A few weeks ago, writer Jon Caramanica wrote a perceptive piece in the New York Times on a remix technique developed in the mid-1990s by the late Houston producer DJ Screw. A storied personality in the history of Southern rap, Screw would "chop and screw" his tracks with the aid of cassette players by slowing down the music to half-speed. The result, released on mixtapes (the real kind: cassettes) and sold on the streets of Houston, was a tripped-out, bugged-out sound that turned real-time 88 bpm boasts into menacing, deep, digital 44 bpm blues. At first, chopped and screwed tracks sound funny. But the more you listen, the stranger and more magnetic the music becomes.

After Screw died in 2000 -- he was addicted to cough syrup, a fact that no doubt played a part in the allure of such slow sounds -- his mixtapes became Texas talismans, underground tokens of a weird moment in rap history. David Banner's 2003 album "Mississippi: The Screwed and Chopped Album," given a reworking by chop and screw master DJ Michael Watts of the Swisha House crew, is one of the darkest, bleakest documents of the '00s.

The remix technique has continued to germinate underground since its peak in the late '90s/early '00s, and its influence has spread to a new generation of music makers -- including the loose affiliation of producers such as Salem and oOoOO creating spooky, syrupy dance tracks that fall under the so-called witch house subgenre. Last year, some joker chopped and screwed Justin Bieber, and nothing sounds more dangerous than this screwed version of "Party in the U.S.A." by Miley Cyrus.

Looks like Justin Bieber already needs to watch his back. There’s another bowl-cut-sporting YouTube teen sensation ready to step in on his territory.

Greyson Chance, the 13-year-old whose cover of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” has amassed more than 32 million views, has debuted his first single, “Waiting Outside the Lines.”

The Oklahoma middle-school prodigy posted his piano-driven take on Gaga back in April from a performance at his school’s sixth grade festival. After the video made him an instant viral star -- maybe it’s his impressive pipes, or that uncanny resemblance to Biebs -- he made an appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” where the former “American Idol” judge announced she had signed the youngster to her newly minted label, eleveneleven. 

Chance made another trip to his biggest fan’s talk show Tuesday to premiere the inspirational pop ballad, and the track is available on iTunes.

“This song comes from the heart and I hope and pray that my fans can use it to ‘escape’ from all of the pressures of life,” Chance said in a statement. “I can’t wait for everyone to take this journey with me.”

He is in the studio crafting his debut album -- and completing the seventh grade, online of course. Besides DeGeneres, Chance has a powerful machine behind him: Madonna’s longtime career overseer, Guy Oseary, and the manager for Lady Gaga, Troy Carter, will divide management duties; and the album is being overseen by hit songwriter/producer and Geffen Records chairman Ron Fair.

Listen to his debut single, “Waiting Outside the Lines” below:

— Gerrick D. Kennedy

twitter.com/GerrickKennedy

Photo credit: Aaron Pinkston

Pop & Hiss is live -- sort of! We're about 4 miles from MTV's annual pat-on-the-back party, but we're still grading all the performances as fast as we can, complete with typos. The two hours of hype will be documented here, but we also recommend you follow the tweets of our chief pop critic Ann Powers.  

 
Eminem, "Not Afraid/Love the Way You Lie." The show begins with a close-up of Eminem, his face shrouded in a hoodie, all Dungeons & Dragons sorcerer-like. But there's no 20-sided playfulness here, as Em is all solemn and serious -- stalking the stage face-down and plundering it with rhymes. "Not Afraid" is an overly forced tale of overcoming addiction, but it's stronger than anything off of last year's "Relapse." It comes alive as Em struts from a brick-adorned back room to a stage that's spread among a host of Googie-inspired symmetrics, allowing for some creative displays of light. Eminem has stolen some of Kanye West's "Heartless" drum line, and it gives the cut some award-show oomph, but doesn't add to the song's tenseness so much as explode it. The tautness comes courtesy of Rihanna, who appears onstage with a colorful, Hayley Williams-like hairdo. Her vocal delivery is straight-up stern, the perfect counterpoint to Em's more forceful hits. Overall, a solid opening: B

