More kingdoms they can conquer
Camped out with their musical director Zoux inside a Burbank rehearsal studio earlier this week, 18-year-old Alyson Michalka and her 16-year-old sister, Amanda -- known to throngs of Radio Disney listeners as Aly & AJ -- are deep in discussion over the precise placement of a guttural "hunh" sound in "Bullseye," a tune from their new album, "Insomniatic."
Aly thinks there should be more space between the "hunh" and the "Hit it!" that follows. AJ favors a tighter transition. Zoux, a man who's clearly grown accustomed to the vicissitudes of teenage girlhood, allows the sisters to work out the issue themselves. Once they do, it's on to the next problem: What's the best way to replicate onstage a flutter of reverse-run vocals in "Potential Breakup Song," the new CD's breezy lead single?
That attention to non-lip-gloss-related detail isn't necessarily what you'd expect from Aly & AJ's tween-pop peer group, a high-ponytailed pack that also includes fellow Radio Disney heavyweights the Cheetah Girls and Miley Cyrus (a.k.a. Hannah Montana).
But Aly & AJ aren't terribly interested in upholding expectations: Though they've become Mouse House staples thanks to a string of Disney Channel fare -- including the movie "Cow Belles" and the series "Phil of the Future" -- the sisters, and their handlers, are aiming for success beyond the confines of Mickey's Magic Kingdom.
In fact, they've already begun to taste it: Thanks largely to Top 40 radio's embrace of "Rush," the high-spirited single that exhorted listeners to "be every color that you are," Aly & AJ's 2005 debut album "Into the Rush" has sold nearly 800,000 copies -- solid numbers in this moment of widespread record-industry crisis.
"The unique thing about Aly & AJ," says their manager, Gerry Cagle, "is that they're in a position where even though they're partnered with Disney, they're not owned by Disney. So we get to use the tremendous machinery Disney's developed but we can have them grow up too, whereas most Disney acts are forced to stay within the Disney demographic."
That growth is on full display throughout "Insomniatic" (due July 10), which finds the sisters shading the debut album's just-be-yourself positivity with frankly phrased accounts of romantic turmoil. ("We got along until you did that," they sneer in "Potential Breakup Song." "Now all I want is just my stuff back.") The music is an eclectic, adventurous blend of folky guitars, pumped-up dance beats and tasty synthesizer noises that AJ rightly calls "ear candy."
