Amanda's Gripes about the Music Community

[allpowerfulamanda]

Well, I've been on the AOL boards searching to see what people think of my favorite bands, and personally I'm getting sick and tired of all these people who watch TRL suddenly in love with My Chemical Romance. All they ever talk about is how hot Gerard and Mikey are. I mean, come on people, we're supposed to be talking about their MUSIC, not their fucking looks. With some of my favorite bands, I don't know who is who in pictures. Because I DON'T CARE! I want to know about hte soul behind the sounds I love, not the faces. Really *Fumes*

Another gripe of mine is the fact that the singles seem to be the songs they like the most. More MCR facts (Don't worry, I'll find other bands to ramble about on this thread), people only seem to like Helena. Newsflash, it's not hte best song on the album. They just like it because it's been headlining TRL for the past week. Woo.

My third gripe is a more general statement, that Sam has already heard me complain about. The people who buy ONE album from a band and think they're just so cool. Green Day for example. They have what, 8 albums out? People waltz in with American Idiot and think they're so cool. Newsflash, American Idiot is a newer, mature sound of Green Day. However, the old stuff still kicks major ass. Point is, you can't buy one album that happens to be most popular and be their number one fan.

Another gripe with the music community is probably one that is very common: the fans who get miffed. The ones who bought the albums when it first came out, and we're nice and good with it. Then a new album version comes out and all the people who just realized "Hey, this band doesn't suck!" goes out and gets a cooler copy with more songs, just because they waited. This can happen with any CD really. Like, for example, older bands, from like the 80's who get their old albums redone with a shitload of extra tracks and stuff. what about hte people who bought the original album twenty years back? How is that fair to them?

The land of music is so shitty...

[allpowerfulamanda]

Well, this is my second Gripes About The Music Community. This is the article where I'm a bit of a hypocrite in a sort. However, you'll see my points. If you don't like it, tell me about it. tell me what I should fix. Email me at [e-mail] to do so

Point One: Indie/Punk/Emo Bands who end up on MTV/The Radio

Once one of these genres ends up on one of those two places, then they get kicked out of their communities half of the time. It's kind of sad, really. Especially by critiques. Now, there is nothing wrong with getting it big. That's one of the reasons people form bands. But it's a sort of rejection from your community when it happens. For example one, Good Charlotte.

Good Charlotte use to be a well respected, pop-punk band, who no one really had a problem with. They were cool. A lot of the children liked them. However, Good Charlotte got FUCKING HUGE. They got in J-14 magazine, MTV, the radio, the whole fucking shabang. Then, the entire community that use to wov them is now like, WTF? They're posers. I don't know much about this particular group; I don't listen to them that much. However, from what I know, this is more or less what I believe happened (if you think I'm wrong, tell me your opinion). I mean, it's not that they're a bad band; they just appeal too much to commercial radio.

Other bands, who had quite a few albums under their belt and were also well-respected, whom ended up on the radio/MTV (MTV is worse), become sellouts.

Why, you might ask?

Well, this is why I love being me. Because I understand the point of view.

Okay, here it is. Let's say Stacy the Indie Kid has bought every album by the band Future Sellouts. She loves them to death, they're so cool, plus all their concerts are dirt cheap because no one knows who they are (xD just kidding). Suddenly, this cool, poppy single comes out, and it ends up on TRL! Gasp! Soon, the song sky-rockets to number one. What the fuck?!?! Then, all the TRL junkies go out and buy it. Lucy the Trend Whore is buying all the albums that Stacy the Indie Kid bought years/months ago! How DARE she! Does Stacy blame MTV? Of course not. She blames the band.

"SELLOUTS!" Stacy screams into the night, sobbing over the death of her favorite band, which is now *sob* mainstream. Once something is mainstream, kids, it ceases to be good.

See my point? That's basically what happens in my opinion. Anyways. Stacy and all her friends now hate the band they once worshipped. The band has been kicked out from the community it grew up in *tear tear*.

(will be continued later, have to go to bed)

[allpowerfulamanda]

Heh, I never did finish. Ah well. Well, these are more gripes for Amanda.

However, instead of attacking posers today, I'll attack the alternative kids.

That's right, I'm griping about the punk rockers, the emo kids, the metal heads, and all the others.

We're very hyprocritical.

All the alternakids make fun of the preppie mainstream people. They talk smack about their abercrombie and fitch clothing, their flip flops and k swisses, their hair and makeup, and how they all look the same.

Well, alternakids, look at yourselves.

Instead of Abercrombie, you wear dickies
Instead of flip flops, you wear converse, etnies or vans
You have mohawks or moptops or dyed black hair
You wear heavy eyeliner and dark lipstick

Tell me, how is expressing your individuality when all your friends look like you too?

