why 5ive will make you feel all right, or, the demise of society in post 80s sobriety
preface: i'm drunk.
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chapter one (of one):
5ive is (was) a "band" from england.
band, in a loose construction of the word, because they were a boy band. they had a backing band, made up primarily of large, black men. but "5ive" was a band of five young men (j, ab, rich, sean and scott) from manchester-ish who happened to be convinced that dancing in metallic jackets and counting down in songs was really something they ought to be getting up to. oh, and also being owned by simon cowell.
now, "band" means many things, but most applicably:
band (n.)
1) A group of people: a band of outlaws.
2) A group of animals.
3) Anthropology. A unit of social organization especially among hunter-gatherers, consisting of a usually small number of families living together cooperatively.
4) Canadian. An aboriginal group officially recognized as an organized unit by the Canadian government. See Usage Note at First Nation.
5) A group of musicians who perform as an ensemble.
now, obviously, 5ive is not canadian, so scratch #4. they are however, 1, 2, 3, and (gasp) 5.
don't question the genius.
anyways, apparently you don't have to play an instrument to be in a band. you just have to be a musician who performs.
this is not my point, and i digress.
5ive, backstreet boys, and nsync are highly considered to be the representation of all that was wrong with the late ninties; facades, farce, matching outfits, groomed perfection, glossy rose-tinted music, defined muscles.
but i beg to differ; i think that the boy bands of the ninties (not to be confused with the equally problematic but much more obnoxious boy bands of the 00s, namely AAR, fall out boy, all those other fuckers) were really what was RIGHT with the late ninties.
the 1980s saw a world of cocaine induced acceptance; snow was falling on cedars, glass coffee tables and long fingernails. the world was glam, you were glam, i was glam (i was actually a very un-glam infant, but whatever).
movies like scarface depict the surreality of living in the overhyped, oversexed, oversensualized, overtly selfaware 1980s; who wasn't a fucking pfeiffer?? and by the 1990s, the 1980s were so "over", in more ways than chronology.
what the world needed was a sort of saccharin societal coma to save us from the lifetime of brimstone that the decadent 80s pretty much guaranteed.
what the world needed was boy bands.
fuck punk music.
fuck emo music.
fuck indie.
fuck alternative.
for the first time EVER, mainstream was actually IN. mainstream was mainstream was mainstream. boy bands KNEW they were average. boy bands KNEW what they were doing. boy bands KNEW that singing about canary love and vague notebook scribble fodor would resonant not only with the youth of the 90s, but with their parents, who were scrambling to make up for any 1980s lapses in judgement and to protect their offspring from a fucking ski slope rehash. (though i don't know how much hash was actually involved.)
now i don't know if my parents ever did coke. christ, i don't know if my parents ever even DRANK coke. but what i DO know, was that any parent who witnessed the 80s with any semblance of cognency only wanted to protect/shield/buffer their children from the same mistakes that were made in their era.
and how reassuring must it have been for a child to blast bouncy music from their bedroom, to sing along with lyrics like "slam dunk da funk". to listen to songs that used words like "jiggy" in all seriousness.
to know that lyrics like "baby when da lights go out, i'll show you what its all about" were really fleeting, really quite meaningless, because they never actually described anything more than a lingering kiss and a mild fingering.
to know that your child would be safe from what you did. or at least dreamed about doing.
and now the demise of society comes in.
fast foward to the 2000s.
we recoil from the mcbands of yore.
we laugh in the face of manufactured.
we scoff at the very mention of color coordianted down vests and head mics.
and look where that's gotten us.
look at the black painted, bulletproof vested, eyelinered buffoons dominating kroq, mtv, and all those other nonsensical mediums of "popular" culture.
we've gotten to a place where "popular" is "unpopular", "unpopular" is "popular", and those two aren't mutally exclusive.
and the backwards thinking of scenesters/hipsters and all those others that think themselves to be part of some sort of secret underground following really just throws us back to the late 1970s when people were thinking that punk music was actually revolutionary, and was actually making changes in the face of music.
yeah, it didn't.
and guess what... your "band" (you know, the one with the irritatingly lengthy name, peppered with unnecessary [and grammatically incorrect] punctuation) is meaningless, too.
and get this! it's even MORE meaningless than boy bands.
because in 50 years, people won't talk about your fucking all-american-charlotte-simple-fall-out-plan-linkin-panic!-voltas. they'll be talking about nsync and backstreet.
because, just like with punk in the 70s and early 80s, your aboveunderground bands are of little consequence.
i guaran-fucking-tee you: nobody will being singing along to "sugar we're goin' down".
but you put on "tearin up my heart"... the world will be yours.
because 5ive (and bsb and nsync) will always make you feel all right.
