Jess: I thought it was pretty good!

Becky: I, too, thought it was pretty good! I will say, though, it would have benefited greatly if the pilot had been a TV movie or double-length episode. Twenty-three minutes was barely enough time to fit in the plot, and not enough to establish the relationships coherently. Both of the big emotional beats (Kacey’s friends betraying her, and Kacey deciding to stick with her new friends) would have felt a lot bigger if we’d actually seen things like friendships building up, instead of a few seconds of TV shorthand for friendship.

Jess: Agreed. There wasn’t enough time to develop any motivations or characters: like, if we’d seen Kacey being mean to the Perfs, their betrayal once they smelled blood in the water would make more sense. If we’d seen Kacey being picked on for being a nerd (instead of wearing glasses for 30 seconds), we’d feel for her more. My kingdom for a double-length pilot!

Relatedly, the second episode, in which Gravity 5 makes a bet that they can all stop their bad habits, didn’t work at all, because a) we had no time to get to know these characters, so an episode where they are acting contrary to their natures falls flat, and b) they’ve only been friends for like a day, which means that Kacey has not nearly earned the right to be as aggressive in winning the bet as she is here. When you’ve spent most of your relationship bullying someone, you can’t turn around and playfully tease them the next day. It’s a shame, because I do think the cast has the skill to carry a somewhat more nuanced dynamic.

Becky: Actually, that’s where I think the show has the most room to expand and fulfill its potential: sharpening characterizations (and by extension, relationships). Right now, you can see the rough sketches of some actual characters — the Quirky Girl Sidekick is delightfully snarky, Brunette Perf and Blonde Perf are pretty standard scheming-girl-with-funny-dumb-sidekick archetypes — but everyone else is still kind of a blur. Kacey’s main personality trait seems to be that she’s kind of mean, which is at least distinct but probably not great for a protagonist; and the show couldn’t decide if the main guy from the band was a cool outsider love interest (as he was in the pilot) or just super vain and not much else (as he was in episode two). While there’s room for both of those traits within the same character, it needs to come from a place of internal consistency, which doesn’t seem to be the case yet. If the show can actually develop and nail down the characters and use their actual personalities as a source of humor, I think the show could be legit awesome.

Oh yeah, there are also two other guys in the band. The drummer kid was pretty endearing in the pilot, but unfortunately my brain was like, “Oh, Nico and Grady jumped networks and got different actors. Keen.” So there is a 99% chance I will never learn their characters’ actual names. Sorry, other two guys in the band.

Jess: I’m pretty sure their names are How to Nico and How to Grady.

But yeah, the good thing is that the cast seems pretty strong! I mean, no one is turning in an Emmy-winning performance here (unlike BTR’s James Maslow, who is being ROBBED, ROBBED I TELL YOU), but they’re all pretty funny and charming. Cymphonique appears to be taking a lot of inspiration from Raven, occasionally by way of Brenda Song’s London. I also quite enjoyed Lulu Antariksa as quirky girl Stevie (you can tell she’s a tough outsider because she has a boy’s name). The worst is, as always, the adult; their teacher is both a terrible actor and a terrible character.

Becky: I don’t think we’ve seen enough yet to really judge most of the other kids, talent-wise, and a lot of it is also going to come down to the material. Which makes me pretty optimistic: both episodes, though uneven, had genuinely funny lines, and some of the kids — Cymphonique and Lulu in particular, and Blond Perf — did good jobs with the delivery and the broad comedy of a kids’ show. And, aside from the awful teacher, no one else really failed to hit the punchlines, they simply haven’t been given much to do yet. So no one strikes me as awful, and everyone certainly seems to have potential. If the material shines, I think the cast could, too.

Jess: Plus, Cymphonique can actually sing and dance and rap and is generally great, so the musical numbers are fairly strong. (Lulu, singing backup, also seems to be at least a reasonably good singer.)

The show also gets kudos for diversity: Cymphonique, who is African American, plays the most popular girl in their suburban high school (middle school?), which is the kind of role that usually goes to the blondest girls the producers can find. And Guy-from-band-who-is-not-Nico-or-Grady spends some time in the second episode crushing on a girl who appears to be South Asian. It shouldn’t be so groundbreaking for a kids’ show to portray girls of color as cool or desirable, but, well, it is. So good job, show!

Overall, How to Rock is a solid B by the admittedly-low standards set by kidcoms: more coherent than a Disney show, less sociopathic than a Dan Schneider one; not as good as Big Time Rush, but worlds better than, say, Shake It Up, and with lots of potential. Your faithful bloggers will keep turning in to let you know if How to Rock learns to, well, rock.

