goods, so I’m trying life further north. I’ve been here, oh, nearly three weeks, and so far it is awesome. They’re big on smoked meats and bacon here, so how could it not be? I’m still finding my feet (the snow has melted, helpfully) so if you’re here, or know someone great who is, get in touch!

What else? I just turned 23; I watch more downloaded TV than you possibly imagine; I miss my cat; I can’t whistle; I was a cheerleader, for a very brief time (M and A and G and D! What is our philosophy? Victory!); my bangs need a trim; thanks to pesky migraines, I can’t have caffeine, chocolate, cheese or (much) alcohol.

And that is all.

So after a lifetime of indoctrination by Baz Luhrmann movies, I signed up to ballroom classes at the Y. After all, I have to prepare to be spun, and twirled, and swooped under a sparkly Coca-Cola sign at dawn, and rally in the final moments of the Open Amateur Latin Division at the Pan-Pacific Grad Prix. Right?

But the thing I’ve discovered, with tango at least, is that I’m a somewhat, umm, problematic partner. It’s the following, see. I don’t follow too well. OK, I don’t really follow at all, and in a dance where the woman’s only task is to be an extremely sensitive, responsive, malleable doll to be steered around the room by her (forceful, stern, ohso masculine) partner, that doesn’t exactly work out too well. In life, I can maintain the illusion of following just fine: people who know me probably think I’m fairly acquiescent and easy-going. “No, you choose!” “Whatever you want.” “I don’t mind at all.”

But I lie! Truth is, I’ll only do what you want if a) I’m completely ambivalent on the matter, or b) it matches up with my own secret plans. And being steered around a dancefloor like a frigidaire takes some adjustment.

Something that also takes adjustment? Deciphering Montreal accents so that when my partner tells me I am a frigidaire, I don’t slap him.

But I will not be defeated. Tonight is samba, and in samba, I can actually move—without patriarchal permission! Of course, moving equals dropping dead of exhaustion, since my lazy, slothful, full-time writer’s ass has merely waddled between the couch, my bed and various cake-laden café tables for oh, the past year, but I suppose that’s the whole point. Abby’s body, meet endorphins; endorphins, meet Abby–try not to keel over with the shock of it.

I know, time is a precious, wonderful prize to be treasured and savoured but OH MY, I just spent nine minutes watching the cast of Gossip Girl swivel and pout in front of green-screen.

And it was glorious.

Behold!

Plus Pts 2 and 3

I don’t know if it was for discarded title credits or what, but wow. Kelly Rutherford looks like she’s trying to pass for 25; Chase Crawford is wandering lost from a Prom Date Of Your Dream stock photography shoot and Ed Westwick’s head is getting tilted around by invisible puppet strings of brooding! And Penn, oh Penn…

I can see the director now: “Don’t worry kid, just gaze into the camera as if you see some pie, far off, getting closer. It’s blueberry, you love that. The pie’s getting closer! Warm, rich, delicious pie. Mmmmm!”

…..

I think I want some pie.

ps - a prize to who gets the title!

So Michael is looking very dapper this evening, but nobody in a neck scarf like that deserves to be taken seriously, so his sincerity is lost on me. Also, those high notes! Sheesh, way to inspire an uncomfortable conversation about Simon’s saggy chest. Oh, Ryan, what are you thinking?

Syesha. Uber-diva song. White pants. Bored now.

Oh god, the Hobbit has a ukelele. And I have a confession. The reason I recoil so totally from this boy is that I sort of dated a guy like this in college. No dreads, but mine maybe might have had a goatee. And a guitar. And a deep love of Phish. I know, :hangs head in shame: And you want to know that really bad part? He broke my heart. So Jason is a no.

But Kristie is a yes. She’s sort of my favorite now, what with her devious song choices and fabulous self-awareness. I prefer evil geniuses to you know, sincere good performers, and you can’t tell me that picking such a heartfelt, ‘can’t kick this puppy’ track isn’t part of her fabulous masterplan to outlive all the better singers.

David could use some of her strategy, and her stylist. Please, stop dressing like a member of Panic At the Disco and singing like you’re in a late 90’s industrial act. And shave. And wash your hands. Pull yourself together, boy. This is yours to lose.

