When Offspring's Dextor Holland first uttered the words 'The Kids aren’t alright', he certainly knew a thing or two. As much as I hate Shitney Spears and the Backstreet Boys I would much rather children listened to them than try and pretend to be all cool by liking rock music. I’m sure some genuinely do like it and will stick with it even when its gone out of fashion but the majority wont. These are the ones who like it cos its cool to like it, they are the......Mini Moshers!
Firstly I should just say that I have nothing (much) against slipknot, (each to their own and all that), I have nothing against little kids who want to listen to them cos they like the music but I do have a big problem with kids who only like slipknot for the shock value. If they want to listen to hardcore rock stuff like this to show people how cool they are then that’s just stupid. Most young people only listen to them cos they want to rebel, which is fine by me, but they could at least do it properly. I see these people going into second hand music shops, heading straight to the slipknot section, checking whats there then heading straight out the door. Now if they really did like the music then surely they would look around at the other stuff and check out another bands in the same genre, but they dont. Everyone knows what Slipknot are like and these kids only like them for that reason. I'm sure there are a few out there who will actually get into other bands and stick with it, but the majority will be binning their black extra large hoodies as soon as the next trend comes along.
At the moment nu-metal is where its at and you cant go out without seeing the usual bunch of 6 kids hangin around the bus-stop with Limp Bizkit T-Shirts, baggy trousers (complete with chains down to their ankles) plastered with Papa Roach and Linkin Park patches and bags covered in tip-ex'd band logos. Yeah good on them for getting so enthusiastic, but there are still hundreds of bands they’re missing out on. These Kids get their nu-metal fix from Top Of The Pops. If they went out and spent £1.80 on Kerrang! maybe we would start to see a few more Disturbed, System Of a Down and One Minute Silence hoodies around town and less of the usual Nirvana, Blink 182 and koRn. But that not going to happen cos these kids are in it for the cool factor, they want the music thrown at them, they’re not willing to go into town, pick up a compilation CD and check out other bands. They want to be cool and only think that the bands they’ve heard about on TV and have seen on TOTP are cool and this is what annoys me so much. I’m all for people so young getting into proper bands, (maybe it will stop the cloning of pop-puppets and the fetuses who are currently dominating the charts), if only they really did like the music and we’ rent just listening to it so annoy their parents. Ask any 12 year old nu-metaler to name a Limp Bizkit song pre - Rollin', or even name another Nirvana song other than 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. They couldn’t. Any why? Because they dont care.
Its not just the nu-metal boys who are getting annoying, there’s also a growing trend in 15 year old girls to like these bands but for completely different reasons and we have the girly magazine J17 to thank for that. Every week they feature a different band, which might sound good especially when you hear that these bands are rated as well. Rated on what I hear you cry. Musical ability? Songwriting skills? Album content? Nope, Looks. Yep, there is a 'drool rating'. Apparently us girls really are supposed to be that shallow. The current trend at the moment amongst the J17ers is the Lost Prophets and the Strokes and at festival season there’s even a little guide of the fittest bands playing so we dont miss out on any! Apparently however good Nickleback and Staind may be, they’re just not good looking enough for girls to like and therefore not worthy of us buying their music. How is any band supposed to cut it in the music industry when they are being treated like this? It wouldn’t be quite so bad if you knew that the girls reading things like this wouldn’t take any notice of it, but to any teenage girl J17 is their bible and they will take every word on board and act upon it.
Its stuff like this which doesnt make the kids alright, infact it makes them just plain annoying. Just stick to your homework children and come back when you’ve got minds of your own.