Justin Bieber, "Baby." Remember a couple years ago when the Jonas Brothers performed outdoors at the MTV VMAs? This year it's Bieber who’s the young'un who can't play inside with the grown-ups. He rolls up to the  downtown L.A. venue in a red convertible, chased by teenage girls. His "Baby" is fluffy retro-teen pop, and the vintage car and screaming girls attempt to connect Bieber to idols of yore. But Bieber is no Beatle, and his "Baby" is the kind of inescapable pop hit that already sounds dated, forever affixed to spring 2010. It's a sugar high, and Bieber isn't here to sing it so much as to show off his high-flying dance moves in his Team Bieber varsity jackets. But lest we think he's completely void of musical talent, he makes a brief racket on the drum set, immediately after dancing with some tykes half his size. The giant "B" on Beiber's jacket tells us what squad he’s playing for, but this belongs to the Mickey Mouse Club: D

The teen pop star shows his fans that he has the same appeal in flesh and blood as he does in the virtual world.

In under one month, 12-year-old Greyson Chance has rocketed from appearing on a sixth-grade talent show to become one of Twitter’s top trending topics, thanks to his emotional piano rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi”; a YouTube clip of it has been viewed more than 30 million times. Now, Ellen DeGeneres says she’s launching her own record label, eleveneleven, to distribute his music.

On Wednesday, just days after the Oklahoma-born tween singer first performed on her eponymous talk show, the dance-crazy DeGeneres -- who also concludes her first year as a judge on “American Idol” on Wednesday --  announced Chance as eleveneleven’s Initial Public Offering. “He inspired me to start a label,” DeGeneres said in a pre-taped clip from her show. “He is my first artist. We are making a record together. How about that?”

Chance,  who is often compared to teen pop phenom Justin Bieber because of their shaggy hairdos and ability to parlay YouTube ubiquity into recording contracts,   already has a heavy-hitting managerial team in place: Madonna’s longtime career overseer, Guy Oseary, and the manager for Lady Gaga, Troy Carter, will split management duties.

-- Chris Lee

After a full day of riding roller coasters and eating fried food at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, I figured there was no combination of words more annoying than the workers' go-to salutation -- "Have a Six Flags day."

That was until I heard someone scream, "Justin Bieber!" Again and again and again.

My path first crossed with the pop phenom as the sun began to set on Saturday night. I had been waiting for about 15 minutes to ride the Tatsu coaster. Unlike most at the park, the popular, dragon-themed ride maintains two carts on two sets of tracks in order to load the multitude of riders quickly.

But as I neared the front of the line, the cycle stopped. Employees paused for several minutes, as the loading gates remained closed. Operators tend to alert riders when a coaster has been shut down for temporary maintenance, but this time, no one picked up the intercom.

An explanation came from a young girl nearby who was leaning over the railing, partaking in the pastime of people-watching to alleviate boredom.

"Justin Bieber!" she shrieked. Her friends' ears perked up like wolves. They joined in on the railing and the scream fest. In unison, they reached into their handbags for digital cameras.

Bieber and a few friends filed through an alternate route into the loading area. Workers ushered them to the front of the ride, harnessed them into their spots and latched the nearly two dozen remaining seats. The adjacent cart stayed stagnant until Bieber's rode around the tracks and returned.

Heading into 2010, the safe bet on the pop-breakout story of the year was Ke$ha, whose Auto-Tuned anthem to drunken revelry, "Tik Tok," was topping the charts. Her debut, "Animal," has certainly racked up its share of sales, all while Ke$ha has given a top-40 face to Echo Park party girls.Yet the sales stories of 2010 have been teen star Justin Bieber and country riser Lady Antebellum.   

In just two weeks on the U.S. pop chart, Bieber's "My World 2.0" (Island) has topped 670,000 in sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The good-humored kid, whose tales of junior-high innocence are laced with world-class club production, some courtesy of mentor Usher, has been everywhere of late, including FunnyOrDie.com and "Saturday Night Live." His album sold 102,000 copies this week and has moved a total of 676,000. 

It's one of two Bieber titles in the top 10. His "My World," released late last year, sits at No. 8, having sold another 30,000 copies this week. To date, the 2009 effort has shifted a mighty 1.2-million copies. Trade magazine Billboard, which maintains the U.S. pop charts, won't release singles data until Thursday, but Bieber's went into the week at No. 8 on the singles tally.