(Did Paula get ‘definitive’ on her word-of-the-day toilet paper?)

Carly is gone. That is all.

Oh David, indecision does not become you. Nor does picking a British classic, and wimping out on it. The white, the piano, the halo hovering above you, bathing us all in the purity and wonder that is—

Ahem.

Yes, I hate him. Yes, he may well win. Sigh.

And Brooke rounds it out with kittens and rainbows and snugglies. Cute, but it’s getting old. Plus, give Marsha Brady her dress back.

Tomorrow: Schlock celebrity overkill! Yay! My roommate is already cowering in fear.

Poptext is dead, long live Poptext!

So, the old music-only incarnation is dead; the shiny, new music-plus-so-much-more blog is here. Maybe you migrated over, maybe you’re new–either way, it’s good to have you. Nobody likes to party alone (unless you’re playing ‘Pop Goes My Heart’, in which case, an empty room is all you need).

And if you’ve arrived at this paragraph without clicking that link, shame on you. It’s not a rick-roll, I promise, although as my roommate said - in awe - as she gazed upon the glory that is ‘Hugh Grant in note-perfect 80’s Wham-esque band tribute’, why anyone is bothering with the Rick Astley clip when they could be circulating this, we do not know. Anyway, I’m not going to bother with a big mission statement of what you can expect here, because that only leads to dead, umm, webspace. Basically, it will involve musings on pop culture, YA books & writing, music and oh maybe some feministy politics. If I must.

You will soon discover: I consume more trashy media content than you ever thought possible. It’s what being a full-time writer is all about. That, and the tax-deductible One Tree Hill box-sets…

poptext.muxtape.com

“This is the potential break-up song/ our album needs just one.”

The latest addition to my pop arsenal: a weapon for the conversion cause. Understand, it’s not that my tastes don’t span the depths of the Dixie Chicks back-catalogue and scale the dizzy heights of the Hold Steady, but I’ve got an agenda to push, and Okkervil River won’t cut it on my mixes (glorious as they well may be). No, sometimes I’m out to win over indie hearts and minds, and that means the big guns—the songs that will tempt even the most devoted ones away from their solemn guitars and towards the shiny pop light. I need gateway tracks, and god, does this deliver.

Effervescence is in short supply right now, what with Rihanna’s painstakingly precise beats and hellogoodbye’s careful sincerity, but Aly & AJ somehow muster utter effortlessness in every breezy line. The sisters have thankfully jettisoned that earnest Christian rock phase, now we get delightfully shallow MTV movies, blonde poses and oh, what a song! As irreverent as it is irresistible, this is an ice-cream dream: gone in an instant, leaving only the fleeting memory of a breathy chorus, that lala-ed melody, a faint Spice Girls aftertaste. So the vocoders may be heavy, the lyrics light—you know by now that I care not.

Another pop convert singing my tune is another battle won.

Emo takes the mall-kids, American parents wring hands in fear.

This month’s J14 magazine features nine pictures of Pete Wentz. On the cover and in side-bars; slotted between High School Musical 2 previews and cute back-to-school make-up tips, the Fall Out Boy bassist is the latest tween dream heartthrob—skinny denim and all. For a publication whose target audience maxes out at thirteen, a full-page feature on guyliner and the hotties who wear it (Brendan Urie! Gerard Way!) isn’t just a way to fill space in their super summer issue, it’s a declaration of emo’s transformation. What once was the soundtrack to sincere guitar-strumming boys, and then loner disaffection has been reinvented yet again as a merch-orientated, socially networked, mainstream phenomenon—with Wentz as the ultimate poster-boy….

For more, read my article on the new Collected Voices blog.

I went West. Like so many before me, and so many after, I packed up a bag and headed out to find something more than this complacency, more than this lull of contentment. Sometimes you make your plans, but sometimes you just snap—running before you can change your mind or think about the dozen ways this could fall apart, because there’s a chance it might not. Just a chance.

So I went West, to lily-edged lakes and quaint clapboard coastline, to sparkling cityscapes and sound. To skeezy loft dance-parties and hot friendship and possibility; cocktails, ice cream, slow-rolled movie nights. To a book deal.

