teenage angst has paid off well...

So in walking past a major concert venue, I thought about the last ten years, and how each decade tends to have its defining genres and cultural benchmarks. Maybe it's too early to tell my wiser companion says, but upon consulting the Dictionary of Imaginary Places, as we are well-versed in the Bookly Arts, it's probably that whole emo thing when everyone my age and younger decided to stop listening to Limp Bizkit and move on to bands like one acquaintance of mine referred to as "As I Lay Dying in a Poisoned Well on Thursday's Darkest Hour."

After so many hardcore shows full of mediocre bands whose names and sounds blended together, the way that Myspace seemed to highlight just another clique of people obsessed with image and status with more exhibitionistic ways to express it, and I found it amusing to see it mutate into its own thing, hearing parents talk about how their kid is hanging out with the "emos" and such. What started out as something with some good originators (hello Rites of Spring and Sunny Day Real Estate!) ended up more or less being the love child of goth angst and hair metal excess of my generation. It was hard to tell the scene kids apart from Nikki Sixx after awhile.

I don't know if this is all as big as it once was, because my sister and her friends like all that kind of boring indie stuff and disdain the "scene kids" with their eyeliner and crazy hair. I see a lot of t-shirts of bands that I pre-judge as crappy and generic based on the neon dayglo designs (superficial I know, but Randal assures me that http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthese groups suck though he's more curmudgeonly than me).

Anyways, we found this in the dictionary of imaginary places, and the mentions of big hair and tattoos made me laugh. Click through, kids.



An island of Emo, where the savage natives have big hair that requires a lot of maintenance, tattoo each other until they're thirty, and worship a giant eel. Heck yeah. Teenage angst has paid off well, kids. Now I'm not-so-bored, but definitely getting old.

an attractively packaged bad idea

Dear Chris Cornell,

I've expressed dismay before, I'm assuming I'm in your target demographic as an aging late-to-the-party lover of most things rock-and/or roll, and my blue-collar Clevelandtown roots mean that I don't have any qualms of hipsterdom in admitting that I love overwrought 90's kings of angst/substance abuse and was once so enamored with downtuned guitars that I probably have freshman year mixtapes with the likes of Creed and Days of the New (statute of limitations, dear readers! A decade ago, it was either this or Limp Bizkit on the radio, and I had yet to discover college radio and more subculturally acceptable/superior sounds).

I still like the big Seattle bands, but those last two Soundgarden records were pretty damn amazing, with enough heaviness and intricate minor key melodies to warm my Led Zeppelin-loving soul. Your solo record was overwhelming but that's because there was no Kim Thayil. I think a few of us tried to like Audioslave despite the name, but it was really boring and never got as rifftastic as it could've. And then as if genericness wasn't bad enough, you hooked up with Timbaland and became the creepy old cracker at the club.



Since anyone with any sense can see the huge amount of suck here, though in your interview with spin you think this is some of the best work you've ever done, you're cashing in on the filthy lucre and nostalgia tripping to get the old band back together.

As far as I know, nobody in your band is dead, but I have a feeling that I'm not going to be pleasantly surprised as I was when Alice in Chains got a new singer and put out something that was pretty good. Heck, even snakedancing Scott Weiland has embarrassed himself less than you and still put out a record with some actual guitar and songwriting instead of singing about bitches at the club.



Guess it keeps me from getting nostalgic for the nonexistent golden years.