Didn't Alanis have a nice five-year wave? She had two biggish hits from the second record which carried her through to 1999. And although I'm not sure of which artists were inspired by her, but would have the record labels signed and promoted Meredith Brooks' "Bitch" without the huge sales of "Jagged Little Pill." I have no doubt Alanis, Avril and Lourde have made their influences, but are there any of those influenced who actually matter?
The Alanis wave is the general transfer of alt-rock by women to the Adult Contemporary charts -- this is more of the end of a process than the beginning of one (also similar to Chubby Checker, in a way), but the idea that the sort of music you'd hear at #1 on the alternative charts would eventually (by 1998 or so) be #1 on the Adult Contemporary charts is, I think, a big shift.
Alanis herself benefited a bit from the follow-up -- "Thank U" went to #1 on the Adult 40 and #17 on the Hot 100 (several "Jagged Little Pill" singles went top 10). But nothing Alanis did after "Jagged Little Pill" improved on her chart history, and I'd argue didn't really change things the way the first album did.
That album and its singles had oversaturated the market. I remember when I first heard (or saw, really) the video for "Hand In My Pocket." I think I coo'ed. Three weeks later I never wanted to hear that song ever again. I know she influenced the charts, but what about other music makers?
Alanis to Avril might make some sense, but Avril to Taylor doesn't make any sense at all. I think there's more happy accidents sometimes and that these things can't be so easily explained.
VERY hard disagree. There's absolutely no market for Taylor Swift's 2006-2008 youth audience consolidation without a full decade of development getting teen confessional music on Radio Disney and TRL.
I stood corrected in the wrong place. I see what you're saying. Just never thought Avril was much, until I saw her charts and sales and realized she did have some influence.
As for Avril, I think Avril is the single most important artist in the pre-Taylor pop landscape *given* what happened with Taylor Swift. I think without Taylor Swift, you can see teen confessional of the mid-aughts as a fad. What Avril was to the first act of Taylor's career Lorde was to the second (which I think she's still basically in).
I'll back step a bit. I just went to Wikipedia and looked up Avril Lavigne's chart successes and singles. I forgot she had a hits and sales in 2007. She was such laundry fluff to me, I just never cared for her. I knew she had that huge hit "Complicated" song and that gawdawful ballad ("I'm With You") and I ignored her after "Sk8ter Boi" (the spelling of boy always makes me laugh because it makes me think of chatrooms on Gay.com, circa 1998-2002). I can see what you're on to. My apologies.
No need to apologize! I do think the simpler observation that " 'Complicated' was huge" is a bigger deal than almost anything she did afterward. I think of her more as catalyst than center.
All the good fairy tales are about trauma, and this is the authentic note in fairy trap/SoundCloud rap , which is really the blues in its way, crossroads and all
I once tried to come up with a whole genre of something like "urban fairy tales" but really just wanted an excuse to make a list around Keke Palmer's "Music Box" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0uacRtRUV0
Just riffing on the debate re: Avril, but I feel like I have a stake in this conversation in the sense that Let Go was the first album that really felt like "mine" as a child, i.e. surreptitiously passed to me on the playground with no input from my parents and then pored over daily at home like a sacred text. I liked all the big teen pop stars, but I couldn't relate to them, and by that age, I had already internalized an idea that young women in popular music were spectacles rather than authors of their own stories and identities. I had never thought hard about it, and of course I didn't understand why, but the absence of a familiar-feeling voice was that palpable.
When I got that album and flipped through the booklet and saw a teenage girl's name credited under every song — sad songs, angry songs, songs about her life — not just as the singer but a real writer of the words and music I was hearing, that radicalized me. Like, my whole world opened up in just that one instant on my bedroom floor with this album in my hands. Maybe I could look back on it now and consider the actual quality of those songs with a more discerning ear, but I 100% believe their existence alone at that point in my development easily changed the course of my life. (I also liked Alanis as a kid! But I needed Avril first to find my way to her.)
Taylor, obviously, has branded this appeal to a level of art. When 1989 came out with those bonus tracks showing her songwriting process, I was like, oh, man, this would've lit me on fire at twelve. I'm quite fond of Taylor from a distance now (Reputation was the one that finally did it for me), but I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I had been just that little bit younger when she was coming up and not a teenager myself, too cynical and entrenched in my own taste by that point for her to work on me, I would be a diehard Swiftie. Knowing I avoided this fate by a hair is somehow both an incredible relief and slightly disappointing.
In other words, as but one member of the designated target audience for both these artists, I think your read is spot on and totally in line with my own observations over the years.
I don't know how many hits Pink Pantheress has had but she makes a wave in music far bigger than herself and her songs. FLVCKKA album has some lovely solo stuff like that one (near the pop end of fairy trap), as usual the collabs are more dicey, but 'Frios' is a strong one.
I think the harp tune on Myaap's 'Fairy' might be a gaming reference, track's pretty great
Didn't Alanis have a nice five-year wave? She had two biggish hits from the second record which carried her through to 1999. And although I'm not sure of which artists were inspired by her, but would have the record labels signed and promoted Meredith Brooks' "Bitch" without the huge sales of "Jagged Little Pill." I have no doubt Alanis, Avril and Lourde have made their influences, but are there any of those influenced who actually matter?
