Dear Claudio Sanchez: Marry me. Love, Inga.
I simply could not survive without Coheed and Cambria.
Avenged Sevenfold, however, is an entirely different story. I realized, watching their concert last night, that they and similar bands are to be the popular-music voice of the current adolescent culture. To review, then: their graphics were resurrected nineties-metal-rock banners (for example, US and Confederate flags with the stars replaced by their bat-skull insignia), things I would expect to see on a Spinal Tap stage, except that Avenged was serious...dang.... Their filler music was all recorded clips from well-known themes or movies -- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Beetlejuice, These are a Few of my Favorite Things, etc. Their clothes were a hybrid between the aforementioned nineties-metal and the kind of scene clothes the freshmen started wearing at my school after they all simultaneously bought their first My Chemical Romance CD.
In summation, aside from the music being played, every single element of the Avenged stage was something borrowed from someone else. Forgive me if I can't help but think of the study done on small children that found that they love repetition more than most other medium patterns -- the same study that lead to TV shows like Teletubbies.
And what about the band itself was to be loved? The lead singer, I realized, would have to be the main draw for the adolescent culture that I saw being jubilantly crushed to indiscrimanent pulp in the mosh pits below the stage. This singer does not have a good singing voice. He can hold a beat, but his range is practically null, and the sound not particularily enticing. However, if you watched closely, you realized that he had amazing stage prescence. He was big and muscular, among a band of mostly emaciated half-rockers, and had the timing of particular sweeping movements down to an instinctual art. Imagine, if you will, the masterful body arrangements you see in the massively-popular and wholly-energetic preachers when they are "on fire with the Word of God," and you will see a picture of the body language of this singer. How easy, then, to wrap a young unaware crowd around your finger, to make them worship you!
Yes, I am diving too deep with this, turning a 85% talentless band into a sociological study. I think it may still be pertinent, though.
Take a youth culture, and show it a picture of a bat-winged skull. Most of those who will respond favorably will do so because it represents a deviation from the traditional Christian culture-moralities of their parents. Better yet, it is an easily recognizable deviation from the traditional, something similar to things they've seen on TV thousands of times before, as part of any stereotypical representation of a hard rock band. There's safety in that kind of deviation to a young rebel, the ones still earning their pterodactyl wings: they know they can rally under such a banner and be assured of a mutual base of supporters. It takes a sort of independence and bravery you can't find easily in the 12-16 year-old population to support a band or symbol no one has ever seen before (don't think in terms of "I knew Fallout Boy first!!!!!" -- think of The Decemberists, or Sigur Ros, or Tegan and Sarah.) This is not a demographic looking to be alienated: it's one looking for acceptance, and assignation to a mass culture that will protect them socially while still offering the veneer of "independence."
And now, best of all, cinch this newly-birthed identity together in a singular idol, given the power position standing five feet above the crowd, a single person whose very eminence of self-assurance (ha! I'll get back to that one!) and area-authority is to such a great extent that it can actually reassure the worshipping audience of safety. There's no conventionality to take down this guy, the thought becomes. And they can continue to scream and throw themselves at stage with no qualms.
My side note about the singer's assurance: he used up several key points in his performance glancing back over his left shoulder, to the area opposite the general-admittance doors, to the well-lit circle where the be-suited money-holding authorities watched, those who owned the concert hall and recognize it as a business expenditure rather than a music experience. Specifically, he glanced that direction several times during his between-song dialogues on how those motherfuckers who don't like us, we don't give a shit about them! This is the truth: that man was scared to death up on stage. He was about to disintegrate from terror. Instead, he shouted louder than necessary; nothing, though, could save him from that telling mistake of glancing backward, breaking eye contact with the crowd to mark the position of his managers and entrepreneurs.
I suppose that is the pathetic thing about all these bands: that they're being funded. They certainly didn't pay for those massive banners or steel-colored bat sculptures themselves, nor took the money for use of the concert hall from their own wallets. No, they signed contracts instead, using the same company-embossed bic pens any other layman would employ in any other business venture. But I digress.
The adolescent culture worries me. Not this specific one, just the idea that we as a society have identified a separate age category -- adults with none of the responsibilities of adulthood -- and then funnelled disposable money and excess free time into at. Of course they will rally under crowded banners of "nonconformity"! Of course they will rebel! What did you expect them to do?
If I ever have children, I am taking them, right at the age of 12, to a third world country, and we are going to volunteer to help a poor family or orphanage plow fields for a few weeks; because by God, they are going to recognize the value of their excess, and the meaning of individuality and self-determination.
