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.

It's the kind of music that will grab you right around the ears and hang on; nothing subtle about it, which is a lot of the reason we're driven to listen. And hey, what guy wouldn't have wanted to help poor Britney out when she sang "Oops…I Did It Again!?"

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 — ahem — new kids on the block ready to move into prime time. It's all good.

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. Teen pop captures that crazy, hormone-driven, can't-believe-the-parents-are-so-clueless slices of audio confection and serves them 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.