I’m back (for now), but you can hear it, can’t you? The buoyant melody yelled on a 2am highway, that crashing rhythm refusing to drop below eighty. Skidding faster, a flash in your veins. This song is a tale of running, taking everything precious and making it out while you’re still alive. It may only be your heart winding down, but if it’s all you’ve got, it’s enough.

More artistDIRECT work for you, including reviews of Miranda Lambert, Elizabeth Cook and Maroon 5, plus my very first pop column in which I ruminate on American Idol, Alanis Morisette and the art of the cover song.

Hosted By: Do Dirt deejays
When: Thursday Sep 14, 2006
9pm - 3am
A mere:£3 entry
Where: Ditch Bar
145 Shoreditch High Street
London
Description:
Mucky pop. Rude raps. Sleazy rock. Filthy electro.

(Play on player)

I burned out.

It happens, pulling together hopefully meaningful blurbs week after week. Listening to songs on repeat play to tease out that beat, those melodies. Somewhere down the line it shifted from ‘let me hear this’ to ‘what can I say about this?’. The critic’s circle of self-referential doom: linking to my own old posts, feeling trapped in a relationship with the audience’s expectations. Don’t post too confessional. Don’t post too pop. Impossible to create in a vacuum anymore, it was all hit stats and linking quotes. Bigger, better, but above all, new!

You could see it, to read my early work – back when I had stories to tell and the songs were the medium, my vehicle. No hosting or mp3s, but those posts had a freshness, an innocence to them, before I hurtled into the meta-community. When I was a writer first, not a blogger worried about being left behind by the new kids and their shiny obscure indie profiles. Press blurbs sure, but that was what the people wanted – a MySpace link and a free tune.

So I stopped.

Listening to music as a listener is so wonderfully different to listening as a critic. You aren’t searching for words, comparisons. You don’t care who produced a track, whom else they’ve worked their magic for. Industry positioning doesn’t matter so much, or whether it is the one strong track on an otherwise weak album. Inherent in criticism is finding some kind of perspective with which to judge – a standard to hold a work up to. We do it as listeners too, but the standards seem to be different. There’s a beautiful naïveté in engaging with music without the critical faculties; listening with a different part of the mind, or maybe the heart. Turning off coherent thought until even a complete sentence is redundant for the experience, let alone five hundred words on so-and-sos place within the Canadian collective scene or grime resurgence.

But having said that, there are stories to tell. Stories about songs, and the way a particular arrangement of chords can cause our hearts to swell and break, or force our feet to move. Stories about moments, about people, about a place in the cultural fabric of our lives.

I took some time and I listened. I danced and sang and let myself feel music again. And now I’ve got a few more stories for you. It’ll be different this time: no stat counters, no mp3s, no rhyme nor reason to what I end up writing. It could be snark, it could be soul. Maybe I’m wasting the chance to turn PopText into the Gawker of the music world, to give myself a platform. But I’m a writer, not a blogger, and I want to stay this way.

Pink – U + Ur Hand
Temposhark ft. Imogen Heap – Not That Big (Metronomy Remix)
JC Chasez – A.D.I.D.A.S
Jordan Knight – Give It To You
Pussycat Dolls - Flirt
Charlotte Church – Crazy Chick (Kardinal Beats Remix)
Nelly Furtado ft. Pharell – No Hay Igual
Jentina – French Kisses
Billie – Day and Night (Stargate Mix)
Missy Elliot ft Ciara – Lose Control (Jaques Lu Cont Remix)
Gwen Stefani – Bubble Pop Electric
Holly Valance – State of Mind
Lillix – Sweet Temptation
Girls Aloud – Models
Rogue Traders – Way to Go
Ashlee Simpson – Get Nasty
Morningwood – Nth Degree
Rachel Stevens – Some Girls
Deep Dish – Flashdance

Can you guess which tracks will be my plays?

“It’s not the first time/ And you know it/ Don’t you now?”

So, paradigm shifts. A generation whose formative experiences are so different in context and content that their basically held beliefs depart from the preceding generation’s in a crucial (and often unexpected) way, directly altering the norms of the system they inherit.