It’s from 2009, and it surprised me, because I’m used to Ariana looking like this:

That second photo is from late 2011. Obviously the hair color is different and was required for her part on Victorious, but the rest of her styling – the straightening of her hair, the makeup, the eradication of those little wispy hairs at the hairline, common on Latina/Italian/Jewish girls but less so on those of Northern European descent – reminded me of nothing so much as this:

That’s perennial Tweenage favorite Ashley Tisdale in 2001 – before the bleaching, the straightening, the nose job. Here’s Tizz now:

Oh, and then there’s Cymphonique Miller, star of Nick’s new show How to Rock. Here she is about two years ago:

And here she is now:

(P.S. That is some awful Photoshop, Nickelodeon. Is it just me, or do her head, upper body, and legs look like three entirely different skin tones?)

All three of these girls are beautiful, before and after, and they have the right to style their hair and makeup and everything else the way they want. (Also, I actually think Tizz might have been telling the truth about her deviated septum! Hell, if I got mine fixed I’d probably ask them to shave a little off the top, too.) I am not trying to pass judgment on any of them for their styling choices. I also don’t know their lives, and have no idea how much of their changed looks was mandated by Disney/Nickelodeon, was an unspoken requirement for getting work, or was totally up to them (though I suspect Cymphonique’s dad can probably keep his daughter from being bullied by Nickelodeon image consultants – this isn’t his first rodeo). And in Cymphonique’s case there’s a lot of cultural baggage regarding African American women’s hair and natural vs. relaxed that I am not at all qualified to discuss.

But I do think it’s kind of sad that these girls have had many of their ethnic markers erased by Hollywood stylists. It comes down to the inherent racism in American culture, which privileges blonde girls with tiny noses above all other forms of beauty, and not the choices of any particular actress – but I’d hate to be a little girl watching these shows and not seeing my curly or kinky hair or hooked nose or darker skin or any number of non-Northern-European features that Hollywood tells us over and over again are ugly and unacceptable. It makes me think that we haven’t come very far since 1937, when – memo to Ariana Grande – Columbia Pictures made Margarita Carmen Cansino have her black hair electrolysis-ed and dyed flaming red and reemerge as Rita Hayworth.

These girls are all beautiful now. But they were beautiful before, too.

[Ariana pics from ArianaGrande.org, Cymphonique pics from Cymphonique-Miller.com, recent Tizz pic from ATDaily.com, and old Tizz pic from I Spy a Famous Face.]

Also, I have no idea who this Carly Rae Jepsen person is, but since I’m going to be humming this song for hours, perhaps I shall look into it.

* Supporting a long-held Tweenage theory that of the four members, James is definitely the least fun.

Ugh, she is so cute and talented. Not the greatest lip syncer, but you guys, she namedrops Gandhi and references Singin’ in the Rain and I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be a gay couple dancing behind her at the end.

Also, I think she might actually be Ariel?

Jennette McCurdy, you might have competition for the coveted role of Jess’s Favorite. (Oh, who am I kidding? They’re all my favorite.)

Pictures from Ariana Grande Online.

The Carters have had their share of troubles over the years, and House of Carters made it clear that they were all pretty well screwed up. Even sadder, Leslie leaves behind a husband and ten-month-old daughter. My heart goes out to them.

RIP, Leslie.

Anyway, rather than cover our emotional journey with Demi, let’s talk about the musical one instead:

Don’t Forget (2008)

One of the things I’ve never liked about the Jonas Brothers is the way they shove every note they sing through their throats like they’re trying to pass kidney stones. When Demi debuted she had a similar problem, made worse by the fact that the Jonas Brothers are misusing average dude voices and Demi was misusing a golden trumpet from the heavens. Her voice is so powerful that when she screams the high notes just because she can, I actually lean away from the speakers.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of leaning on this album. I blame the Jonii, who wrote six of the 11 songs. It’s only on a couple of tracks that Demi pulls back and just sings: “Until You’re Mine,” where she belts instead of screaming; “Believe in Me,” a more straight-pop song than the rest of the rock-infused album, and the lilting, music box-esque title track, where she allows some sweetness to shine through as she floats through the high notes. Mostly, though, the album is just loud.

Here We Go Again (2009)

I was pleasantly surprised by the first (and title) track of Here We Go Again, where Demi doesn’t shout at all. That’s not to say there’s no shouting on the album, but it’s been toned down a lot. Musically, though, this is an album in search of a genre. While “Quiet” and “Remember December” sound like they were intended for Don’t Forget, the fantastic “Every Time You Lie” is a hint of things to come on Unbroken, with its strong R&B flavor. “U Got Nothin’ on Me” shamelessly steals its guitar licks from the Beatles, “Falling Over Me” and “Catch Me” are both super cute, slightly generic pop songs, “Gift of a Friend” is straight-up Disney cheese, and the John Mayer-penned “World of Chances” sounds, unsurprisingly, like a John Mayer song. Some of the songs are better than others, but the overall effect is that of an album that lacks a point of view. While Here We Go Again takes away the oppressive volume of Don’t Forget, it hasn’t really replaced it with anything yet, leaving an album that’s inoffensive, but also forgettable.

