The Electric Chair

God knows whats the thing with rock and new age metal these days. Dont misunderstand me; I'm not stuck in time. I'm not one of those old timers who think that everything was better when they were in their heyday. Music, movies, eggs, vegetables, tea - Everything. I like Evanescence and Linking parks good too, and I like Avril Lavil. But i just cant understand some of the hard core bands of recent times and their videos.

Imagine this - A skeleton against a green background. The skeleton itself is another shade of green. No its not even a skeleton - its more like a gooey skeleton - a skeleton with a thin coating of tissue on it. And this skeleton is very flexible. It bends backwards (literally, not figuratively), bends its joints the wrong way and opens and closes its eyes (or whatever is left of them). Another skeleton comes and slowly, very slowly removes a black eel-looking thing from its neck. And so on. The music is repetitive, moaning, brooding, as if someone had just died and the dead man's spirit wanted to absolutely disconcert the gathering that had come to mourn his death.

I see all this and think were these people on dope or what when they made this? And then the realisation that blew the air out of my lungs - they werent!! This wasnt an article that you could write over a couple of hours of doped stupor, or even music that can be composed in an ill lit room under the influence of speed. This was an organised, planned project. There were computer generated special effects, there were strange sound effects, there was choreography.... it was a team project with someone in charge of it, someone assigning roles and responsibilities, different people doing different jobs. This couldnt be done over an intoxicated binge. So someone was doing this purposely, deliberately. Why?? I could think of only one answer. They think that someone will like this. And I realised that they werent wrong. For on the table next to me, there were people who recognised the song and some similar ones (and sometimes even responded with an Ahhh as people do in pubs). Well, what can I say... the jokes on me i guess..... Personally I'd prefer Priest or Maiden or Satriani getting the most out of their guitars/drums!

Changing Colours: Very pale, almost faded

# posted by A Chrysanthemum by any other name... : 3:33 AM