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!