Issue 11: Nostalgia is 20/20
"Typically, trends are on a 20-year cycle before their first re-appearance, which means that late '90s and early 2000s fashion moments will continue to pop up"
Happy 2022! As we step into this third decade of the 21st century, I notice a resurgence in many fashion trends and hot topics (ayy) of my own youth amongst my Gen Z students.
Mixed in with their own brand of self-aware edginess, you will notice heavy mascara, coloured fingernails, black-dyed hair, vintage band shirts (that are actually not that vintage), patterns and layers and patterns…it really seems like the age of the emo is back.
With this week’s announcement of the ridiculously stacked line-up at When We Were Young Festival, a bonafide Myspace emo Mecca, it’s all too clear that we are well and truly in the Rawring 20s. (For the uninitiated, ‘rawr’ is a term associated with emos trying to be cutesy in internet speak pre-Facebook days).
All this to say is that music and fashion trends really do come around in 20 year cycles. There is a direct spiritual lineage worth looking at. Myspace has been usurped by Tik Tok, Gerard Way has given way to YUNGBLUD and for some reason Avril Lavigne and Travis Barker have been succeeded by…Avril Lavigne and Travis Barker.
This pop punk revival started gathering steam in 2021. Breakout teen sensation Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u” was so heavily influenced by Paramore’s “Misery Business” that they were eventually given a writing credit on it. Several media outlets also noted the surge in teen angst and online culture as catalysts for the genre’s renaissance.
For Mashable, Tim Marcin wrote:
There's something to the fact that pop-punk's resurgence followed the widespread adoption of snark-laden online doomerism, the idea that, well, everything sucks...
The 2000s also had a similar apocalyptic feel. Our generation of millennials witnessed on live television two commercial airlines slam into skyscrapers, leading to the perpetual War on Terror. Furthermore, the toxicity of social media and celebrity culture was was beginning to really amp itself up. In fact, these very concepts were integral to the conception of My Chemical Romance, as I wrote about following their reunion shows two years ago.
So here we are, apparently reliving the noughties!
In that spirit, deadset will be examining some of the biggest trends and hits of the 2000s in an ongoing series of posts. While I gear up for an in-depth look at the Rawring 20s and what that entails for an ageing demographic, Sam has written up another influential track that set the template for pop/hip-hop/glam crossover success, the ripple effects of which can be traced all the way to Billie Eilish’s current aesthetic today.
I am of course referring to the infectious track “Lady Marmalade” recorded in January 2001 by supergroup Christina Aguilera, P!nk, Mya, Lil Kim and Missy Elliott for the iconic Moulin Rouge soundtrack.
I think a large part of why this track looms so large in my cultural memory is that it is now so nostalgic. This song has been around for more than half my life, and with the increasingly apocalyptic tone of the 21st Century, it takes me back to a simpler time. Perhaps that time was simpler because I was just younger; a music video filled with divas and red curtained glamour was more important than the state of the world or my own precarious happiness. But maybe it’s more than that.
Click through to read his take on this enduring femme fatale soundtrack.
Given today’s general sense of doom, it’s no wonder that now more than ever seems to be the perfect time for us decrepit millennials to wax nostalgic for simpler, happier times. Even if those times happened to be doused in mascara and teenage melodrama.
- kevin, January 19, 2022
Some of my hot tips for this week:
Album of the Week: Bonobo, Fragments
A perfectly vibey atmosphere that makes you glad to be not out clubbing, but also makes you feel like you’re kind of in a nice chill club environment anyway. [Spotify link here]
Youtube of the Week: Stromae, L’enfer
A minimalist video, but worth it to catch the translated subtitles for Stromae’s poetic lyrics.
Words of Wisdom for the Week