----------------------------------------------------------
chapter one (of one):
5ive is (was) a "band" from england.
band, in a loose construction of the word, because they were a boy band. they had a backing band, made up primarily of large, black men. but "5ive" was a band of five young men (j, ab, rich, sean and scott) from manchester-ish who happened to be convinced that dancing in metallic jackets and counting down in songs was really something they ought to be getting up to. oh, and also being owned by simon cowell.
now, "band" means many things, but most applicably:
band (n.)
1) A group of people: a band of outlaws.
2) A group of animals.
3) Anthropology. A unit of social organization especially among hunter-gatherers, consisting of a usually small number of families living together cooperatively.
4) Canadian. An aboriginal group officially recognized as an organized unit by the Canadian government. See Usage Note at First Nation.
5) A group of musicians who perform as an ensemble.
now, obviously, 5ive is not canadian, so scratch #4. they are however, 1, 2, 3, and (gasp) 5.
don't question the genius.
anyways, apparently you don't have to play an instrument to be in a band. you just have to be a musician who performs.
this is not my point, and i digress.
5ive, backstreet boys, and nsync are highly considered to be the representation of all that was wrong with the late ninties; facades, farce, matching outfits, groomed perfection, glossy rose-tinted music, defined muscles.
but i beg to differ; i think that the boy bands of the ninties (not to be confused with the equally problematic but much more obnoxious boy bands of the 00s, namely AAR, fall out boy, all those other fuckers) were really what was RIGHT with the late ninties.
the 1980s saw a world of cocaine induced acceptance; snow was falling on cedars, glass coffee tables and long fingernails. the world was glam, you were glam, i was glam (i was actually a very un-glam infant, but whatever).
movies like scarface depict the surreality of living in the overhyped, oversexed, oversensualized, overtly selfaware 1980s; who wasn't a fucking pfeiffer?? and by the 1990s, the 1980s were so "over", in more ways than chronology.
what the world needed was a sort of saccharin societal coma to save us from the lifetime of brimstone that the decadent 80s pretty much guaranteed.
what the world needed was boy bands.
fuck punk music.
fuck emo music.
fuck indie.
fuck alternative.
for the first time EVER, mainstream was actually IN. mainstream was mainstream was mainstream. boy bands KNEW they were average. boy bands KNEW what they were doing. boy bands KNEW that singing about canary love and vague notebook scribble fodor would resonant not only with the youth of the 90s, but with their parents, who were scrambling to make up for any 1980s lapses in judgement and to protect their offspring from a fucking ski slope rehash. (though i don't know how much hash was actually involved.)
now i don't know if my parents ever did coke. christ, i don't know if my parents ever even DRANK coke. but what i DO know, was that any parent who witnessed the 80s with any semblance of cognency only wanted to protect/shield/buffer their children from the same mistakes that were made in their era.
and how reassuring must it have been for a child to blast bouncy music from their bedroom, to sing along with lyrics like "slam dunk da funk". to listen to songs that used words like "jiggy" in all seriousness.
to know that lyrics like "baby when da lights go out, i'll show you what its all about" were really fleeting, really quite meaningless, because they never actually described anything more than a lingering kiss and a mild fingering.
to know that your child would be safe from what you did. or at least dreamed about doing.
and now the demise of society comes in.
fast foward to the 2000s.
we recoil from the mcbands of yore.
we laugh in the face of manufactured.
we scoff at the very mention of color coordianted down vests and head mics.
and look where that's gotten us.
look at the black painted, bulletproof vested, eyelinered buffoons dominating kroq, mtv, and all those other nonsensical mediums of "popular" culture.
we've gotten to a place where "popular" is "unpopular", "unpopular" is "popular", and those two aren't mutally exclusive.
and the backwards thinking of scenesters/hipsters and all those others that think themselves to be part of some sort of secret underground following really just throws us back to the late 1970s when people were thinking that punk music was actually revolutionary, and was actually making changes in the face of music.
yeah, it didn't.
and guess what... your "band" (you know, the one with the irritatingly lengthy name, peppered with unnecessary [and grammatically incorrect] punctuation) is meaningless, too.
and get this! it's even MORE meaningless than boy bands.
because in 50 years, people won't talk about your fucking all-american-charlotte-simple-fall-out-plan-linkin-panic!-voltas. they'll be talking about nsync and backstreet.
because, just like with punk in the 70s and early 80s, your aboveunderground bands are of little consequence.
i guaran-fucking-tee you: nobody will being singing along to "sugar we're goin' down".
but you put on "tearin up my heart"... the world will be yours.
because 5ive (and bsb and nsync) will always make you feel all right.