Oceane is 30 years old. When she was a teenager, she swore by the American rock band My Chemical Romancewith his “very dark atmosphere, its electric guitars, its gothic visual identity”. Like many, she fought for six hours in line to be the best placed in her concert at the Élysée Montmartre in 2007. Elodie, she loved hotel tokyo to school. She was “cold”, at the time. Most of all, she loved that the long-haired blonde singer showed willingness “to shake the codes of male idols”. Esteban, still a fan ofapril lavigneHe loved that, in the 2000s, he stood out among other pop stars.
At the time, these bands that hit the charts were the leaders of the teenagers who were called a bit “emos”, “goths”. And today, they are far from gone: this month, Placebo returns with a new album. a year ago it was Evanescence, Kyō or Avril Lavigne. And if they continue to release records, it is because they still fill concert halls: a Zénith de Paris for Avril Lavigne has almost 7,000 seats. We are far from the two Bercys that Tokio Hotel did in 2008 but anyway, the group will play at the Olympia (2,000 seats) in May 2023. Placebo’s French tour is also filling up well. Even better: the “old school” rock band is in the top 40 of the most streamed artists right now. His new album is a true commercial challenge. Behind the scenes, we’re also being told there’s a new radio craze for this kind of music.
“The objective of these groups is to maintain a young audience”, explains Éric Jean-Jean, music journalist and author of several books. This is confirmed by Élodie: if she listened to Tokio Hotel a few years ago, it was because the German group corresponded perfectly to this period of adolescence where you only seek to emancipate yourself and make yourself hoarse shouting the choir of «He shouted!», one of his biggest hits (yes, that’s for sure, you remember). Océane admits that he appreciated the “very strong melancholic side” My Chemical Romance songs thanks to East “fury” who accompanied him daily. This difficult step of adolescence, Placebo also put it in song in 1996 with the title «teen angst»: “Since I was born, I began to consume myself / Now nothing ever, ever turns out the way I want.”
Inside «Dead!»My Chemical Romance s’interroge: “Wouldn’t it be great if we were dead?” What billie eilish that today evokes their worst torments in their songs, the groups of the time addressed a disillusioned youth full of “darkness”. “I just turned 42 and I still have the same fascination for this pivotal moment in life, for what adolescence and early adulthood are like,” confided the singer of Kyo Benoit Poher In an interview.
The young have gone to the hip-hop side of the force
Except today, neither rock, not even emo pop have wind in their sails. Difficult for groups of this type to find a place in the hearts of adolescents, past “on the hip-hop side of the force”, recalls Eric Jean-Jean. Yesterday’s rebels no longer listen to rock but urban music. In their ears, it’s no longer limp bizkit Where blink-182 but rather JUL and SCH. French rap and urban music productions account for more than half of the top 200 best-selling albums in 2021, according to the latest SNEP report. In the top 10, five are rappers. Above all, no one is surprised anymore: rap, hip hop and RnB are the number 1 music genres for under 25s. “Today it’s corny to say that you like Evanescence, Kyo or Dépêche Mode when you’re a teenager”explains the journalist.
And the teenagers of twenty years ago, who pogot at My Chemical Romance concerts, today have grown up well: “When you were crazy about Placebo at 15 or 16, when you wore your hair black and put pencil on your eyes, today you are married, you have two children, a truck… It is difficult to follow the delusion, underlines Éric Jean-Jean. Still, some followed them. Esteban doesn’t care and he tells anyone who will listen that he constantly listens to Avril Lavigne and that his tickets to his future concert are stashed in his drawer.
Elsa is 30 years old and already has her tickets for the Tokio Hotel concert at the Olympia next May. She actually she never stopped listening to My Chemical Romance, fall out Boy Where Green Daythat were omnipresent in his ears during his college years: “I like to see how they evolve. It always annoys me to go to their concerts with my friends, like before. To feel this vibe that I had when I was younger.”
She fully assumes that she will listen to Tokio Hotel again. Nerdy, listening to rock from the 2000s? “It doesn’t interest me at all. Already at that time, when you listened to Tokio Hotel, it wasn’t necessarily well seen”remember her. “They made fun of us, they considered us groupies.” Without resentful for a dime, he invites everyone to listen to his titles today. “Sometimes when I put this in the house without telling my husband, he asks me what it is because he likes it.” I touch you.