The Alanis wave is the general transfer of alt-rock by women to the Adult Contemporary charts -- this is more of the end of a process than the beginning of one (also similar to Chubby Checker, in a way), but the idea that the sort of music you'd hear at #1 on the alternative charts would eventually (by 1998 or so) be #1 on the Adult Contemporary charts is, I think, a big shift.
Alanis herself benefited a bit from the follow-up -- "Thank U" went to #1 on the Adult 40 and #17 on the Hot 100 (several "Jagged Little Pill" singles went top 10). But nothing Alanis did after "Jagged Little Pill" improved on her chart history, and I'd argue didn't really change things the way the first album did.
That album and its singles had oversaturated the market. I remember when I first heard (or saw, really) the video for "Hand In My Pocket." I think I coo'ed. Three weeks later I never wanted to hear that song ever again. I know she influenced the charts, but what about other music makers?
I mean, I'm a broken record on this, but I don't think you get Avril without Alanis and you don't get Taylor without Avril
Alanis to Avril might make some sense, but Avril to Taylor doesn't make any sense at all. I think there's more happy accidents sometimes and that these things can't be so easily explained.
VERY hard disagree. There's absolutely no market for Taylor Swift's 2006-2008 youth audience consolidation without a full decade of development getting teen confessional music on Radio Disney and TRL.
I stood corrected in the wrong place. I see what you're saying. Just never thought Avril was much, until I saw her charts and sales and realized she did have some influence.
As for Avril, I think Avril is the single most important artist in the pre-Taylor pop landscape *given* what happened with Taylor Swift. I think without Taylor Swift, you can see teen confessional of the mid-aughts as a fad. What Avril was to the first act of Taylor's career Lorde was to the second (which I think she's still basically in).
I'll back step a bit. I just went to Wikipedia and looked up Avril Lavigne's chart successes and singles. I forgot she had a hits and sales in 2007. She was such laundry fluff to me, I just never cared for her. I knew she had that huge hit "Complicated" song and that gawdawful ballad ("I'm With You") and I ignored her after "Sk8ter Boi" (the spelling of boy always makes me laugh because it makes me think of chatrooms on Gay.com, circa 1998-2002). I can see what you're on to. My apologies.
No need to apologize! I do think the simpler observation that " 'Complicated' was huge" is a bigger deal than almost anything she did afterward. I think of her more as catalyst than center.
All the good fairy tales are about trauma, and this is the authentic note in fairy trap/SoundCloud rap , which is really the blues in its way, crossroads and all
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0AMpYqVJ0WEpo4emY7d4EJ?si=ke1IiFO3RuydCNoJPfL_WQ&pi=fZMa7yBaSruY1
I once tried to come up with a whole genre of something like "urban fairy tales" but really just wanted an excuse to make a list around Keke Palmer's "Music Box" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0uacRtRUV0
Just riffing on the debate re: Avril, but I feel like I have a stake in this conversation in the sense that Let Go was the first album that really felt like "mine" as a child, i.e. surreptitiously passed to me on the playground with no input from my parents and then pored over daily at home like a sacred text. I liked all the big teen pop stars, but I couldn't relate to them, and by that age, I had already internalized an idea that young women in popular music were spectacles rather than authors of their own stories and identities. I had never thought hard about it, and of course I didn't understand why, but the absence of a familiar-feeling voice was that palpable.
When I got that album and flipped through the booklet and saw a teenage girl's name credited under every song — sad songs, angry songs, songs about her life — not just as the singer but a real writer of the words and music I was hearing, that radicalized me. Like, my whole world opened up in just that one instant on my bedroom floor with this album in my hands. Maybe I could look back on it now and consider the actual quality of those songs with a more discerning ear, but I 100% believe their existence alone at that point in my development easily changed the course of my life. (I also liked Alanis as a kid! But I needed Avril first to find my way to her.)
Taylor, obviously, has branded this appeal to a level of art. When 1989 came out with those bonus tracks showing her songwriting process, I was like, oh, man, this would've lit me on fire at twelve. I'm quite fond of Taylor from a distance now (Reputation was the one that finally did it for me), but I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I had been just that little bit younger when she was coming up and not a teenager myself, too cynical and entrenched in my own taste by that point for her to work on me, I would be a diehard Swiftie. Knowing I avoided this fate by a hair is somehow both an incredible relief and slightly disappointing.
In other words, as but one member of the designated target audience for both these artists, I think your read is spot on and totally in line with my own observations over the years.
Thank you so much for this comment — I might quote from it at some point (will let you know…)
I would be honored!
I don't know how many hits Pink Pantheress has had but she makes a wave in music far bigger than herself and her songs. FLVCKKA album has some lovely solo stuff like that one (near the pop end of fairy trap), as usual the collabs are more dicey, but 'Frios' is a strong one.
I think the harp tune on Myaap's 'Fairy' might be a gaming reference, track's pretty great