Cultural Capital Punishment

Ok, so by my count, unless there's been some sort of extension to the time period that I'm not aware of, we've come to the end of the MSTU2000 blogging exercise. I'm not complaining... I am so incredibly over uni right now it's not funny. I'm this close to dropping out for, like, the third time. But at least this blog exercise was fun, even if I haven't updated it in a while.

So what have we learned? Well, I've learnt more about Westlife and popslash than I ever possibly needed to. I know it'll be useful someday. We've seen two fairly lame subcultures circle each other threateningly without landing any blows, and we've been reminded that prog truly is the most god-awful musical genre on earth. Honestly, I'd rather hang out with polka fans, because at least they wouldn't be conceited. We've read all about indie-pop and corporate-pop, hip-hop and photoshop... from jazz to John Waters, the Posies to posers, there's been something for everyone this semester.

And we've heard one phrase with subtle regularity: cultural capital. Do we all feel that our cultural capital has been raised by this course? Do we care? Of course it has, and of course we do. Maybe.

Here at Everybody's A Critic, we've learnt a little (and I mean, a little) about the subculture of rock critics, and a lot about random pop cultural things (ie. the X-Men) that I felt like posting about. The random posting will continue, focussing exclusively on topics I'm interested in, for the benefit of zero readers, after this task is completed. I just didn't want to add any more off-topic stuff this past week for Cory to wade through when he goes to mark it. (Incidentally, I'm pretty sure there are more relevant posts in the Archives than there are on the front page of this blog).

So, good luck to everyone with their blogs, especially the ones that have still got a few entries to go. Hopefully some other people will keep their blogs alive after the end of the course as well!

Oh, and to settle a running theme of the blog... X3 made $107 million in it's opening weekend. That's $30 million more than the Da Vinci Code, meaning more people enjoy the characters of Stan Lee and Chris Claremont than a movie based on the most popular book of our time. Sweet. Take that, literati! Not that any of them would endorse Dan Brown's book, anyway.

Incidentally, after seeing it a third time (that's right... X3 X 3) the other day, I noticed a lot of good stuff I missed the second time around. So I'm leaning back towards being totally in love with it now, for those keeping score.

And finally, because there's been no 'kewl' photos or videos in this post and to bid farewell to mstu2000, I leave you with this. The interwebs assures me it's a pic of our favourite indie scenester/lecturer circa '96:

Dancing Machine

First of all, a shameless gratuitous plug: Scene's going all out this week for 'X3', with a feature about the business of comic shops written by myself (the longest article ever printed in Scene, designed to kick off our new features section) and a retrospective on the best superhero movies of all time, also written by myself. It's filled with useless trivia, and aims to grade the superhero movies on a sliding scale of 'good', 'bad' and 'cheesy'. The mag's due to hit random shops and street corners and all the normal places you pick up street press magazines from on Wednesday.

And finally, with the official release of 'X3' just days away, here's a video I found to tide you over. Let's Dance, with Xavier's School for Gifted Dancers!

Critical Mass

Today, kids, I'll be talking about a site called metacritic. You probably already know about it, basically what it does is this: it combines the critics' scores for a whole bunch of stuff: music, movies, TV shows, video games etc... and figures out an average. It also offers links to and snippets from the reviews themselves. I love it. To demonstrate how it works, but also as an example of the music criticism available on teh interwebs, we'll be looking at metacritic's coverage of the Raconteurs' (that's the Saboteurs for us Aussies) debut album.

Ok, so, for starters, we can see that it's recieved an average score of 72 so far. Not bad, not bad... I rate it a little higher than that, but you're always gonna have some reviewers who'll bash it because it involves Jack White, and he's all popular and stuff now. Do you rate it higher than 72? Then rate the album yourself and contribute towards the average user's vote... currently standing at 8.2 out of 10, with just 34 votes registered.

So, who are these esteemed critics whose opinions have been canvassed? Well, we've got our traditional print mononliths... the arthritic collosuses straddling the world of music criticism: Rolling Stone, Mojo, The Guardian, the New York Times, you know the drill. (For magazines that don't do ratings out of 100 or ratings that can be converted into 100, metacritic's score goes off the general 'feel' of the review. Or something.)

