The Great and Powerful Scene

Has anyone noticed a disturbing correlation between the awful, glam rock, hair-metal bands of the 80's, and today's current 'indie/scene/emo' hair bands?

I certainly have.

Allow me to point out some of these similarities.

First and foremost, there's the hair:





Today the hair is a little different, but let's be honest... it's just as bad:

'Guys, how about we all wear red t-shirts with black ties. It'll be like we match, but our hair is so unique that it'll set us apart.'


'Are the spikes distributed evenly across the back of my head? Ok take the picture, quick!'



Then there are the terrible costumes and makeup:

That's right, the Ultimate Warrior used to front a hair band.


'Wouldn't it be great if we all actually had vaginas?'


And again, plenty of bands follow suit today. But the trick is, since every band today wants to be 'indie', they have to be much more subtle about their costume. They must appear as if they're going against the grain, and doing something completely unique. And so their anti-costume becomes their costume.

Here are a few examples of anti-costume costumes:

The kid on the far left here, oddly enough, freaks me out the most... look at his eyes.
'I will suck your blood. That's right... YOU!'


I can imagine the photo shoot director here, 'Ok guys, give me a look like you don't care what people think of you. And let's try the pink eye shadow this time. It really makes your eyes pop.'


The guy on the left was kicked out of the band shortly after this picture was taken. There's no smiling (or even smirking) allowed.


I can't really tell what's going on in the picture below... there's an enormous cloud of egos blocking whatever it is.


The kid in the middle here is flashing a secret scene band gang sign. I think it means, 'I can't believe so many people actually take us seriously'. Although it could also denote the size of his scene penis.



So... aside from the obvious image similarities, what else do the scene hair bands of today have in common with 80's hair bands?

Let's see...

Cheesy synthesizers? Check!

Astoundingly overt arrogance? Absolutely. More than ever.

Songs that attempt to sound bigger than they really are? You'd better believe it. The term 'epic' is far too casually thrown around today, even when describing a 3-minute generic pop song.

A vast over-population of these kind of bands? Double check!

Meaningless, vague, cliche lyrics? Definitely, although I'd argue that today's lyrics are worse than ever. For example:

(From the very popular song, Girls Do What They Want, by The Maine)
She's 18 and a beauty queen
She's figured out all the boys like me
Head to toe you know she's dressed to kill (dressed to kill)
And she could the way she's looking at me
It's her face and those eyes, I can't escape 'em
It's that mouth and those lies, try not to taste 'em

That's just the way things are, and the way they'll aways be

Girls do what they want
Whoa, whoa
Boys do what they can
Girls do what they want
Whoa, whoa
Boys do what they can

(That's just the way things are)

Because the boys are feeling jealous
And it just doesn't make any sense
Go on and tell 'em why the girls are into fellas
That toss 'em to the side in the end
And you know that all the
The boys are falling in love
With the girls who don't know what's up
I think we've all had enough of this now
These kids are talking 'bout love
We think we've all had enough
We've had enough of this now

I've certainly had enough of this now.

I'd say it's pretty obvious that there are way too many similarities between the 80's and the 00's... But are there any differences?

There is just one MAJOR difference.
And that is the band's ability to perform their own songs live. In the 80's, it wasn't all that bad going to concerts because the bands, no matter how arrogant and ridiculous-looking they were, could play the crap out of their instruments; and the singers could actually sing like they did on the albums. There was no such thing as auto-tuning. Bands nowadays are in trouble because they make these elaborate, over-produced and layered, robotic-sounding records... and they can't do them ANY justice in their live shows.

The singers can't sing, so they definitely can't do any of the layered harmonies from the record. There's only one singer (who can hardly sing to begin with) sometimes accompanied by one awful background singer. It's as if singing was an afterthought.

And they can hardly play their own instruments. It's more about looking cool than actually playing. If you have the right moves it doesn't matter what you play or don't play. Watch for the hair flips, the guitar spins and tosses, the jump kicks, the guys spinning in circles... It's like watching a really lame, repetetive circus; with guys who aren't circus performers, and aren't doing anything particularly exciting. I like to imagine them without their guitars, practicing those moves in the mirror. Guitars give many people a false sense of awesomeness. One of my favorite moves is the lead singer bent over - as if they were going to poop standing up, and watch it drop between their legs - with feet awkwardly turned inward, and one hand on the mic (with neon tape wrapped around it) and the other hand stretched out behind them. Another classic lead singer move right now is the hand stretched out, palm out (if you're lucky, they'll have something awesome written on their hand like, 'Heartbreaker'). I don't understand this one.


Let's just hope that the 2010's are to the 2000's, as the 90's were to the 80's:

The end.