Teen Pop

Just after the Bratz dolls and the Power Rangers get laid aside in favor of videogames and makeup kits, pop shifts into high energy. Once the province of boy bands, it's now territory where the grrrrrls rule with sugar and spice and everything naughty. Sure, we'll allow the occasional Goudie or Timberlake, but these Essentials belong to the likes of Avril, Nelly, Britney, and Christina.

This is the kind of music that will grab you right around the ears and hang on: nothing subtle about it, which is the reason we're driven to listen. The Spice Girls didn't ask our permission — they told us what they wanted (what they really, really wanted) in terms that empowered a global army of future Spice Women. Equally feisty is P!nk on "There You Go."

After you get past the factory-fresh, MTV-minted assortment of this year's models, there's a ton of great, young artists out there. Some are about due to graduate to the next demographic, some of them are, well, new kids on the block ready to move into prime time. It's all good, especially when Skye Sweetnam and Fefe Dobson are turning up the heat.

Right around the time girls suddenly stop having cooties and boys begin to get all . . . weird, there's a perfect instant in pop, delicate as a butterfly and resilient as a skateboard deck. Our Teen Pop Essentials capture that crazy, hormone-driven, can't-believe-the-parents-are-so-clueless worldview and serve it up in neat, three-minute slices. Unlike teen pop stars of the past, whose sentiment was a little more innocent, today's performers exhibit an edgier view of the world they inhabit.