Frank Kogan

[Wrote this for Left Hip a whole bunch of court appearances ago, but the mag had a change of format and couldn't run it.]

In Herbie: Fully Loaded Lindsay wavers between hesitancy and purpose as she plays a character who isn't sure she has a right to her own talent and destiny. So it's a shock after the end credits when the video to "First" rolls in and there she is being needy and demanding Lindsay Lohan. The song was written by others, and it too may be just an act, but it's the one I fall for and the one that defines her for me. She's got a thin singing voice but it doesn't feel thin, with her command and charisma always front and center.

For "Confessions Of A Broken Heart" she sent Kara DioGuardi emails about missing the attention of her absent dad, and she and Kara worked those emails into lyrics. On the alb, Lindsay wants us to want her, does so more convincingly than Cheap Trick ever did. She splashes around hilariously in "Who Loves You?" and she lives for the day when we'll be desperate and dying inside. She's got two masterpieces, "I Live For The Day" and "Nobody 'Til You," all centered on her vortex of need, the only girl in the room. But now she's caught in the criminal justice system, and once you're in you gotta do what the judges and POs say, gotta show up for court dates and classes, and you can't cut it close or function without a plan b, 'cause bad luck's not an excuse, and you gotta listen to them but they don't have to listen to you.

Watch on YouTube

"Nobody 'Til You" written by John Shanks and Kara DioGuardi

Since someone recently spammed Dave's old Alexandra Slate post on Bedbugs 2006, I went back and listened to Slate's MySpace. She's good, at least on the evidence of three songs. Her voice reminds me of Kara DioGuardi's, rich and deep and pained; so do her melodies, actually, and she has a similar guileless directness in her lyrics - guilelessly direct like such Platinum Weird tracks as "Taking Chances" and "Happiness" and "Nobody Sees," that is, words about falling down and getting up, and so forth, as if no one else will quite understand what this is like.* (Slate is cowriter on "Bad Girl" according to Allmusic, while the other two MySpace tracks aren't on her album** and I haven't found any credits, but DioGuardi had nothing to do with them, at least they're not listed in her credits at BMI; DioGuardi wasn't a big deal then so Slate may well have come up with the style without knowing Kara's work. Johnny Loftus at Allmusic compared and contrasted her to Lucy Woodward when he reviewed Edge Of The Girl.)

Does anyone have any idea what became of Slate? Her album is 2003, and she hasn't posted on her MySpace blog since 2006. Google is no help (at least not the first 80 links), though it did turn up an interview with Hollywood Records A&R guy Jason Jordan who said that Alexandra Slate and Tina Sugandh were a couple of brilliant signings of his that never saw the light of day. (The interview reads as if it had been conducted in some language other than English and then translated.)

*Kara is perfectly capable of indirection; at least I've never really figured out "Avalanche," other than that it seems to be about the frustrations of falling in love with a dreamer, or something.

**EDIT: Actually, "Clumsy On The Wall" is also on the album as a hidden track, though I only found that out from cheapo Russian download sites; neither Allmusic nor Amazon list it.

Tom asks on Blue Lines Revisited: "If you could have reviewed any record in history at the time it first came out, which would you choose and why?" This is my response, which will shock no one:

Ashlee Simpson's Autobiography. Who knows if I'd have reviewed it with insight, arriving cold; Mikael Wood's review in the Voice was excellent; the point is, if I'd been assigned to review it I wouldn't have known what was coming, I'd have been surprised down to my socks. Just what would it have been like to be hit right at the start with this young woman declaring, "I walked a thousand miles while everyone was asleep," a mystery and a pheenom in her first fanfare, and then two songs later clawing and ripping at herself and her family and trying to resurrect it simultaneously? Maybe I'd have been up to the job, or maybe I wouldn't have grasped what I was hearing. But it would have been nice to to be the one who shows up with a fresh face, the first writer to feel the wind.

(Of course millions of girls had seen her reality show on MTV already, but, interesting as the show was, I'm glad I caught her first through the music, the reflectiveness and the struggle deeper there.)

I did put on a promo copy of Miranda Lambert's Kerosene with no idea who she was or what to expect, and went "Holy amazing shit!" as the title song started it off. Someone else did the review, though.