But ranked alongside their newsstand brethren are a pack of upstart web-sites... not blogs, as far as I can tell, because then they'd have roughly 1,000,000 reviews to compile. And most of them would just say something like, "I brushed my teeth today. Oh, and yeah, the Raconteurs are cool. I dunno. I wonder if I've got any pizza left over?"
I kid, I kid.

So, among the more interesting reads on the new media front, we've got DotMusic, Playlouder, Drowned In Sound, musicOMH, The Onion's A.V. Club, Pitchfork, PopMatters, Cokemachineglow and Tiny Mix Tapes. And, because there's one in every crowd, Tiny Mix Tapes are the ones to assert that if Jack White wasn't in The Raconteurs, "the press/blogosphere would slam it."

I've gotta side with the positive reviews on this one... it just sounds like some fairly talented "indie" pop musicians getting together and having fun, and keeping it catchy enough for the listener to have fun too.

So, there's a blog entry relevant to the "rock criticism" topic. The next entry promises to be random.

X-Vinci: The Last Code

All right, so this is another entry Cory can safely skip over. No music to be found here, just a cold, hard deathmatch... bigger than doof/emo, more lethal than whatever that dancing one was that I was on about a few days ago. This time, it's for money...

Da Vinci Code VS X3: The Last Stand.

Now, I guess it's a given that Da Vinci is going to make more money. But which one are people more psyched to see? Which one's going to make you weep at the awesomeness of it all, damn it!

Personally, I refuse to get sucked into the Da Vinci Code phenomenon, so I don't know if its any good. I'm just refusing to see it on some sort of principle. But X3 ruled, so I basically just want people to say, 'OMG! X3's so kewl and awesum!' or something like that.

'Da Vinci Code' VS 'X3'

No matter who wins/loses, Ian McKellan wins/loses. Damn his omnipresent acting power.

Edit: 'The Da Vinci Code' has drawn first blood in the battle with a $77million opening weekend. Hardly record-breaking, but it's the biggest opening of the year. Can 'X3' top it? We shall see...

X3: Get Up, Last Stand Up

This has nothing to do with the topic of this blog (the rock critic community), but c'mon, I've just seen X3 nine days early- how can I not post a review here?

For super-hero movies, good things very rarely come in threes. (Superman III, Batman Forever and Blade: Trinity, anyone?) Brett Ratner's X3: The Last Stand- the latest celluloid outing for Marvel's merry mutants- bucks the trend, but hardcore X-fans may disagree.

As a film in its own right, X3 makes for stellar, if flawed, entertainment. Ratner takes to the director's chair left vacant by Bryan Singer's departure with incredible enthusiasm, filling the screen with exciting action sequences made up of equal parts clever (the authorities finally taking precautions against Magneto) and stupid (any scenes spotlighting Vinnie 'I'm the Juggernaut, bitch' Jones.) Kelsey Grammar is naturally perfect as the Beast, and Faamke Jansen's casting as Jean Grey finally makes sense when the Phoenix emerges.

The flaws aren't all that major. But considering the story is trying to sell us a world-engulfing conflict, the locations are somewhat underwhelming. (Having said that, the Golden Gate Bridge has never been used to such spectacular effect before.) And between forming in some sort of a mutant Goth club, and hiding out in Victorian-era style forests, Magneto's Brotherhood of Emo Mutants have probably seen better days. The sheer amount of new mutants on display could aslo be seen as a logistical problem, but as a fan of the comics, I figure the more the merrier.

What will get fanboy blood boiling are the fairly major departures from the source material. Fans of one particular character (myself included) will rightfully feel disrespected.

But ultimately, that's the thrill of X3: it dares to take genuinely shocking risks. Mutation is synonomous with change, after all. There's plenty of state-of-the-art special effects to gawk at, you never know what's going to happen next, and it all builds towards a killer finale. Excelsior!

"They're Breakdance Fighting!"

I flicked over to that "20 to 1"... thing on TV earlier, and saw some old Midnight Oil footage. Generally not a good thing. I hereby propose the following danceoff:
Peter Garrett vs Michael Stipe. Maybe ressurect Ian Curtis for the occasion, too.
Who've ya got?

