They were marketing me as a teen idol, when the stuff on the record was not what teen idols were doing at the time.

Springfield is reflecting on the mismatch between an artist’s self-conception and the entertainment industry’s branding. He suggests that his label/publicity machine pushed him into the “teen idol” category—an image associated with safe, lightweight, youth-targeted pop—while he believed his recorded material had different aims or a different sound than what that category typically implied at the time. The quote highlights a recurring tension in pop-rock careers: commercial positioning can boost visibility but also distort audience expectations, narrow critical reception, and leave the artist feeling misrepresented. It also hints at the frustration of being judged by packaging rather than by the work itself.