Verse the eights on eights on eights … let’s level up, little ones … cheers to stellar metamorphoses and contempaughtpop chrysalis breaks …

“When I Grow Up” — Pussycat Dolls (Doll Domination, 2008)

Writers : Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, Jim McCarty, Paul Samwell-Smith, Theron Thomas, Timothy Thomas · · Producers : Darkchild

:: Primer ::

:: So, this one … acute primer on the immediate spinspiration … this one, i believe shuffled up semi-recently, and … the floodgates of sheer nouveaustalgia just unfurled … into ebbs and flows of montages and moments and pure docupop mood immersion …

so, seguing from the immediate to a more broad primer on the general audiobiographical backstory … this paramount play in the pcd anthology … when the needle drops into this groove … it’s like an immediate — albeit split-second — scene cut to summer 2008 … i was living in a studio apartment ( efficiency, to be technically precise, but studio sounds more … y’know … anyways, onward ) in the brookland neighborhood of dc, by the catholic u. metro stop … and that specific niche of that particular summer was peak pique …

fever pitch balancing on an ever so fragile webwork of a tightrope … i was interning at a global comm. firm, public affairs dept. ( because: dc ), so i was up at 5am for early morn deliverables ( work words, classic ), but was off the clock around 2 or 3pm … so, that’s to contextualize the seasonal scene of midsummer afternoons spent rambling and roving about the district … subplot : lots of borders and bookshop stops interwoven therein …

so, to bring that back to the broadline primer : When I Grow Up was peak pique summer session soundtrack … i believe 2008 also happened to be the summer where i gave factory girl a first watch, and — on account of bookshop stops — one thing led to another, and so the edith minturn genesis, the sedgwick swandive, so to speak, commenced ( due diligence on proximal primer reads : edie: an american girl, and edie: girl on fire — both fine works of literary retrospection, and duly recommended ) … from edie to andy to pop factories … the cerebral station was living a celluloid halcyon age of pop curriculum … think … 2008 … was also the summer lachappelleland’s neon pink bubble dream donned the cover of rolling stone’s hot list …

so, but/and … effectually … When I Grow Up … remains a radar blip banzai for all things summer ‘08 zeitgeist scene … and the everything an anthem of said epochal ne plus ultra entails … it feels so incredibly self-fulfilling fifteen-minutes of contempop prophescene … alright, thus mused … let’s cellar this tune … onward ::

:: On the Palatte · Profile ::

:: On the front … atomic pop paratrouper siren swan drop onto the shores of electro richter rhythmic brigade blues … confessional commandant scribes life lines from battlefield real world — atten-tion! … it feels fundamentally doll domination debutante … somewhere between “lights out guerrilla girl radio” and a “fifteen minutes of my super nouveau riche big break” pcd take on fireside chats … with a lingering dose of: “here’s a little story that i made up, so let’s make believe” …

and so, we commence in the frequency of “apparent chaos is merely a public request for accompanying choreography … chaos exists to be choreographed … it’s all pandemonium until we dance some sense into erstwhile dissonance” … the front feels like femme fatale prosetry over consigliere commando production yielding origin audiobiographies of how to break through famerica …

as the chorus kicks the mid-palatte into formation, it feels oddly concordant … there’s a distinct universal rhythm to the roll call … like actualization (however said intention is manifest), is all in accord with some karmic continuity somewhere … it feels like the protostellar pop secret morning affirmation amplified … it almost tastes like prosecco rosé laced with absinthe served from a limited release temperature reactive alloy tinkerbell bottle ( service, with the sparklers ) …

strong undertones of the Spice Up Your Life video … and the relentless excess in atmospheric instrumentation … the itemized lines of “told you so” feel that much more unilateral exceptional … navigating the narrative of: when you wish to become a star … where your anonymity is the preeminent public enemy — but make it: rising amidst the fall of * gestures broadly at 2008 western imperial economic institutions * …

that lyrically-driven blind ambition begins to define itself in direct contrast and compliment to the deafening production effects, the inner voice of sheer will as sabre and shield, piercing through all of the suffocatingly static noise (a la “ha-ha-ha-ha”) and protecting that bigger bolder you from shrapnel of cultural decay and adversarial hearsay … within and without that conflicting doublet there’s some sense of courtship to the cataclysm … bitter rivals needed for survival …

