TEEN POP STARS

I think it has something to do with the way these songs tend to approach the tropes of pop music in such a knowingly referential way. They know what pop music looks and sounds like, and there's a sense of aspiration where these kids are trying to ape their favourite stars, and in doing so they create a legitimate piece of pop. So many of these songs are about the fantasy of being a pop star, the idea of singing in front of the mirror with a hairbrush, and yet at the same time these kids are, to all intents and purposes, successfully living out this fantasy right in front of us. It's uncanny and disorienting.

Reading this thread reminded of this article which is about the idea of 'pop' vs 'non-pop' and it talks about the tendency for pop music (especially teen pop) to be hyper self-aware and self-referential www.tinymixtapes.com/features/pop-non-pop-after-the-conceptual-turn

"In September 2013, 14-year-old US pop star Madison Beer released “Melodies.” The video starts with Justin Bieber listening to the song on a set of purple Beats speakers. “You hear that, Ryan?” he asks. “That’s a smash.” He signs a set of matching purple headphones, puts them in a big red box, and we cut to Madison opening said box somewhere in middle America. She takes out her newly Bieber-pimped Beats, puts them on, and hears herself singing. “I hear melodies in my head, hear melodies in my head, hear melodies in my head… My heart is a beating drum, repeating my favorite song.” This, then, is an earworm about the fact that it’s an earworm. This is pop eating itself."