Not a rhetorical question...

I live in near-perfect isolation from the world of youngsters and all that goes on there. All I know is there were oceans of calm in this tribe for two years, and then a flurry of posts.

Are people suddenly listening to and making this music again? One of the reasons I withdrew from "scene" is that I suddenly couldn't stomach it anymore. The music sounded dreadful to me, and the scensters were nothing like my beloved cadre from the glorious 80s.

My wife just recently discovered she could get all the old videos from youtube (I kep tellin'er, "baby they got all them Siouxsie videos on thar") and has been making interesting observations about the changes in western culture since then, which led me to some realizations, also.

Color: one subtle aspect of the difference between now and then was the intervention of 90s mainstream styles which assimilated elements of goth / deathrock culture (among other things (like sanitized BDSM and etc.)); the desaturation of color (from wardrobe and artwork) was something that I identify as a goth/deathrock advent; when it went mainstream, it wasn't too long before we were all assaulted by Cat-In-The-Hats and vivid pinks and whatnot being added to the mix. A lot of us in the crucial 80s were "rebelling" against the mainstream of glitz and over-saturated colors (burgundy blazers, tacky yellow hair-bananas an' shit) by removing almost all color from ourselves and drifting around in b&w. The 90s appropriated that look and fed it back to us in a form that was characterized by immaculateness and cleanliness.

More blather later as time permits. Share your thoughts. The separation between european and american forms are something wifey is right now reminding me about, also. I'm going to go talk with her for a while. She's talking now specifically about the corset in the "Slow Dive" video. Better get while the gettin's good.....