(Note: All spectators must stand at least 50 metres clear of the competitors. I will not be liable for any injury caused by their wildly flailing limbs.)

Interview With The Critic

A brief e-mail "interview" I did with American rock critic (Village Voice, Stylus) Phil Dellio.

Rohan --

I'm really sorry for the delay. For what it's worth, I have a very good excuse: I'm incredibly lazy at times.
1. When did you first start really taking notice of rock criticism? How old were you? Was there ever a point where the criticism and the magazines became more important to you than the actual music?

The middle to late '70s--there was Lillian Roxon's book, which I used to look at in my high school library, and then I bought a British rock encyclopedia (by Bob Woffinden and Nick Logan) that had a big influence on me, where I first found out about Gram Parsons and Little Feat and Family and lots of other (what my friends and I call) "older-brother" music I'd never heard of. Woffinden and Logan's book also had lots of great album photos: just seeing the covers for things like Jackson Browne's Late for the Sky and the Blue Ridge Rangers LP left a lasting impression. By the mid-to-late '80s, I was totally immersed in the Voice and the yearly Pazz & Jop; I wouldn't say rock criticism was ever more important to me than the music itself, but it was a close call for a while.



2. Where were you living when you first got into rock criticism?

At home with my parents, like most 17-year-olds. It wasn't a big topic of discussion around the dinner table.



3. Do you personally know many people who share your interests? Or is it more of an internet-driven subculture? (I'm using the word subculture here very loosely, I don't mean it in an obsessive or underground way or anything:p)

I have a couple of rock-critic friends here in Toronto, and when I put out a fanzine called Radio On through the '90s, I corresponded reguarly with most of the contributors--letters initially, e-mail towards the end. I interviewed a couple of well-known critics when I first started writing about music in the mid-80s; I later met three critics who came up to Toronto for a visit. Generally, though, I don't know all that many people who write about music.



4. Who are your favourite writers? What are/were your favourite magazines? Which era of rock criticism interests you most?

This question doesn't mean as much to me now as it would have 15 years ago; I'm more and more out of touch all the time. Greil Marcus was a big influence early on; almost anything he writes still commands my attention, although his interests have parted ways from my own over the years. Chuck Eddy was a big influence at one point, but that dissapated within a few years' time; ditto Robert Christgau, ditto Frank Kogan, ditto just about anyone I could name. So the criterion for being one of my favourite writers now is whether or not you're a friend of mine. That leaves Scott Woods and Tim Powis, and Tim hardly ever writes about music anymore. What a stupid answer, right?
My favourite publications were Radio On in the mid-'90s, Jeff Pike's Tapeworm from the same time, the Voice in the mid-late '80s, and Creem in the early '80s (I came late to Creem, so I missed its more celebrated '70s period). Right now, the only thing I read regularly is Scott's rockcritics.com site; I was looking at the ILM board regularly for a time, but I do so more sporadically as of late. My loss of interest has more to do with me than what's out there, which I'm sure is the usual mix of whatever's worthwhile and what's not.



5. This is a stupid question, but it's kind of a crucial part of the assignment: in your opinion, is there a particular style of dress observed by rock journalists and rock journalism readers, or a socio-economic group that most of them belong to?

Hmmm....the cliche is a cliche because there's a lot of truth to it: many males who write about music look and dress a lot more like Elvis Costello circa 1978 than David Lee Roth circa 1984. Female critics, I don't know--maybe the great majority look like Lisa Loeb. I look most like Paul Splittorff, who pitched for the Kansas City Royals in the early '70s, and if you had taken away Paul's wire-frame glasses and given him horn rims, and if you had gotten rid of his curls and shortened his hair, he probably would have looked a little bit like Elvis Costello circa 1978.


Take care,
Phil

Check out Phil's 'High Fidelity'-style Top Five lists compilation here.

Sub-Culcha Club

So, I'm writing an article about people who own comic book stores for a journalism assignment (hence all the comic-y references lately... well, that, and my natural geekiness), and I'm talking to Paul Russell, the "counter-monkey" at Ace Comics in Brisbane.
(Incidentally, the guy is Comic Book Guy. By his own admission, the resemblance is uncanny). And he's talking about Supanova, a big pop-culture convention that was held in Brisbane lately.