"I'm so cool, in my pinstripe pants and red tie. I'm wearing the socks of someone in my favorite band."

You talk about the preppie people being sheep, yet we are the same way. We follow the same trends like any other alternative kid. We all were obsessed with JTHM or Happy Bunny at one time, we all had our converse and wrist bands. We all wanted this and that pierced or wanted our hair dyed this color. Face it, we are sheep. We are alternasheep. Alternative, yet sheep all the same.

Another thing that bothers me are the morbiders.

The alternative kids who have to find everything morbid as cool. Who say that the gorier movies are better than the less-bloody ones, even though the less-bloody ones are more scary. The ones who always say their favorite episode or their favorite book or this or that is always creepy.

You people try to hard.

And don't get me wrong, I mean, I like my "Ecessive violence is funny, no?" For Johnny The Homicidal Maniac, I love the serial killers and sex offenders I read about, it interests my darker side. But come on. Just because something is dark does not make it good.

This goes to same with the Pre-90's folks.

You know who you are. The ones who think every movie remake, every new album, every new band is horrible. They'll never beat the classics. You accuse mainstreamers of being close minded for not excepting Random-Band-From-whatever-Era-Whom-Suck-And-No-One-Knows-Who-They-Are, yet at the same time you refuse to listen to any music, EVEN THAT OF YOUR GENRE, because it's automatically labelled "bad" as it post-dates nirvana.

Now is where my rant spreads.

Now, as we know, some alternative trends cannot stay only alternative. Some other people will eventually get in on it, and then it becomes mainstream. But that DOES NOT mean that we have to automatically turn our backs on what we use to love souly because Lucy the Trend Whore decided to start liking it. Let's get an example, using my two favorite characters.

Okay, so here we are again with Stacy the Indie Kid, and she's walking around in her nifty chuck taylors, the ones that her mom wore when she was a teenager. No one wears them and she thinks they're the spiffiest thing. Then, all of a sudden, gasp! The chucks are now at payless! PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT STACY AND HER GROUP OF ALTERNATIVE FRIENDS ARE TRYING THEM ON! Other people are wearing them! Automatically Stacy tosses out her beloved shoes, that fit her like socks, that have been loyal throughout many concerts, who have had the names of many mohawk-donning alternahotties that Stacy has fallen for. Why? Souly because she saw others wearing them, and it made them lose their appeal.

Alternative kids are so set on being different that they throw out things they love. However, they all throw it out at the same time. They all decide that Former Thing They Loved is now for posers. They turn their backs on something, souly because they're too busy trying to be different then the mainstreamers, yet the same as all the other alternasheep out there. What does this accomplish? Soon they're going to be out of trends to follow, and then what? We'll ((I've decided to include myself in this)) have nothing left, and have to actually think of how to be different instead of following what Hot Topic tells us is cool. We'll realize that there ARE other colors besides maroon, black and gray. And that having BROWN HAIR IS NOT A BAD THING. Of course, who knows when this day will come. When we will realize that we're just as bad as the preps; that we all look alike, that we all wear name brands just like they do. That we are them with different tastes. That we milk social alienation yet at the same time alienate everyone else from us all the same.

We are the alternate mainstream, yet the mainstream none-the-less.

And no one is willing to admit it.

[flowerchild27]

*gasp* your brutally honest nature makes me happy...i find it extremely refreshing. and yes brown hair is not a bad thing *falunts not-a-bad-thing- brown hair*

[PunkWhore]

*sigh* I hate people who...well, I just hate people in general. All this labeling and trend-following we do is a crock of shit. What is a label? What is a trend? I have no fucking clue and to tell the truth, neither does anyone else. We live in a world that is based on cliques and rules. No one can help following the crowd, no matter who they are. I don't care if you're a preppy cheerleader full of team spirit or a morbid goth kid full of repressed rage. EVERYONE participates in trends. YOU ARE ALL TRENDS. That's right, trends soon to be forgotten. It does us no good to label ourselves because we're all the same. We're drones of this higher power and we're here to pay taxes and die. If you can't accept that fact, keel over and die. But, wait. If you die, you'll just be following another trend! You lose either way! We all lose! Look at the big picture. Everything is a trend whether you like it or not. So the next time you poke fun at the nerds and geeks or you sneer at the preps, just remember that you're just as fucked as them. Get used to it.

[flowerchild27]

it's true we're all doomed! so ah you can't make fun of me just because i sometimes wear abercrombie and hollister haha

[x.Cross.My.Heart.x]

but alex....its FUN to make fun of you!