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Angst with a side of eyeliner |
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Written by Megan Broyles - Argonaut
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Monday, 06 October 2008 |
Tokio Hotel won the MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist on July 9. Why, among all the truly innovative new artists existing on the Earth’s surface, would a teen-pop quartet from Germany take the cake?
It’s because the girls love them.
Bill Kaulitz, the band’s lead singer, has been described as the anime version of Project Runway’s Christian Siriano. Kaulitz carries his 18-year-old eyeliner-ed self with a boy band swagger akin to glam, goth and emo — however that adds up.
His distinguishing feature is his electro shock hair that stands about a foot tall, if not higher. Every member of the band has their own niche to fill and girlies to be idolized by.
Tom Kaulitz, Bill’s younger twin brother and guitarist, dons blonde dreadlocks, a lip piercing and flat bill caps. The remaining two bandmates (who don’t appear to have the same priority as the twins in the public eye) are Gustav Schaefer on the drums and Georg Listing (bassist). Gustav and Georg take on the roles of Volcom Stone skater and long-haired-boy-next-door, respectively.
“Scream,” Tokio Hotel’s 2007 release, perfectly exemplifies what it feels like to be 14 years old through adolescent lyrics and sound that can best describe the makers as “bad boys with a soft side.”
The title track from the album is an anti-authority anthem instructing the oppressed listener to “scream it out loud.” Tokio Hotel dredges up memories of early Good Charlotte in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Besides the obvious twin superstar connection, both bands’ messages are strikingly similar in how outrageously easy it is to follow — no tricky musical business here — and mostly emotional, sticking in the hearts of young, impressionable female listeners.
Tokio Hotel can expect success. No matter how unsavory their musical contributions may be, a technically or comparatively, they are trendy enough to snatch the spotlight for fifteen minutes with a palatable — at best — generic sound. Emotion (or hormones) fuels the incoherent translated-from-German lyrics and dramatic instrumentals.
Nothing can take away from the fact that somewhere someone is listening to Tokio Hotel and feeling better about their own life. At the end of the day, a smiling fan of Tom and Bill Kaulitz is happy. If the fans are happy, there’s nothing left to say.
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