And what he said was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever heard from someone who resembles Comic Book Guy. Admittedly, he's the only person I can think of that resembles Comic Book Guy. But do not let that detract from the point here, which is that it was a beautiful thing to say. And yes, I'll be using this quote in the Journalism assignment, so this can't count as one of the three entries for this mstu2000 blog assignment. I just wanted to put it here for the 1 or 2 people who will see it, because to me, this is the definition of a sub-culture.

“Supanova went spectacularly well. Basically, I love Supanova, I love working cons. The whole thing with nerds, or geeks, or dorks, or whatever term you wanna use, is that for awhile, you think that you’re the only person out there who kind of isn’t into football. You think you’re the only person out there who doesn’t obsess about their hair, or what kind of car they’re going to drive. You know, going out, or whatever. And so you’re sort of sitting there, going, ‘I’m the only person in the world who wonders whether the Thing could beat the Hulk’, and you think you’re alone.

“You think you’re by yourself, because nobody wants to say, ‘hey, by the way, I read Captain America. Because if you do that, you paint a target on yourself. I think the reason why the culture has grown is because of the internet. You can get on a computer and say, “hey, there’s hundreds of people out there who obsess over this stuff and talk about whether Thor could beat the Thing”, and whatever.

“And some of these people are successful! And they’re old, and they have jobs, and you know, they have wives and girlfriends, and children, and families and successful companies, and what the hell?! So, I think Supanova is a really great chance to just get out and go, you know, every single person here likes the same shit I do. Every single person here is like me. By god, there are a lot of us!”

Fuckin' yeah.

Edit: I'm not sure it really came through in print, but the reason I loved what Paul said was that it captured, with a perfect sense of innocence and discovery, that exact moment when a kid or a loner discovers that they belong to a subculture. Which I thought was pretty cool, even if its not remotely musical.

Fear Of A Black Printer

Ok, so, sort of tying in with some of my earlier posts, I just found out Public Enemy have a comic. Wow.

Edit: Just in case anyone decides I'm a terrible racist, the title is a reference to a Public Enemy album. Also, I appear to have fallen in love with the Edit button.

Terminator X: Judgement Day

"If the number of black artists in your iPod falls too far below 12.5 percent of the total, then you are violating someone's civil rights."

(Edit: Yes, I realise this is a ridiculously long article. But stick with it, because there's an audio-visual reward at the end. Or just skip straight to the video, whatever. I would.)

I found this Slate article via the ever-informative Rock Critics Daily blog. Basically, some complete and utter tool has decided that Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields) is a racist because he doesn't like hip-hop or contemporary R&B. Um, what?

Since when did the music you like determine the people you like? (Well, according to 'High Fidelity', it always does, and there's some truth in that, but hear me out.) Sure, if you know someone who has the exact same musical tastes as you, there's a decent chance you'll get on with them reasonably well. But the flipside of that is ludicrous.

I'm not really a huge hip-hop fan. I enjoy some of it a lot, while the rest passes me by. I could also say that about Celtic music, except without the "I enjoy some of it a lot" bit. Does that mean I hate Irish people? Of course not.

Is it because both me and the Irish person are white that it doesn't work that way? Does this just apply to black people? Isn't that racist?

We know nothing about Stephin Merritt, aside from the fact that he makes critically acclaimed indie-pop music, and he doesn't like hip-hop. We do not know him as a person.

Actually, I'm not even gonna continue down this path, because it's just so painfully stupid. It is entirely possible to like black people without liking hip-hop. Period.

Now, here's where it gets interesting/hypocritical: Elvis has, in the past, been accused of being racist. Chuck D, who famously made that assertion with Public Enemy in the '80s, no longer believes this, and apparently has come to admire Elvis, but the accusation lingers in parts of the public consciousness. So, why is Elvis a racist? There's no documented evidence of him discriminating against black people, as far as I know. No, the 'reason' for Elvis being a racist is much stupider than that.

