Oh, hold on...(turning around to listen to some earnest whiny emo-kid)...it was a music video? No shit, really? Okay. My bad.
* * *
I'm 29, and I'm not so sure that's old. Although, these days, I think I might as well be 40.
It may not ostensibly seem like a huge generation gap at all, considering that I was 13 when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke and was in 2nd year high school when i witnessed the most organic explosion of hype for a single album ever (the album was Pearl Jam's "Versus", by the way). I was there when everyone decided that teenage angst existed all of a sudden. And I'm old enough to see how simultaneously ridiculous and important all of that was.
But there's a lot about this current generation that I just don't get. I think it's reached its zenith after seeing that Urban Dub video. I honestly don't know what the fuck that was.
If that's like their version of shock-rock, then I don't get what's supposed to be shocking about that. Well, I suppose seeing the lead singer of a band murder a famous actress in cold blood is "shocking", but the purpose of shock-rock (see: Marilyn Manson, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Guns 'N Roses, etc.) is to reflect an aspect of reality that society is supposedly afraid of, whether it's drugs, satanism, homosexuality, or even misogyny.
It's tempting to say that what was portrayed in the video was misogyny, but it was established that Iza's character was cheating on the Urban Dub dude (what the fuck's his name, anyway?), so jealousy was clearly the motive. In that respect, this song (what the fuck's the title anyway?) is "Heal the World" compared to GNR's "I Used to Love Her". "Fictional" Axl killed his girlfriend because he thought she was being too much of a "bitch". You have to do a whole lot better to shock members of a generation who developed their consciousness in the late 80s and early 90s.
This is precisely what I find problematic about the video - it's not shocking; it's funny. And I'm pretty sure they're not trying to be. "I Used to Love Her" was funny because it was a fun song, and Axl was being funny. What bothers me about Urban Dub's video - and all of their videos and songs, for that matter - is that they're begging to be taken seriously.
Which is fine, but sometimes humorlessness is tantamaount to artlessness. I mean, they have a song entitled "Endless, a silent whisper", for Christ's sake. Sometimes I wish it was just an honest misprint, and what they really meant was "Silence, an endless whisper", which would've made much more sense, because I refuse to believe that we live in a world where the worst poetry student in your high school is now the lyricist of a famous band.
I don't even get this whole obsession over ultra-seriousness. One could easily say that this all started with early 90s grunge. But even Kurt freaking Cobain, the king of taking-yourself-seriously (and literally killed himself trying to prove it), was capable of irony (see: "Rape Me") and self-deprecation (see: "Breed" music video). So seriously, dudes, relax.
I'm not saying that Urban Dub is earnestly trying to convince its fanbase that they should murder their girlfriends if they ever cheat on them. But given the context of the faux-drama that music in the 21st century has spawned, they may never have to.
We now have a scene that is made up of bands who want to be taken VERY seriously, being adored by fans who WANT to take them seriously, and therefore believe that EVERYTHING has to be taken seriously. That's why, even if I was laughing out loud after seeing that video, I may have been in the minority. I kinda feel sorry for this generation . It's such a shame they have to grow up listening to boring, humorless music.
Although, luckily for them, this current shortage in subtlety is very conducive for pornography. We may be a few months away from a Chicosci music video where they gang rape Anne Curtis (oops, just gave Quark Henares an idea).
But maybe I'm giving Urban Dub way too much credit by analyzing their video as "shock-rock". So let's look at the video as simply a piece of popular art: The Urban Dub dude comes inside the room where Iza Calzado and Ryan Eigenmann just finished having sex, and he proceeds to shoot the two of them. Ryan instantly dies, but Iza (in a great piece of acting, by the way), crawls towards rock dude in a mixture of physical pain and remorse. Rock dude's emotion is a lot more non-sequitur: he looks at her blankly. After a few seconds, he hits her with...I don't know, something (you can see how little impact this video made on me), and she's finally dead. Then the video ends with rock dude smoking nonchalantly as he holds Iza's dead arms.
Now, if this was a scene from a film, it's definitely one atrocious film. Iza cheats on the guy, yet he kills her the way an anonymous serial killer would. Wait, I thought he was angry. Oh I'm sorry, rock dude was so fucking calm that he just absolutely had to kill her. Yeah, that makes sense. Excuse me but I have to...(laughing uncontrollably, wiping tears off face, catching my breath)...
Then again, I guess there's a reason why Iza Calzado is the award-winning actor between the two.
But of course, this was a scene from a music video. If rock dude actually attempted to act in any way that would give his "character" emotional credibility, then he wouldn't be "rock dude" anymore. He would just be "actor dude". Rock dudes have to kill like serial killers, because rock dudes are supposed to be cool, even if it doesn't make any sense for their characters to act like serial killers. And apparently, acting like a serial killer is the new definition of "cool" in rock circles these days.
I must be getting old.
2 comments :
you MUST be getting old.
you MUST be an echo.
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