Or, why kids who bopped to Britney are now teens ‘n’ twentysomethings devouring the Kelly, long after their ‘legitimate’ pop consumption and natural fallout-emo-indie identity shift would predict.

A: Max Martin.

Because occasionally we get a Pied Piper, weaving production and writing skills in such a way as to heave the boundaries of the pop sound back another frontier. And then come the shockwaves, not so much a copy-paste bandwagon as a personal quest to brand the aural landscape; to dig that flag into the dusty ground and proclaim ownership of something we’re more used to being anonymous, transient.

‘Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)’ through ‘I Want It That Way’; ‘Tearing Up My Heart’ through ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’; ‘Show Me Love’; ‘Baby (One More Time)’ through ‘Stronger’.

You may not have liked it, but you knew it. Same sound, everywhere. Pop values reshaped. Bar raised. And, most importantly, the taste for precision production was carved into the kids’ consciousness. A thirst for that verse/bridge/chorus/verse/chorus repeat blueprint of world domination. A chorus that mattered - for dancing and drowning and jubilant cries, not an excuse for some ego-trip guitar solo auto-eroticism.

“This is not a mistake/ It’s the dawn of a new day.”

So considering everything that came before, it’s no surprise we’re back with our old dealer, Mr Martin, begging for the good stuff. Only this time there’s a twist.

Riffs and drums and leap of intensity. A sound that gleefully dances on the razorblade edge of the shock!horror credible borderline because the acts may be styled former TV-stars with dubious 00’s pop credentials; they may not have written or played or toured the underbelly but what does that count for anymore when the indie kid spends an hour crafting his side-swipe hair and the emo boyz loose sleep over the statement of their goddamn trucker hats?

When you’ve got the bloody valentines failing to craft a compelling spectacle with their MySpace journal self-destruction, and people calling for a panic in their discos over a little overindulgent eyeliner application, isn’t there something to be said for the old-school? When beats were pumping on the stereo in the studio, because they’ve got the perfectionist vision to re-record and program until it’s this crisp and frenetic? Where a riff has something to prove, because if it doesn’t ignite your blood then they’ll just toss it for a different sample?

‘Since U Been Gone’ through ‘I Just Want U to Know’ through ‘4Eva’: the new paradigm demands more from the angst-pop-rock that cluttered the airways. We want it new and improved! Shiny! Irresistible! So now we have Ashley (with only his ruffled blonde fringe and the disquieting perfection of chord structures keeping this song away from fall-out-emo status). The surge, the fall, the relentless enthusiasm that whirls you into drama. And Marion, stealing Kelly’s beats but raising her Robyn’s cello use, until we get anger vibrating with clarity; those bridge notes a shiver-still moment of haunting poignancy.

This, my friends, is pop evolving another blissful level. Darwinism on your airwaves.

Or, ‘Why Dom Passantino is one of the best music writers around (despite the fact you probably think he’s an utter twunt)’

I don’t often pimp people, but this is worth it.
Seriously.

(And yes, I haven’t been around. Finals doom. And to be honest, music journalism burnout.)

…Poptext shall play!

“As curious as it seems/ I still smile while enjoying the scene.”

Standing on the Place de la Concorde in late January is a seventeen year-old girl, wrapped inadequately against the Parisian chill. She’s wearing a black leather pencil skirt and new kitten heels. Her lips are red, her hands are tight fists in her pockets, and her jaw is clenched to keep from crying.

By her side is another girl – a girl she considered a friend until barely half an hour ago, when her tongue unwound with alcohol. Looking back, she’ll recognize that the chasm opened up earlier that night; the moment a man with stubble that tickled her ear looked past one to the other, but then, in the moment, the change seemed swift and sudden.

Because the other girl is telling her precisely where her numerous faults lie. She is both too much, and not enough, in every possible way.

The girl in her new shoes doesn’t yet know that angry words reveal more about the speaker than the recipient, and that this early morning will be significant only on a flickering screen somewhere in the future. She hasn’t even heard this song, but it’s for her nonetheless. It holds the quiet calm of equilibrium; the place where each new strike can be absorbed without shaking, every blow shrugged away as the distinct episodes that they are. Reverie is the right word – a drift of wistful regret; the lilt of chords; scattering cymbal. Rise and falls reined in to a steady frequency.