He stole music from black people. He imitated the black sound, the style, the swagger. Why? Because he was a huge fan of black music. But, in the eyes of people who don't understand the segregation and distribution practices of the time (the reasons for black musicians not getting their due credit goes way above and beyond Elvis), this makes him an inauthentic racist. Now, take that, and rewind it back.

Stephin Merritt is a racist because he doesn't like black music. Elvis Presley was a racist because he did like black music. Don't Believe The Hypocrites.

Adding to the problem is that even those self-righteous critics who want to show how down they are with hip-hop don't seem to understand the art-form, or at least, want to change the majority of it into something that it isn't.

Critics tend to celebrate hip-hop musicians who don't adhere to the hip-hop genre, as if there is something inherently inferior about hip-hop. Think about it. The only rappers to recieve nearly universal praise from critics are people like Kanye West, The Roots and Outkast. There are others, of course, but we'll use these three as an example.

Kanye West, the master of the sped-up soul sample, makes a point of not submitting to the traditional gangsta-rap worldview. Instead, he cleverly mixes gangsta rap with a more socially conscious style, making him "the first (I'm white, so I can't say it) with a Benz and a backpack."
On his second album, Kanye moved even further away from traditional hip-hop, by hiring indie pop tunesmith and 'It' man Jon Brion as co-producer. Brion's melodic talents ushered in a sound that is many things, but most importantly to the critics, it is not what hip-hop has become known for.

Same with the Roots, an exceptional band... yes, band. With their use of guitars, drums and assorted live instrumentation, the Roots won over the critics by, basically, sounding more like the white bands that critics are so fond of. Certainly, the Roots are fantastic exponents of hip-hop, but they became critically acclaimed because of that gimmick. I'm not saying that's a bad thing on the part of the Roots. They've got the talent (and the training... Black Thought and ?uestlove went to a performing-arts school in Philadelphia) to pull it off, and it sounds great. The question is, why do critics gravitate towards them while simultaneuously dismissing other hip-hop acts?

Finally, Outkast, who broke through to worldwide superstardom with the critically beloved 'Speakerboxx/Love Below' album. Go listen to 'Love Below'. Pick any song from it at random. Chances are, it's not a hip-hop song. 'Hey Ya'? Brilliant song, but it could have been written by a gifted employee of the Brill Building. It bears virtually nothing in common with hip-hop, and everything in common with classic pop.

Even the legendary Public Enemy became known for their policitical consciousness, more so than their music. And even those critics who do acknoweldge their music talk in terms of progressive soundscapes... Again, that's not a bad thing. Terminator X and the rest of Public Enemy made some great music.

But what the critics are doing to hip-hop, is essentially analogous with a rock critic appreciating only prog rock and art-rock, and no other, more popular styles.

Because gangsta hip-hop is popular. And I can't understand why it is acceptable to call someone a racist for not liking hip-hop, when you are part of a critical establishment that writes off the most prevelant form of black music as being 'misogynist, violent' etc.

Now, a perfectly fine counter-argument would be, "but critics don't like generic music, regardless of genre or colour." And in many cases, that is true. But if critics are really so opposed to generic music that breaks no new ground, how in the hell did so many garage bands become critical darlings over the last five years?

To paraphrase 'Almost Famous', should we be praising the hip-hop groups made up of gangstas trying to be poetic, or the hip-hoppers who have the courage to be blinged-out gangstas, which makes them poetic?

I don't think there's any need for a segregated critical community, where only 'black' magazines like XXL and The Source routinely praise gangsta rap, and more artful groups are praised by mainstream magazines.

Undeniably, such a divide now exists, and surely, if music preferences can indicate racism, then today's music journalist should either move gangsta rap to the front of the bus, even if they dislike it, or leave poor old Stephin Merritt's musical preferences alone.

Finally, as a reward for reading this far, and to demonstrate the relationship between white people and hip-hop, I present this ethnographic research.


Yet Another Edit: I just realised, that rant makes it sound like I like gangsta rap. I don't. I was just trying to point out, in a rushed, dodgy manner, that it isn't fair for a critic to attack Stephin Merritt for disliking hip-hop, considering most critics seem to dislike most hip-hop. I'm not saying critics should start giving gangsta rap good reviews, by any means.