On Rolling Teenpop I was the first person in my universe to write about Marit Larsen as a solo artist, catching her "Don't Save Me" shortly out of the gate; and I had fun observing other people independently showing up on Rolling Teenpop with the news, a phenomenon in our little world. And I did get the review in the Voice, one of the last ones they let me do, though I was allowed little more than a blurb.

I was also the first person in my universe to post about Taylor Swift, on my MySpace and on Rolling Teenpop, though I'd heard the single months earlier and Jimmy Draper had talked her up in an email to me, which is what got me interested. I was the first one on Rolling Teenpop to hear and post about the "Greatest Time Of Year"/"Not This Year" dialectic from Aly & AJ. Think of what utter fucking dipshits the Voice people were for not having me and Dave and Mike and Tim and Erika and Chuck etc. blogging all this music on launch.

My decade's end piece in the Las Vegas Weekly, though after I'd pitched it I rebelled against the idea of trying to fairly sum up, hence no mention of Timbaland or Max Martin, whom I'd peg as the two most important figures in '00s music. (The Club Mix has brief mentions of "Behind These Hazel Eyes" and "Since U Been Gone," though not in regard to Max's input.) In about a month I'll post an Extended Freestyle Mix, and I'd welcome any suggestions as to what you think it should contain.

Microwaving A Tragedy: The marriage of romance and romanticism in '00s pop

(Links to my old Las Vegas Weekly columns are here, if you're interested.)

I have made a decision for the remainder of 2009 to listen to no more Albums I Haven't Heard Yet. So, a trifle early, here is my decade's end albums list:

Top Ten Albums Of The '00s

1. Ashlee Simpson Autobiography
2. Montgomery Gentry Carrying On
3. Big & Rich Horse Of A Different Color
4. Britney Spears Blackout
5. t.A.T.u. Dangerous & Moving
6. Various Artists Global Hits 2002
7. Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP
8. Ying Yang Twins Me & My Brother
9. Fannypack See You Next Tuesday
10. Paris Hilton Paris

( Exuberance )

Thought that Adam was decisively better than Kris last night, but most voters probably had made their decision on whom to vote for long since, and dialidol has it too close to call. Neither performer came to grips with "No Boundaries," both did fine on their reprise songs ("Mad World" for Adam and "Ain't No Sunshine" for Kris), though Adam's performance was richer, and Adam actually - and surprisingly - nailed "A Change Is Gonna Come" while Kris was respectable but weak on "What's Going On." On "No Boundaries" I may have slightly preferred Kris, who muffed a few of the words and strained at the high notes but seemed steadier with his mood. But "A Change Is Gonna Come" floored me, Adam powerful but restrained most of the way, and then when he let loose with the schmaltz at the end it really was a release and a resolution - as well as by subtext helping to use a black empowerment song as a gay empowerment song. ("A Change Is Gonna Come" and "What's Going On" were picked by the producer, not the performers, but even if the men had chosen the songs themselves and there were no gay overtones with Adam, I have no trouble with the idea of white guys singing those songs in this context; it's not like they're doing it on behalf of the Republican National Committee. But for the other view, see Leonard.) I liked "Mad World" even more, but we'd heard it before.

( Allison still the true talent )

"Some of her favorite past contestants were Clarkson and season-seven finalist BROOK WHITE."

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/324/story/517026.html

On the other hand, as girlboymusic points out, she doesn't know how to pronounce her own name:

http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/LOSANGELES-CA/KIIS-FM/karadioguardi082508.mp3

The Rules Of The Game #10: Embracing The Ashlee Whirlpool



Still think my writing suffers from a bit of stage fright at LVW, and I've only scratched the surface with Ashlee and don't say much about the sound. But I like this, hope it'll open up Ashlee for some of you the way my Pazz & Jop piece opened up Eminem for some people back in early 2001.

( Links to my other Rules Of The Game columns )

(Oh, and to answer the question that LVW poses in the subhead, I way prefer Ashlee to Alanis, but I think Ashlee's best, "La La" and "Shadow" and "I Am Me," gets edged out by my favorite couple of Beatles songs ("She Loves You" and "You Can't Do That"). I've always hated "Let It Be," however.)