But this girl is still unsteady, and so up the Champs Elysees she walks, past the dignified iron gates of foreign diplomats, past the bare winter trees strewn with stars, past the lone couples insulated against the winds with nothing but intimacy. And all the time, the diatribe beside her continues.

Not enough. Never enough. Always too much.

Don’t worry about her. She’ll be just fine. Already a contrary voice is whispering in her head, reminding her that maybe it’s not her. Maybe it’s them. Maybe this is always more about them. See how she smothers a rebellious smile as the blonde drips with false sympathy?

She’ll be just fine.

Download
The rest of the material from the now-defunct band is available for free download at a fansite, or to buy from New Music Canada
If you aren’t yet swayed, try Cascade

“She’s a maneater/ Make you work hard/ Make you spend hard/ Make you want all/ All her love.”

What’s this? I cry, falling on the shiny, new aural package as if I can’t quite believe it’s not a mirage sent to taunt my pop-starved mind. Is the drought over? Is there a new track worth talking about for its own sake and not the various hi-jinx of tabloid thrum? Say it’s so!

Hyperbole is necessary, you have to understand. How long I’ve waited for something to break the tedium; month after month of old playlists, good pop – old pop – until even a blur of Robyn and the Veronicas and JC Chasez and OKGo and the TeenPeople Hollywood spreads start to loose their sparkling lustre. And now, just when I was loosing all faith in the pop gods, here they offer something to inspire and excite, to get me pulled into the simple arrangement and wonder at that perfect construction. Bless you, Nelly! Be praised, Timbaland!

Because hell,this is worth some attention. From the opening vocal harmony, heralding with ominous subtlety then suddenly exploding into vivid petrol technicolour with that drive of synth, it’s something. Nelly’s voice turning on that knife edge into sleazy scrawl, so the chorus of fuller sound and purer notes is unexpected but a perfect fit. Tumbling harmonies layered into a melody with it’s own force, more carefully constructed, delicate even, with that same bubble of beats and occasional cymbal burst, but new electro stardust dropping in – just a touch, the neon sprinkle pulling you from an opposite direction to the low baritone hum so you rise and fall with the breath of the main pitch.

And back to that basic synth drive, because it’s the gravity around which all else revolves. Inexorable force of beat and bass, dirtied and low so her vocals drift just a fraction above the gutter. Seamless to the end.

“Outcasts and girls with ambition/ That’s what I want to see.”

So the music’s nothing special (think ‘Most Girls’ monotony rather than ‘Get the Party Started’ bounce) but I’ve got to applaud Pink on her good intentions. J-Simpson, MK, La Lohan et al: it’s a veritable SNL skit of tabloid-worthy behaviour, and, unlike Jewel’s sell-out faux-ironic ‘Intuition’ video, there’s actual humor in this one - albeit the inflatable bra variety.

Because it’s true. She may dress it up in spoof costumes and fake tan, but100lb blondes being praised for their cokearexic figures and healthy work-out regimes isn’t really the vision of an empowered gender I want. Size fourteen is not fat. Food is not the enemy. Go watch Marilyn Monroe in ‘Some Like it Hot’ and think about where the hell we are as a society when flesh is scorned for bone and our conception of beauty is so fucking screwed that it takes actual effort for me not to be seduced into working out five times a week, or taking some warped kind of pride in the attainment of a perfectly flat stomach.

Yeah, I know. Another feminist rant. But come on people, doesn’t it say enough that these rants are still relevant? That their content has barely changed in half a damn century? If it all really was a craftily-orchestrated conspiracy to inspire women to loathe their basic selves, then at least there would be some sense to it. But really, it’s just the basic fabric of our world – and isn’t that the saddest thing? Oh, right, sorry. Just laugh at the silly video.

(And don’t even get me started on those Amnesty ‘public opinions about rape’ surveys – I’m still in denial.)

“Uh-oh/ Here we go/ Turn up the radio/ Come on everybody/ To the Nth degree!”