Doof/Emo Deathmatch 2006 Continued

One wants to die anyway. The other can administer 200 Beatings Per Minute.
No Contest.
Or... IS IT?!?!?!
Doof/Emo Deathmatch 2006.
One of these subcultures is going underground...
Six feet underground.

Doof/Emo Deathmatch 2006

This Time, It's Cultural.
Oh, and personal. Very, very personal. But mostly cultural.
Can Doof defeat Emo before Emo cuts himself to death? Can Emo escape Doof's 300 bpm attack? Or will the transitory nature of temporary trends defeat them both?
I mean... FIGHT TO THE DEATH! WOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOO!

Mash My Bitch Up

Anyone else doing this MSTU2000 blogging task will be very familiar with mash-ups by now. We've had a chance to hear a lot of them, and most of them are pretty cool.
The critical potential of mash-ups interests me... Rather than writing down "I think 'Are You Gonna Be My Girl' sounds a lot like 'Lust For Life'", you can just mix the two together and show the world how derivative we Aussies can be, for example. (I'm still waiting for a 'More Than A Feeling'/'Smells Like Teen Spirit' mash-up.)
Mash-ups can also help to break down the fences that are built up by critics... By mashing 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' (grunge) up with other songs that are highly representative flagships of their genre- NWA's 'Straight Outta Compton' (gangsta rap) or Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' (80's pop/R&B)- a sonic creation is formed that disregards the traditional segregated apartheid of popular music genres, in the same way that sampling does.
Which is all to say that, finally, someone has created the mash-up that all the kewl kids have been waiting for, a mash-up that will surely hold it down in the ghetto, son.
Andrew Lloyd Webber Vs. Richard Donner...
Jesus Christ Superman.



Edit: I can't take any credit for finding that video, since Annabel showed it to me first. Chalk up another one for the "Annabel is secretly doing your blog for you, with a totally different written voice, and totally different interests" conspiracy theorists. But yeah, she did find this video.
She's a big Jesus Christ Superstar fan, I'm a Superman fan/geek... Two worlds colliding...

Everyday He Writes The Books

There's an interview up at rockcritics.com with Griel Marcus. Griel was a popular rock critic/journalist in the initial boom in New Journalism-infused rock writing in the 70s, and he went on to make a bigger name for himself with books like Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music and Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century.

He's one of those writers that can take pretty much any topic and provide it with an incredibly deep and far-reaching meaning and implication. In his case, he does this through music... from a starting point of music, he ends up writing great political and historical pieces and somehow connecting it all. In his own words, he just writes. He "doesn't consider" himself to be any particular sort of writer.

Marcus has some interesting things to say in the interview about the state of rock journalism now. He cites Jason Gross, of Perfect Sound Forever, as a contemporary talent, and makes mention of the wonderful links page that Gross put together for rockcritics.com, a page that helps to join the disparate world of internet rock journalism together.

So, for those of you that have any interest in the rock critic subculture, and aren't just here for the videos and off-topic rambles (but honestly, I think I'm just here for the videos and off-topic rambles, so I don't know why anyone else wouldn't be), check the interview out to hear from a true leading light of the subculture.

Captain America... $%*# Yeah!

Yay! With Annabel's guidance, I can post videos! We are go! Incidentally, that video has nothing to do with rock critics and their subculture.

Although it sure has something to do with subcultures. Sure, comic book movies may be mega-blockbusters now, but back in the day, if you were a kid who insisted on repeatedly hiring out 'Captain America: The Movie', you were part of a pretty freaking geeky subculture. Yay for me!

Ok, rock critics: relevance, relevance... This clip subverts the traditional nature of music and film, by inserting music into a clip it was never meant for, thereby altering critical perceptions...

No? Ok. Um, by putting a well-loved song with a universally reviled (by those who even know about it) movie, this clip presents a critical conundrum... Do we like the clip? It is 'Team America', after all. But do we not? I mean, it is 'Captain America' after all.

No? Ok... This clip presents critics with a new, anarchic system of review, in which they can voice their opinion of a film as a cheesy cult classic by putting together a clip that makes it look particularly chessy, and highlighting it's ironic stance through the use of music...