If Bieber is for the young'uns, Lady Antebellum satisfies a more adult niche. The country act's sophomore Capitol Nashville effort, "Need You Now," led by by the late-night-rendezvous tale of the title track, continues to impress. After 11 weeks, the title is still in the top 5 and sold another 60,000 copies this week. That gives the title a to-date tally of 1.7 million. "Need You Now" is the top-selling album of 2010, thus far.

The story behind teen sensation Justin Bieber’s rise to fame has, at this point, become almost as famous as the mop-haired singer himself. After competing in a local talent competition in his native Canada at the tender age of 13, Bieber and his mom posted videos of him singing online to share with his distant relatives.

Those videos were noticed by Scooter Braun, a 28-year-old Atlanta-based manager who had previously worked with Asher Roth. Eager to meet Bieber, Braun tracked him down, persuaded him and his mother to fly to Atlanta — on their first airplane flight — for a meeting. That was where Bieber famously ran into Usher Raymond in a parking lot, an occurrence that led the R&B star to go to bat for the then-unknown, helping him land a professional deal and forming a joint-venture label with Braun and Antonio "L.A." Reid, the chairman of Island Def Jam Music Group.

In a story in Saturday’s paper, we spent a day with Bieber to find out what it’s really like being in the spotlight at age 16. It’s something Usher, who also found success at a young age, knows a lot about. We talked to him about his relationship with Bieber, including the advice he dispenses to his young protégé. Here’s what he had to say.

What initially appealed to you about Justin?

I think it was, first and foremost, his charming, winning, timeless attitude. It’s as though he had been here before. When I met him, his personality won me over. When he sang, I realized we were dealing with the real thing. His voice just spoke to the type of music I would want to be associated with. And it wasn’t a gimmick — we had to teach him how to dance and be on stage, but he really had a good voice.

So you really ran into him for the first time in a parking lot?

He was there in the parking lot of Jermaine Dupri’s studio, so of course I knew that Scooter [Braun], his manager, was there meeting Jermaine. And Justin offered to sing for me. But I didn’t want to intrude on anything going on, and I thought it would be disrespectful to have him sing for me there. I wanted to arrange a meeting at another place and time so we’d have an opportunity for us to really talk and not just rush through it. I told him to come inside, because it was very cold outside and he wanted to sing for me right then, right there! Which is so funny, because I can remember being that same kid. I’d speak to Keith Sweat and other artists when I was a kid.

And obviously, you followed up on your offer?

Yeah, I reached back out to Scooter, and we arranged a meeting. After watching his videos online, I thought, man, this kid has an incredible voice, I’d like to see him in person. To my surprise, he was everything I thought he would be. Being able to play guitar and all of those things were a great foundation for him. I thought, given his confident understanding, that we could teach him how to play to a large audience and get ready for videos and that this could be a success.

But you were almost too late, right? Wasn’t Justin Timberlake already interested in working with Justin when you came along?

It was Justin Timberlake first. I’d almost missed the boat, and Justin was scheduled to meet Justin Timberlake in L.A. with Jimmy Iovine. So I said, “I really believe in this kid’s talent, and I have what it takes to introduce him in the right way. I want to give a wealth of information to him. I understand the process you’re gonna go through and going through vocal changes. I understand what it is to go from scratch and his passion and how to nurture who he is.” And, luckily, he trusted me -- was enough of a fan of mine -- to take a shot.

Teen star of the moment Justin Bieber has taken a page from the Taylor Swift book of starmaking, using April 1 to show off a sense of humor. Sketch comedy site FunnyorDie.com received a makeover today aimed straight at the heart of America's tween population. Renamed BieberorDie, there's a host of outrageous videos on the site, all of them far more entertaining than much of "My World 2.0," although such opinion belongs solely to this writer, as Pop & Hiss has previously caught some Bieber fever. 

In the April Fool's Day manifesto, Bieber explains his reckless attitude: "I talk loudly in libraries, and I swim directly after I eat. I don't care." If only his choruses were so much fun.

-- Todd Martens