Are you a cooler-than-thou hipster? Do you long for pop music you can love without losing your ‘cred’? Does trying to explain your adoration of Annie and Robyn leave your American Apparel post-feminist panties in a twist (“Yes, Annie is blonde and Nordic but not really pop. Sure, Robyn was a packaged princess back in the 90s, but now she’s got status. On her own indy label and everything!”)

Your search is over, my troubled friend. Introducing the pop moment even you can publicly applaud. See how there are all those real instruments! Look, they’re a band! With ex-Beastie Boys credentials! Gil Norton produced, and you can’t get any more authentic and worthy than those Pixies dudes, right?

Umm.
So. What?

Exactly. If you have any sense at all (and hair that doesn’t routinely take twenty minutes of artful coiffing every morning), that pedigree will have left you entirely unmoved. But fear not, for there is actual brilliance to back that MTV2-friendly allure! Really? Truly? Honestly?

Why yes! Think synthetic coos of lovingly over-produced and insanely infectious joy. Think jubilant chanting. Think pouting attitude. Think plastic, shiny, melodic, focus-group-tested, demographically divine, pre-teen-friendly, co-ordinated-dance-routine-able, ‘if we’re going to debate the substance of pop then this is more pop than Britney’, start bouncing around with the elation of it all sheer brilliance.

Of course, the poor band didn’t actually get the memo that this was a very good thing indeed and so the rest of the album is packed with that whole noisy-disco-yell-electro-can-I-be-Peaches-or-at-the-very-least-Karen-O? rigmarole, but never mind. We know all too well that pure pop perfection is but a morsel of sugar-rush bliss on our adhd singles-only tongue.

Taste. Treasure. Discard.

Drop on by theirMySpace
Buy the album from Target

Without a doubt, the definitive, best-written, most thoughtful and engaging 2005 list of them all.

I’ve been here before.

Haven’t we all? A new year comes around and we take a moment, hoping that this will be the year we actually get a handle on things. Some energy or control or movement beyond this. I’ve certainly been here before; trying to articulate my eternal devotion to this song, and – as usual – I shall probably fail. But that’s OK. Because this time it’s not about the melody or bridge; the sunshine on my skin despite snowfall and chilled lips. This is the time of year to bring out my manifesto again. So here it is.

I will be brave. I will be adventurous. I will make sure I am prepared enough to be spontaneous. I won’t let the eventual zero-sum nature of everything deter me from the experience. I will remember that I’ll be OK in the end. I will try to remember that people usually tell you the truth, you just choose not to listen.

Rosie knows how it works; the need for momentum, the literal drive forwards over well-worn terrain until we reach the new – the green light in the distance, some kind of steadier footing. We don’t need the concrete plans – the bullet-point, time-spaced itineries which fail to understand just how random this world is. We just need to remember what we can plan to achieve in our own little corner, and what is utterly beyond our control. Which is most of it, to be honest. There’s something in the pictures she paints with these words that make me dream of Sabrina Ward Harrison prints, overflowing with vivid colour but taken with a fragile, pained eye. A restless pace, a feeling I long for, and which finally, this year, I might just find.

This year, the world will open up to me, I pledge each time. This time I’ll be ready for it; training wheels off, pen at the ready. Maybe this year, it’ll be true.

Buy ‘When We Were Small’ from the Subpop store.
Visit Rosie’s MySpace and main site

Apologies for the downtime.

I’ve been having a little legal problem which means this site is going to need some serious re-evaluation. Sigh. Unfortunately, I don’t know if or how Poptext will proceed in the New Year. It may even mean - gasp - an end to my hosting and return to those text-only posts of old.

Who would still have love for me without the shiny new mp3s?

“So far/ Keeping it together has been enough/ Look up/ Rain is falling/ Looks like love.”

I don’t like winter. Wet, dark, cold. Christmas means nothing to me, save the memory of blended family trauma, gift angst and more television than usual. But this year is different. This year, I’ve decided to happily submit to the world of carolling, mulled wine and brisk winter walks; scarves thick, icy breath, seasonal cheer and all.

Perhaps this is premature, a Spring melody to rouse you from hibernating slumber. Or necessary – melodic strings bringing a shimmer of spark to tired limbs. Slowly you unfurl beneath those heavy blankets and pull back the drapes. It’s tempting, so tempting to stay wrapped away from the world, but sweet, deep cello is calling you out and a soothing voice shows you the sunshine still fighting weakly against the chill.