No? Fine then. It's not relevant. I just didn't know how to follow up 'Colossus the Fictional Metallic Emo Kid.'

Colossal Emo

In my geeky travels through the interwebs, I recently came across this stunning quote: "Colossus is totally emo."
I can't remember where; perhaps some forum, it sure ain't coming up in search engines.

For the blessedly uninformed, let me be the first to taint you: Colossus is a Marvel comic book character. He is a member of the Uncanny X-Men (the mutant superheroes, not the band.) Not a charter member of the gang, the Russian powerhouse was brought into the team as part of a ragtag international crew designed to revive interest in the stagnant title.

So anyway, the experiment worked, the All-New, All-Different X-Men was a hit and roughly thirty years later we'll be seeing the third in the X-Men blockbuster feature film franchise later this month. (And I'll be seeing it nine days early, because I'm a lucky geek/movie reviewer).

So, what has this got to do with emo kids? And what do emo kids have to do with rock criticism? Stick with me, my non-existent readership, and it'll all make sense soon.

So, Colossus is actually Peter Rasputin, a Russian farmboy recruited to the American super-team because of his somewhat unusual ability to transform his skin into organic metal. I'm not down with the exact physics and biology of the procedure, someone even geekier than me would have to be consulted for that, but here's the Complete Idiot's Guide to Colossus, written by me, a Complete Idiot. Let's resort to pretty pictures. When Colossus transforms, it looks like this:

Bigger pictures later, I promise. So anyway, Colossus is an X-Man, and he loves it. Or does he? Does it secretly make him... emotional? Perhaps even... perish the thought... emotional hardcore?

Apparently, emo music as we know it today (which allegedly stands for "emotional hardcore" or "emotive hardcore") started in Washington in the '80s, led by Rites of Spring and other bands that would become known as their "emocore" brethren.

The noteable thing here is the word "hardcore". These early emo bands, for all the raw emotions they were on their sleeves, could rock out when they wanted to. Fugazi were an emo band, after all. Emocore bands were just more... in touch with their emotions than the rest of the punk and hardcore family.

Gradually, emo bands and their fans, known as emo kids, earnt a reputation as depressed little dudes who liked to talk about cutting themselves, and tended to mope around a lot. The moping is key, here.

OK, so is Colossus emo? First of all, there's the clothes. Emos, at least of the perpetually depressed, for-gods-sake-what-is-it-about-hungry-jacks-that-attracts-these-people variety, are known for wearing dark get-up, with a heavy spot of make-up here, and a Chuck Taylor there. Does Colossus meet these criteria? Let's see.

It's touch and go, but I don't think Piotr qualifies here. But of course, emo is more than fashion, it's a way of life. So can Colossus be an emo kid, even as he wears bright spandex? Can he kick it? Yes, he can.

You see, as much as he loved his newfound brothers and sisters in the X-Men, Colossus yearned for his family back home in Russia. Risking his life for the benefit of a world that hates and fears him wasn't enough for Petey, he had to have his precious family too. Don't cry, emo kid.

So what did he do? Why, he continually moped about, and explored his skills as a painter. God, an artist! How emotional is that! Not helping Colossus' doldrums was the fact that his particular mutant ability, the ability to turn himself into metal, was not particularly useful against the team's archnemesis, Magneto. In fact, Magneto couldn't believe his luck, as he tossed around Colossus like a rag doll.

So now, we've got a big super-powered Russian, wandering around Professer Xavier's mansion- yeah, typical pampered emo kid, must have reaaaaaaal problems, in that mansion of his- bemoaning his far-away family, and how useless he is to his friends.

On top of that, Professor X is a total douche for a while there, and doesn't appreciate the new X-Men. God, frickin' idiot! Authority figures never understand! And they never will, you poor, poor emo kid!

Now, in case he's not emo enough already, Colossus has some family issues. His brother, Mikhail, a cosmonaut, ends up becoming an evil mutant. So, you know, here's this big emo mutant, fighting with his brother. So frickin' immature. Just like an emo mid.

And then, his sister Illyana gets infected with the Legacy virus, this thing designed to infect mutants (the world hates and fears them, remember... just like every adolescent ever). Now, and this is actually pretty sad, so grab the tissues, Illyana dies as a result of this infection. Yeah, I know, now you feel bad for making fun of him.