I see them staring at me
Ooh, I’m a trendsetter
Yes, this is true ’cause what I do
No one can do it better
You can talk about me
‘Cause I’m a hot topic
I see you watching me, watching me
And I know you want it

and so, as the bridge bows before the crowd, we arrive upon the precipice of a most formative finish … ebbing the flow of sheer flux combustion … the bouncy synth lines, the thudding kick drum, the live wire bassline, the visceral voltaic, the handclaps, the camera flash foils, and vocal acrobatic pitch shifts …

the canon blueprint of pop’s patron saint of the blackout comes to the fore, to bow at the bridge in a penultimate parry before doubling down on the dulcet chorus capstone … it feels like a daze in the limelight of life inside the large hadron collider … existing to recreate the big bang … to live and fly the perpetual phoenix crucible of spectacular fame (motifs!) … but/and what a wondrous fade into the focal frame, all of the precedent pandemonium settles into a pacific wane, right at the epilogue’s abiding takeaway — “but be careful what you wish for, ‘cause you just might get it … get it?” got it, and when you do let ‘em all know — if only for the tell of your show … fresh, clean, and scene ::

:: Pairings ::

:: So … originally, i had calibre’s Second Sun slated to usher in the fame maturation station pairing … on account of reawakenings, rebirths, renaissances of self-realization, self-actualization — just the general feeling of a reintroductory daybreak of sorts … but then, pendulum shifts and mood swings and tempo traversals, and the so on and co forth led to a reconsideration of the maturation station short list and lead off … so, the scope of said sonic slate remains a stellar evolutionary cycle in the constellation of contempop life — the songs edifying said scaffolding, however, have been ever so slightly modified since conceptual inception … but/and so, thus it is and here we are … onward, into the second son draft class … navigating the narrative …

· ·

Rhyme Cellar : When I Grow Up : Pair’d Playlist :: · “Gossip Folks” ft. Ludacris – Missy Elliott · · “Who Do You Think You Are” (Morales Club Mix) – Spice Girls · · “Larger Than Life” – Backstreet Boys · · “When I Grow Up” – Pussycat Dolls · · “Circus” – Britney Spears · · “anthems” – Charli XCX · · “Young Legends” – Sleigh Bells ·

· ·

… missy, ms. e, miss e. … Gossip Folks … i mean … self-explanatory lucid syncopation exploration of how to glow up with the get down … progress working under a most constructive critique … and luda’s lyrical flow, remains niagra starch crisp … this one as usher was a must ‘cos it’s dangerous, a hassle on the bus, they call it angel — trust … onward

whew — morales on the ones and twos with the subterranean spiceworld locomotive level up … i remember first hearing morales’ Who Do You Think You Are club mix, as a pre-adolescent nestled ever so attentively before a televisual cube as spiceworld’s musocinematic glow narrated preeminent turn of the nines pop life ditlo … it just felt so, cool … anyhaps, fast forward to ( once more from the kids in the nosebleeds ) the limewire / frostwire / morpheus / kazaa / [ insert p2p platform of choice here ] titanium age of file-sharing, where, at some point in a rediscovery delve, i restocked the spice rack with quasi-deep cuts, of which, said morales mix, was included … so, that’s the backstory, but in the immediate … the beats, bravado, bombast, tempos, tunes, tales, and grooves establish the metanarrative of “real eyes realize,” … the eternal proem of speaking that center stage stellar genesis into existence … line for line, bar for bar :

the race is on to get out of the bottom, the top is high so your roots are forgotten …

— from the top line alone, it’s a full-stop top shelf take, and so it goes the distance … onward, into the depths of millennial pop’s famest largess …