I feel old.
Avenged Sevenfold, however, is an entirely different story. I realized, watching their concert last night, that they and similar bands are to be the popular-music voice of the current adolescent culture. To review, then: their graphics were resurrected nineties-metal-rock banners (for example, US and Confederate flags with the stars replaced by their bat-skull insignia), things I would expect to see on a Spinal Tap stage, except that Avenged was serious...dang.... Their filler music was all recorded clips from well-known themes or movies -- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Beetlejuice, These are a Few of my Favorite Things, etc. Their clothes were a hybrid between the aforementioned nineties-metal and the kind of scene clothes the freshmen started wearing at my school after they all simultaneously bought their first My Chemical Romance CD.
In summation, aside from the music being played, every single element of the Avenged stage was something borrowed from someone else. Forgive me if I can't help but think of the study done on small children that found that they love repetition more than most other medium patterns -- the same study that lead to TV shows like Teletubbies.
And what about the band itself was to be loved? The lead singer, I realized, would have to be the main draw for the adolescent culture that I saw being jubilantly crushed to indiscrimanent pulp in the mosh pits below the stage. This singer does not have a good singing voice. He can hold a beat, but his range is practically null, and the sound not particularily enticing. However, if you watched closely, you realized that he had amazing stage prescence. He was big and muscular, among a band of mostly emaciated half-rockers, and had the timing of particular sweeping movements down to an instinctual art. Imagine, if you will, the masterful body arrangements you see in the massively-popular and wholly-energetic preachers when they are "on fire with the Word of God," and you will see a picture of the body language of this singer. How easy, then, to wrap a young unaware crowd around your finger, to make them worship you!
Yes, I am diving too deep with this, turning a 85% talentless band into a sociological study. I think it may still be pertinent, though.
Take a youth culture, and show it a picture of a bat-winged skull. Most of those who will respond favorably will do so because it represents a deviation from the traditional Christian culture-moralities of their parents. Better yet, it is an easily recognizable deviation from the traditional, something similar to things they've seen on TV thousands of times before, as part of any stereotypical representation of a hard rock band. There's safety in that kind of deviation to a young rebel, the ones still earning their pterodactyl wings: they know they can rally under such a banner and be assured of a mutual base of supporters. It takes a sort of independence and bravery you can't find easily in the 12-16 year-old population to support a band or symbol no one has ever seen before (don't think in terms of "I knew Fallout Boy first!!!!!" -- think of The Decemberists, or Sigur Ros, or Tegan and Sarah.) This is not a demographic looking to be alienated: it's one looking for acceptance, and assignation to a mass culture that will protect them socially while still offering the veneer of "independence."
And now, best of all, cinch this newly-birthed identity together in a singular idol, given the power position standing five feet above the crowd, a single person whose very eminence of self-assurance (ha! I'll get back to that one!) and area-authority is to such a great extent that it can actually reassure the worshipping audience of safety. There's no conventionality to take down this guy, the thought becomes. And they can continue to scream and throw themselves at stage with no qualms.
My side note about the singer's assurance: he used up several key points in his performance glancing back over his left shoulder, to the area opposite the general-admittance doors, to the well-lit circle where the be-suited money-holding authorities watched, those who owned the concert hall and recognize it as a business expenditure rather than a music experience. Specifically, he glanced that direction several times during his between-song dialogues on how those motherfuckers who don't like us, we don't give a shit about them! This is the truth: that man was scared to death up on stage. He was about to disintegrate from terror. Instead, he shouted louder than necessary; nothing, though, could save him from that telling mistake of glancing backward, breaking eye contact with the crowd to mark the position of his managers and entrepreneurs.
I suppose that is the pathetic thing about all these bands: that they're being funded. They certainly didn't pay for those massive banners or steel-colored bat sculptures themselves, nor took the money for use of the concert hall from their own wallets. No, they signed contracts instead, using the same company-embossed bic pens any other layman would employ in any other business venture. But I digress.
The adolescent culture worries me. Not this specific one, just the idea that we as a society have identified a separate age category -- adults with none of the responsibilities of adulthood -- and then funnelled disposable money and excess free time into at. Of course they will rally under crowded banners of "nonconformity"! Of course they will rebel! What did you expect them to do?
If I ever have children, I am taking them, right at the age of 12, to a third world country, and we are going to volunteer to help a poor family or orphanage plow fields for a few weeks; because by God, they are going to recognize the value of their excess, and the meaning of individuality and self-determination.
I feel old.