The Sudden Reappearance of Fangirl

I should learn not to mock and scorn, since it will bite me in the ass. For example, I scoffed and dismissed 30 Seconds to Mars–totally understandable, right? Clearly, they were yet another Dogstar, who by virtue of having an actor as a bassist were doomed to assault our eardrums…or at least, attempt to do so. I mean, how could you possibly take this seriously?

(although, to be fair, i thought it was Pete Wentz)

The band never made a blip on my radar screen, only rather occasionally on Perez and then only in the very barest ‘are-they-seriously-trying-to-pretend-they-do-music-look-at-how-unpopular-and-unsuccessful-they-are’ terms.

Then, last Friday, at 3pm, my beloved WBRU decided to assault my eardrums with ‘a song about apocalypse’ by 30STM (scoff. scoff. scoff. throat clear and eye roll. such a lame song topic for a lame band; could it get any more obvious and worse? would’ve turned the station, though the only option is the disgustingly boring PRO-FM. ).

So…the song caught my attention with its big chorus of vocals right off the bat. And, when they could’ve ruined it by screaming or picking up the tempo, they didn’t. The vocals–they weren’t the stupid, whiny, angry passionate emo sloppy messy hard rock. Rather they were enough to make me think ‘wow, this is a really good singer. i like his voice. i’m really surprised.’ and that surprise only kept growing. till i didn’t want the song to end. My attention was captured. Anthemic, yes, and I like anthemic! Aiming towards transcendence, and yup I like that too.

I was shocked. And obsessed. I had to research.

And then I was horrified.

For Mr. Actor was not the bassist, but rather the vocalist. The vocalist I liked sooo much. So now I’m eating crow on one level re: Dogstar comparisons.

But it gets worse. Because, apparently, they are very successful–like sold over a million copies of their last album successful.  That’s way too much for it to be a ‘oh-he’s-so’hot-i’m-going-to-buy-his-album-and-pretend-i-like-his-music’ phenomenon. Way too much for a ‘i-liked-him-in requiem for a dream‘ pity play.

This is the type of thing I’m supposed to know! It’s practically part of my (day) job description to be up on pop culture. My performance review gets doubly downgraded if I’m not up on what’s happening in the world of hot men.

To make matters even worse (as if they could get worse), I’ve heard their other songs! I’ve seen commercials for them on MTV et al. and you know who I thought they were? Yup, Fallout Boy (who I also generally scoff at, except for that one song [but only because I thought it was Mark Ronson for the longest time], so really, it’s understandable). I adamantly don’t like anything near this type of music! (Ok, only that one Rise Against! song, but nobody knows about that)

My standard music diet? MGMT, The Airborne Toxic Event, Band of Skulls, The Ting Tings, U2, Radiohead, Mozza, The Cure, Depeche Mode, INXS…

But yet, here I was, listening to Kings and Queens on repeat at 12:30 am that night (on Playlist) and then buying it at 8:30 the next morning to add to my running playlist. I may or may not have silently cursed BRU while doing errands because they didn’t play it (and I may or may not have thought about running into Best Buy to grab an iPod adapter).

and I may or may not have insisted that one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world listen to the songwhile we were taking a leisurely fall drive.

and she totally loved it.

and was shocked.

Well, anyways, I think K&Q is going to be a huge hit…and I’m just waiting for it to appear on PRO-FM (though that station’s beneath me–shh, please don’t point out the Taylor Swift in my collection). Granted, they stacked the deck: Flood and Steve Lillywhite produced the album so it’s pretty much guaranteed to be a success. (Seeing as how I named my cat after one of Flood’s albums, I’m sure that there was a conspiracy in the cards against me that made me like K&Q)

But seriously, this whole affair’s got me kind of off-kilter; it’s more than a bit maddening to find out that mr. fancy pants actor’s band has been getting serious airplay for the past four years. Not only that, but a single on the Modern Rock chart for 94 weeks? How was I not aware?! I’m (unfortunately) aware of The Fray and Nickelback (get behind me Satan); gosh, did Perez and Towleroad steer me wrong???!!!???!! Especially Andy Towle should have told me.

Oh, and sure, I could’ve not downloaded A Beautiful Lie because it was only $7.99 on iTunes and December 8th was waayy too long away. And, yeah, I could’ve not pre-ordered This is War, but when you can get an extra bonus track, why not just do it, especially when it’s so cheap? And sure, I could’ve not added A Beautiful Lie and From Yesterday to my running playlist too, but, honestly, when you have scream-y songs and you know, running is really hard, and sometimes you wanna scream, but you can’t really scream in the gym, well, then, those screamy songs make sense. And you know, I could’ve not listened to the album on repeat while I was working at home, but, when your roommate isn’t the biggest fan of rock and you did just buy an album, you kind of have to listen to it, right? Yeah, totally, you do.

And, you really do have to watch the only music video ever filmed entirely in China, right? Again and again?

Yeah.