Simple, sweet. Reminding me what I’m here for. It’s time to emerge.

Download
Bonus - ’He Lied About Death’
Buy ‘Set Yourself on Fire’ and ‘Heart’ from Arts and Crafts

Overcome with the urge to splash, nay, frolic in a vast ocean of indie? Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good have their end-of-year list up, a veritable bounty of mp3s from Sufjan, Rogue Wave, the Decemberists and Spoon, to name but a few.

“Have you heard the JCB song?” my sister eagerly asks. I roll my eyes. Christmas number one contender? I have terrifying visions of another Ministry of Sound affair with, you know, thongs and vibrating machinery. But no! It’s a twee and adorable ode to skipping school to ride around with dad on his tractor. And yes, it’s a little too earnest for my usual liking, but say it with me: Ahhhh.

Watch the sweet lil’ video or stream audio via The Hype Machine and have your Scrooge-like heart melted.

Finally, dubious about the new Microsoft- MTV URGE project launching next year? Well maybe the calibre of bloggers finally getting their (well-deserved) paychecks will sway you. Jessica ‘’Tiny Lucky Genius’‘ Hopper will lead the “punk/alt/indie/hardcore/underground” blog; Julianne ’Cowboyz and Poodlez’ Shepard does R’n'B, and Matthew ’Fluxblog’ Perpetua will run rock/pop etc. Good luck in overcoming that wma-only thing!

“I’ve got blood in my mouth/ ‘Cause I’ve been biting my tongue all week/ I’ve been talking trash/ But I never say anything.”

I’m not sure how I got to this late in the year without posting this; maybe because it’s such an understated, slow-build creation, or perhaps because I don’t engage with it in the same immediate ‘squeee’ manner of the fluxpop. There isn’t the emotional pull of the deeper stuff, nor even the hip-shake jaunt some chord progressions get me with. No, this one connects straight to that knowing smile as we all listen to “And the talking leads to touching/ Then the touching leads to sex/ And then there is no mystery left.” with a rueful nod. It’s my mind which is so pleased; that analytical distance of self-awareness which smiles along.

As a song, of course, it’s effortlessly pleasant: sliding along with the delightful ringing melodies and all. But see, it’s all in that perfect, petulantly resigned delivery. The metal bite of lyrics, the faint bitterness and acceptance – crafting the sophisticated whole. You toy with your cocktail garnish as you listen to your friend tell the same old story; dark wood, elegant beads and prerequisite sarcastic banter. But even sitting there, you’re aware of the clichéd scene you’re participating in – and no matter how jaded you feel, there’s no escaping it. You’ll reapply your lipstick and make eye contact with the suit by the bar, and next week you’ll be the one sitting opposite, telling all with a wry grin as you swear it will be different next time.

I sometimes wonder how a few thousand years of human development is change at all when the stories essentially stay the same.

Download
Buy ‘More Adventurous’ from Amazon

“I’m back/ And ready to go/ From the rooftops/ Shout it out.”

“I just got to that point,” she said, “And then I shut down. I didn’t care anymore.”

That’s what drives this determined beast of jubilation. That moment. That half-inch conceptual shift from wading in the mire of emotional fallibility to freedom. That leap from ‘oh god, please’ caring to get-out-of-my-life utter ambivalence. It doesn’t come when you need it, that’s for sure, but god, its arrival is always met with overdue satisfaction. Not happiness, or joy, but a tighter grip of grim, inevitable pleasure.

Sure, there’s the drawl and attitude and mid-90s retro-trip, but there’s also that measured chord intro and soft murmur of vocals breaking out into a crash of synth and darker drag riff; jubilation in slow-build exclamations; head-toss poseur rhyme patterns.

I don’t really remember Britpop. Men in hats with guitars and ego bedswapping with Justine Frischman, right? But this kinda makes me want to.

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Bonus - ’Drop Dead Gorgeous’
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“Stay with me/ I feel sad/ When you run.”

This song is winter. Even if the heavy tones rang out over green trees and warm, midday sunshine, I’d still be transported to a world of shivers and morning fro