Larger Than Life, wasn’t originally on the short list, but once it shuffled up on just another entirely unrelated play — pure cosmic alignment focalized within the frame … this one really felt understated central to the overarching narrative … the sonic aesthetic and signature energetic is so deeply embedded within this tune … the acute duality and climacteric dissonance that is fame’s crucible … the quite literal passion, guised in bubblegum pop wrap … just feels very something … that codependent necessity … that symbiotic relativity … the ephemeral humanity within parasocial communities … not quite sure, can’t quite explain … but the track felt apropos in a manner just so, as the usher and preface ultimatum to our signature centerpiece … onward

believe it, achieve it, breathe it into existence — and this is the reign – of contempop stardom … thus spake the signaturepiece, otherwise known as, call-that-growth … When I Grow Up … and so we mature into ringmatriarchy …

Circus … the transit between WIGU’s razor precision descent on the ebb of an immediate finale’s requiem strings felt streamlined segue into its genesis muse’s 2008 post-renaissance “comeback” title track … again, the entirety of this list’d pairing is inherently anchored in sonic aesthetic, aural affiliation, tribal mood vibe — songs that sound synchronous in sequence … but/and also within that given the signaturepiece track, each of the pair’d plays speaks to the narrative arc of atomic pop’s fame — thus, Circus … the crescendo into visceral voltaic ekg synths, in immediate retrospect, echoes a familiar connective production thread throughout the pairing repertoire … but/and, more broadly, to the narrative development … When I Grow Up — being written for Britney, drafted specifically for Spears’ circus album and era — is effectually the result of making a wish, kid, and having said gain gotten … and so, logically, the title track from said signaturepiece’s inspoception … would be … the next chapter in this form of fame’s audiobiblioepic … also, just a masterful tune in context of zeitgeist points of view … onward …

Anthemssssssss … i always ( within the capacity of said tune’s first personal spin being the big bang clock catalyst on the given time lapse ) wanted to incorporate this tune within some repertoire of records worth their weight in undivided attentive time spent … the mood, the vibe, the underground hyperpop civilization … a return to the raw material a return to the pre-refinery visceral voltaic form and function of sheer bombast and stellar energy … the sheer spectrum of lighting in a bottle pop, well, bottled in a distant bed-sit boudoir in an era defined by social distance … again, the composition, production, and lyrical exposition … it fits … bless, up, bust, shapes, charli x … onward …

to the foregone conclusive limelit denouement, courtesy and care of our bittersweet bandits — sleigh bells’ Young Legends … love, this, tune … and what a climark to the antecedent narrative arc … this list ( as, effectually, all have evidenced, and future pair’d progeny will assay to be ) at its core and symphonic composition, explains and expresses itself … i just add words for the sake of formatting and optics … but the raison d’etre remains the curated record collection in and of said underscore storied self … so, to bring it all back to this culminating — and cyclical bridging — track :

Stop, you had everything counted
You never doubted
One, two, three, only a day away
Where you gonna go now?
Shut me down, I’m too illegal
Underground, you’ll last forever
Sorry if you’re gone on your way down
Let’s go now

…

Young legends die all the time
But I don’t mind, don’t close your eyes
Don’t say goodbye, or be unkind
Don’t do it, don’t do it
Young legends die all the time
But I don’t mind, don’t close your eyes
Don’t say goodbye, I know you’ll try
Young legends die and so will …

the pall to bear … ideas, like legends, can never be severed … so dream big, for the folks, and the kids — once more, from the top – and with some feeling : young legends, rise: all, the, rhyme … ::

:: Impressions ::

:: This one remains among the anthem battle cry echelon of the britzkrieg brigade … i don’t know why, can’t quite explain … it just felt so very zeitgeist … and self-actualized … and pure WYSIWYG (it, get it?) … if i want to remember what it felt like to be alive in that space and time … i give this tune a spin, and rewind remind to that particular niche of 14:59 climacteric fever pitch prime … the aura in the air … the clarity in the haze … that groundswell to anthrosonic pop boom … lime lightning in a genie bottle … and who could forget the mondegreen fairy tale of “groupies” … i mean — the hip-pop rock stellar of it all … but at the beginning and end of the day … it’s just, on the one hand, a “dark, dissonant club banger,” and on the other, it’s just an atomic pop anthrosonic manifestation destination anchor … et repete, apogee perigree, et repete … ::