But what does Colossus do? Does he turn to his friends for support? Does he get out there and mix it up and see that life goes on? No. Of course he doesn't. Remember that Magneto guy, the bad dude who threw him around and made Colossus his bitch earlier in the tale? Well, Magneto's pretty much the king of the angry mutants. And, of course, being the loyal team-mate that he is, Colossus pays the X-Men back for their support throughout this difficult time in his life by teaming up with Magneto.

Upon joining the Magster, Colossus takes on a new uniform. Behold:

Dear Lord. Notice the black cape? And is that a hint of eye-liner I detect? Underneath those sweet boots, you just know he's rocking the blacked-out Con All-Stars.

Of course, Colossus doesn't commit himself to this new-found bad-assery. Honestly, if he stayed down that path, he would've ended up ditching the Death Cab and Jimmy Eat World records and asking his hairdresser for a Robert Smith.

Rather, he heads back to the X-fold, chills in England for a bit with an overseas X-franchise known as Excalibur, and then eventually goes "home" to the X-Mansion. Once there, Colossus delves deep into the history of emo, and pulls out a Fugazi classic that finally inspires him to do That Which All Emo Kids Say They Are Going To Do.

Remember that nasty Legacy virus? The one that killed lil' Illyana? Well, it turns out that, thanks to the magical world of comic book physics, this virus can be cured worldwide if one mutant injects himself with the antidote, killing himself and releasing the antidote into the atmosphere in the process. Or something.

I'm sure you all caught the key words there; they were just after "antidote."

No, not "into the atmosphere." The first time I said "antidote." Yeah, there you go, you've got it. So, to the tune of legendary emo band Fugazi's 'Give Me The Cure', Colossus does the heroic/lets-be-realistic-here-he-was-probably-gonna-do-it-anyway deed.

"Give Me The Cure"

I never thought too hard on dying before

I never sucked on the dying

I never licked the side of dying before

And now I'm feeling the dying

You've got your hands over your ears

You've got your mouth running on

You've got your eyes looking for something

That will never be found - like a reason

Good god I don't need a reason

I never thought too hard on dying before

I never sucked on the dying

I never licked the side of dying before

And now I'm feeling the dying

But you've got to....

Give me the shot

Give me the pill

Give me the cure

Now what you've done to my world

Awwwww. Of course, Colossus doesn't stay dead. Why? Because he's a comic book character? No, because he's a god-damned emo kid, and you just know they won't follow through on their threats. So Colossus rose from the dead. Pussy.

So, that's Colossus, the emotional mutant. But is he emotional hardcore? Well, the guy can turn himself into indestructible metal. That's, like, the hardest of the core, right there.

But here's the thing... Colossus isn't even the most obvious X-Man to go the emo route. I mean, for starters, he's practically invincible. Kinda hard for him to cut himself.

Wolverine, on the other hand, comes with six built-in foot-long blades in his hands, and has a healing factor that ensures any wounds will quickly be fixed! Prime emo candidate! And come on, the WHOLE TEAM, and all their mutant enemies, are quite hung up on this world that "hates and fears them."

The thing is, the whole diatribe above could be reworded and made to fit just about any subculture. Maybe not as well, but, y'know. This whole idea of "emo" as being "emotional", because really, there's nothing too hardcore about Dashboard Confessional, seems like lazy genre-labeling.

Virtually every adolescent thinks the world "hates and fears them", and most pop music reflects that in one way or another. What sort of song doesn't touch our emotions somehow? Surely not every song is an emo song.

So, critics... let's see some tighter definitions for terms like 'emo'. Because right now, Colossus (and probably any other person I randomly picked out of the sky) really could be described as "totally emo." And that's just not right.

Oh, and I'm not even gonna get into Colossus' relationship with the under-age Kitty Pryde, because the world just isn't ready for that.

In conclusion, I leave you with this image from a classic X-Men issue, in which Riptide has just told Colossus that Dashboard Confessional are not a very good band:

DO NOT mess with Dashboard arond Piotr Rasputin. I'm not even kidding.