Thoughts on the EMAs and other things...
Thoughts on EMA and other things…
Why so serious...? Well, the Joker would certainly want to make some changes on my face right now. I’m of course ecstatic about the boys’ EMA triumph, even more so because I didn’t think it possible. There was strong competition, but then again who can compete with fans who spend days voting, clicking the button until their fingers fall off? Does it make their win worth less? Does it mean anything at all? I mean come on! this is MTV and this is pop music. It’s an industry and it’s as fake as it can get. One could even venture to say, when you fail to win an award then you can know you are doing real music. It sounds terrible, but let’s be honest we live in a world of instant stars and pre-designed preferences. They keep pushing something down your throat until you start to like it. Soon you don’t even remember you didn’t want it in the first place.
And then there’s the sex, of course. Sex sells, and this maxim has never been more obviously, blatantly, shamelessly and yes, pathetically flauted in an audience’s face than on the night of the EMAs. Beginning with Katy Perry’s desperate attempt at concealing her shortcomings as an entertainer and host in general by exposing skin, to Beyonce’s stage outfit which was worthy of an honest sex worker’s in an exclusive brothel - the sad thing about it is that next year there will be nothing left to shed than their own skin. And here an image from Robbie Williams’s Rock DJ video flashes up in my mind.
Was it worth it at all? I mean it was a mediocre show at best because the performers and their songs are also mediocre as almost anything in pop music nowadays (that’s the point of pop, right?). Beyonce with her three wins and her hubby with one is just a glaring proof of the pop industry’s corporatism. It’s in the family. If you don’t belong, you don’t get a share. And yet. Tokio Hotel wins, because even if they are hated with a fervour that I deem almost unprecedented in music history, they are also loved with such fanatism that can overcome preconcieved notions of who is to be popular and on what basis.
The boys win and as far as I could judge from my living room the atmosphere was more of consternation than of anything else. Raiding the forums, one encounters accounts which try to gloss over the fact, but if you read between the lines it’s clear, the number of fans in proportion to the non-fans in the venue is a perfect representation of the real-life situation regarding TH’s popularity. It’s marginal. And yet they win. They seem to be mainstream and they are not. They are trying so hard to conform to the norms according to which someone becomes mainstream and thus popular, but they fail again and again, risking losing old fans who miss the authenticity that used to make them into who they were. They are losing on both fronts, and still they win. The question is how long this rope-dancing can go on without a spectacular fall into the abyss below. If it happens, I’m sorry to say, it will be the band’s fault, or more precisely the management’s fault.
When I wrote my album review, my only concern was with their failing to find their audience with the new music. It has become reality. And it’s mainly their fault. I love the album, because it is exactly my taste in music, but I can’t not see its shortcomings, its many compromises which are actually glaring. What is a song like Alien doing on a record that’s supposed to show the world how matured TH has become? Comparing the lyrics of Komm with its English counterpart, the latter one feels almost like a betrayal. Reducing something almost poetically esotheric and meaningful into a simple ‘make some noise’ call out to the masses is exactly the kind of attitude that makes the band lose authenticity and credibility. Luckily, this kind of reduction of meaning in Dogs Unleashed and Hey you actually broadens the scope of the songs instead of just taking something away. I love my little Androids, but that’s just me. But when Automatic’s message of rejecting artificiality and dishonesty gets turned into the platitude ‘I hate you but I still love you’ then it’s just plain sad.
The band should be in an era of transition now, instead they are stuck in a kind of limbo which I think has been brough upon them by their management and label. The guys with the money always play it safe. There should have been some definitive steps taken, instead they made loads of compromises. And that’s why the masses don’t really know what to think of the album. At the same time, this prevarication is undestandable. Until the band’s image does not go through a complete make-over, there’s no point in releasing music meant completely for a mature audience.
Every fan, who does not voluntarily closes their eyes to reality, knows that the greatest obstacle standing between TH and general acclaim is their image and Bill’s styling. If they decide to give up on it, the fangirls will leave, but the question is will new, more mature people hop on the bandwagon? At this moment it seems a no win situation. No wonder remaking yourself from teenyband into a serious one is one of the hardest things in the music industry, if not outright impossible without disappearing for a couple of years and then returning like we have seen Take That or Backstreet do it.
The key is honesty, I think. I can see some changes underway when I read the newer interviews, but too much is smeared or swept under the proverbial rug. It’s the policy of non-confrontation and it comes from trying too hard. Why is Tom still blabbering about Jessica Alba? Why is it that every time a reporter decides to turn the attention on Georg for a change, Tom always interrupts with bullshit about the Hoff as if there wasn’t anything else to Georg than his alleged love for the guy. Why is it that they don’t talk properly about the stalker situtation - even from the truly amazing RTL interview the most intimate parts have been cut out, on whose authority, no one can know. Honesty has already shown its usefulness with the afformentioned TV special. It was honest, it was straightforward and people have appreciated that - people who so far have snubbed TH, didn’t take them seriously or laughed at them. It’s a whole lot of false pretensions and bad image that this band has to fight off and get rid of and honesty has already proved itself the right way.
But can there be any talk about honesty, seeing TH’s preformance at the EMAs? I tried to like it, I really did, but all it brought out of me was an extended cringe. Not because of the set up or the pyro. That was fine. It was because of Bill and the way he presented himself. I try not to, but I have this cursed ability which allows me to see things through other people’s eyes. And I just couldn’t not see Bill through the eyes of the many people out there who hate him or are neutral to him at best. The way he moved was definitely cringeworthy, almost embarrassing. This performance was choreographed from the first moment to the last and Bill just went throught the motions like an obedient, mindless doll. What is more, he overplayed it ridiculously. And that’s my point. He is trying too hard when he performs in front of a hostile or non-fan audience. And it’s the wrong deicision.
But can you blame him for being afraid? I myself would be petrified if I had to throw myself to the wolves and do it with a smile on my face. I know he says he doesn’t care, I know you can learn to shut all the hatred out, but it no way does not affect you at least unconsciously. That’s what I thought when they went out there to receive their award. No matter how hard this boy is trying, no matter what he does, he just can’t make himself be accepted. There really must be a serious exhibitionist streak in him - in the 100% interview he claimed that being talked about even if with hatred is better than not being talked about at all. My first reaction was to call ‘liar!’, but actually this is exactly how exhibitionist people see the world. I’m no such person, of course to me it’s a foreign concept. Still, I can’t believe in his statement completely. It must hurt to hear those offences coming at you, those booing voices, the whistling or the lack of applaud after your performance. You must really believe in what you are doing to be able to go on with it, swimming up against the tide.
So the conclusion? Decisions have to be made. A choice between popular awards like EMAs or real acclaim. Only few bands can do both. TH could do both, but they’d have to start from scratch again and build up a reputation completely independent of what they have achieved so far. And that’s not something to let go of so easily. It’s also incredibly risky and the label will stand in the way. The label will or has already made their decision about the fate of the band. Either they milk them for all they are worth until the project is dry as the Sahara and then chuck them out the window, or they see the potential in them for a longer career and allow them to develop, to grow, to really change. But then it has to stop with the Hoff comments and Bill also has to give up on some of his beloved styling. He would have to realise that losing some of the make-up and hair spray would not make him less. On the contrary, it would make him more.