The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth (Radio Edit)

Well, the decade of the 2000s has less than two years to go, and it's never too early to start looking back at what we've seen in this decade... at least that's what academic-types like I say. Looking at the last several years in the world of pop culture, it has become clear that we've seen a transition from loving pretty, plastic, pop queens to embracing geeks. No, I'm not talking about the horn-rim glasses and pocket protector types, but these people do proclaim themselves proudly to be geeks.

When the 2000s dawned, we had to deal with the "Britneys". The prefabricated pop stars. And despite efforts of many serious female artists to try to tear the public eye away, the "Britneys" kept finding ways to bring us back to them. Things like a 48-hour marriage, "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica", "X-tina"... and then there was the rise of Paris Hilton. A "pop star" who didn't even have to record an album (although she later did, tragically for us all) to live the "pop star" life and get the associated adoration. And when we learned how much she loved to party, well, now the prerequisite of a prefab plastic star included "has to party like a rock star". Which led to Nicole Ritchie (famous only for having a dad who could sing), and Lindsay Lohan (who, like Paris, tried to sing and didn't do it well).

Meanwhile, emo was rising. "Geek rock" bands like Weezer and Fountains of Wayne had big hits, and the emo bands that paid homage to them started to break through as well. Look at Fall Out Boy and put them next to the Backstreet Boys. Compared to the pretty-boy pop acts that saw in this decade, these guys look like, well, geeks (except maybe Pete... the ladies ADORE Pete). But Fall Out Boy is riding the wave of stardom today. Flip on the TV and you'll see, on the same network that gives us "America's Next Top Model", "Beauty and the Geek". You've got these guys who love things like D&D and Star Trek and all the geek stereoypes, and the goal of this "social experiment" of a show is to make plastic types fall in love with these guys. Yeah, they clean the geeks up, give them a makeover and all that... but that makes no difference. A better-looking Trekkie is still a Trekkie.

But the Britneys have imploded. The woman who was the very definition of "plastic pop star", and therefore the one I named the whole lot of them after, has become the very definition of "train wreck." The former "X-tina" is now a married mom who has arguably softened her image. Jessica Simpson is now a divorced skin care spokeswoman who apparently wrecks All-Pro NFL quarterbacks. Her sister got a nose job and now nobody remembers what she looks like. Paris went to jail. Lindsay went to jail. Nicole went to jail... and then married one of the Maddens from Good Charlotte (self-professed "geeks" back in their growing-up days).

This is not to say the phenomenon has completely gone away. In fact, the next generation may be rising in the form of Miley Cyrus. Don't get me wrong, I get the popularity of her show, and I know she's supposedly more wholesome than those who came before her (but Jessica Simpson supposedly was too), but the music? THAT I don't get. I've heard "See You Again"... I didn't realize techno country was becoming so popular.

However, don't think I'm taking some perverse form of schadenfreude from the demise of these people. I feel bad for anyone who gets put through the hell any of these women have gone through the last year-plus... perhaps it may serve as a reason to not pursue this way of life anymore. A cautionary tale. After all, finding meaning and learning from things like this is a very geeky thing to do...

While I'm on the subject of music... I think the practice of editing a song's lyrics for mass consumption has gone too far. Of course I believe that bad language should be edited out of songs on the radio... except of course for classic rock standards like "Money" by Pink Floyd or "Who Are You" by the Who which have attained "grandfather clause" status. And yeah, I understand the reasons behind editing out references to drugs or guns in songs on pop stations, although I don't believe that hearing the word "gun" on the radio will cause some kid to grab a gun and shoot someone. It goes deeper than that.

Take "What It's Like" by Everlast, for example. The last verse is about a guy who becomes a drug dealer, gets mixed up in a gunfight and dies. In NO WAY is this song glorifying the lifestyle, it's trying to say, "This is the wrong way to go and imagine being the loved one of this guy, having to find out he died this way." However... we get versions of this song that go beyond only bleeping out the pair of 4-letter bombs in the verse to bleeping out half the verse because the words "drugs", "gun", and "Colt .45" are used. That's stupid. Take the song on its merits before you presume that the use of a word will cause some kid to do something stupid.

But this latest example just goes over the line. The anti-suicide song "Never Too Late" by Three Days Grace is currently making its way up the pop charts. I can take or leave the band, the song's not too bad, and I like message songs like this, and apparently a lot of people out there do too, or else it wouldn't be played on pop stations. However... the version I heard on our local pop station changes what is perhaps the most important line of the song. The chorus in the album version goes, "Even if I say it'll be alright/Still I hear you say you want to end your life." The "pop version" goes, "Even if I say it'll be alright/Still I hear you say you want to CHANGE your life." That completely changes the meaning of the song! It's no longer about suicide! Why Three Days Grace agreed to this I'll never know. In fact, I don't know what's worse, that pop stations said, "Nope, sorry, gotta change that line because some kid might hear that line and kill himself", or that the band AGREED and changed the line!

This all just goes to show you that how much things might change for the better in our society, there are still things that annoy me. I'm sure there will ALWAYS be things that annoy me...