Unbroken (2011)

Okay, folks, here’s where it really gets good.  I don’t know if it was the time in rehab – though some of Unbroken was written and recorded before rehab – or the fact that she’s got more time now to focus on her music, but this album blows Demi’s past efforts completely out of the water.  Like Here We Go Again, it’s multi-faceted, shifting from R&B-infused dance beats to shimmering waltzes to the musical equivalent of primal screams, but this time around there’s more of a guiding theme to tie it all together.  Unlike the dance hall sound of most of her tweendom compatriots, Demi’s gone in a more R&B direction – she cites Rihanna and Keri Hilson as influences, but I hear Mary J. Blige, TLC, Kelly Clarkson, some early Christina Aguilera, one-hit wonder Blu Cantrell, and Madonna in there too, not to mention a leeetle bit of Billy Joel.
 
The switch to R&B allows Demi to show off her voice, and holy heck, you guys, what a voice.  According to Wikipedia, she spans nearly three octaves on this album, and I believe it – just try to hit the high notes she belts in “You’re My Only Shorty.”  The two waltzes on the album (and have we discussed how much I love pop waltzes? I LOVE POP WALTZES), quite aside from being beautiful songs, are fantastic showcases for her range, both vocally and performatively: “Lightweight” layers each instrument in, including Demi’s voice(s), one by one, building to something that’s exuberantly joyful and fearful at once, while “Fix a Heart,” describing the end of a relationship, is angrier and more melancholy.  She moves easily from big, brassy songs like “All Night Long” and “In Real Life” to the featherweight falsettos of “My Love Is Like a Star.”  And yes, there is the infamous Lovato Shout – but this time it’s controlled, applied only to the two rawest songs on the album, “Skyscraper” and “For the Love of a Daughter.”  Rather than sounding like she’s shouting the notes because she can, the shouts – broken notes and all – help to convey the total emotional breakdown the songs call for – defiant on the former, despairing on the latter.
 
Finally, she’s simply working with better material.  I mean, did you ever expect Missy Elliott and Timbaland to produce and perform on an album by a Disney kid?  Demi only wrote about a third of the album (and – forgive me, Demi! – for the most part the weaker third), but she’s chosen a good stable of collaborators, shifting across genres and tones from the slinky, predatory “Who’s That Boy” to the sprightly bubblegum of “Give Your Heart a Break.”  Even when the song is cheesy (“Together”) or endearingly silly (“Hold Up”), she sings the hell out of it.
 
Let’s be honest: usually when I review an album here, I say it’s good for a tweendom star.  Unbroken isn’t just good for a tweendom star, it’s great for anyone, full stop.  Buy this album today.

(And yes, I know these are supposed to be mini reviews. Hush your face.)

All the Right Wrongs (2009)

In “I Hate the Homecoming Queen,” Emily dismissively sings, “She wants to be a model, wants to be on the tube.” That’s pretty rich coming from a former child model best known for her role as Hannah Montana’s best friend, and also kind of emblematic of the problems with this EP: Emily is desperately trying to come off as a cool, hard rocker chick, but she doesn’t have enough of a voice to overcome her baby face and Disney Channel background. Adding to her problems is the fact that a weak voice can be supported with autotune in pop music, but against the rawer sound of rock autotune just seems out of place. A couple of the songs are catchy – I really like “Average Girl” – but I’m afraid Emily’s not the right person to sing them.

Fight or Flight (2010)

Emily’s first full album shifts genres drastically from wannabe rocker to pure dancepop, and it’s the better for it. Sure, many of the songs sound like she stole them from Katy Perry in the dead of night (“Lovesick,” “Get Yer Yah-Yah’s Out,” “Truth or Dare”), but for the most part that’s a good thing. It gives her an excuse to autotune, while simultaneously using her voice better so that she needs the autotune less. (She’s also clearly had some intensive vocal training over the past few years.) While a couple of songs go too far in this direction – “All the Boys Want” just makes me want to yell “CALM DOWN” at everyone involved – others evoke a fun and vaguely British dancepop sound. “Let’s Be Friends” manages to convey sexuality while still sounding appropriately teenaged and not like a little girl trying on her mother’s high heels (ahem, MILEY). Emily even acquits herself nicely on the ballads; “Marisol” is lovely and lifts her voice without overtaxing it, while “You Get Me Through” does the opposite, sitting comfortably in the bottom of her range and creating some great counterpoint when two tracks of her voice are played simultaneously. All in all, a solid, enjoyable album, and much better than I would have expected based on her EP.