nu-wave? dance-core? i (don't) love the '80s

[note: you may have noticed that i removed a bunch of posts. the reason behind this is that i've decided to make chasing coolness strictly for reviews and essays. if you want to know more about my personal life or what's going on my head, you probably know how to get ahold of me. or you could ask]

Nightmare Of You
"Nightmare Of You"
(Bevonshire/East West)

Panic! At The Disco
"A Fever You Can't Sweat Out"
(Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen)

A few months ago, I wrote this rabble rousing post about kids who are making sad attempts to rehash the '80s (even though that would've been cool, let alone acceptable, four years ago) and in the wake of all this madness you have Bloc Party, The Killers, and, um, Madness (kings of ska, riiight). Well get your Rave hairspray and your parachute pants ready because coming to a record store near you are some more awesome bands taking a bite out of the decade of coke, coke, and Reagan.

First we have Long Island, NY's Nightmare Of You, a band I've relentlessly championed for the last year and a half without having any personal stake in, other than being a fan. Their self-titled debut (on the '90s tour-de-force/previously defunct Warner Bros. East West imprint no less) plays like The Cure album that I wish they made last instead of that crappy album they put out.

Of all the bands doing this '80s thing, Nightmare is probably one of the better ones, if not the best. Taking cues from the Britpop scene, they deftly go through the album's 11 songs like it was breathing. Tunes such as the oversexed "Thumbelina" and "In The Bathroom Is Where I Want You" signify that frontman Brandon Reilly has gotten over the pop-punk brashness he had when he was in The Movielife (or maybe he didn't since dude was rocking a Smiths shirts in one of their videos ages before Aiden or Atreyu were rocking the SAME fucking shirt).

They even touch on politics; in album's closer, "Heaven Runs On Oil," Reilly sings "Say you love us, like I know you will/And our deaths won't be in vain/Or in the name of gasoline." An easy statement, but undeniably catchy. Even the "ironic" hip-anti-hipster song "Dear Scene, I Wish I Were Deaf" pokes fun at kids who are too cool for school, even though they may be the band's target audience: "You lazy hipsters make me sick/Don't clap your hands/Don't start to dance/Don't let them know that you're a fan."

One band that I was not a fan of was Nevada's Panic! At The Disco, who had the ability to sound like Fall Out Boy meets Nu-wave. Yeah, bros, that's a good idea. I tried listening to this album at work and two things happened: 1) I started laughing in an otherwise quiet room and I had to excuse myself, then 2) I started to get angry thinking that these douchebags got signed. People can't be serious about this band, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about this release. The "post-modern" artwork is something that the Blood Brothers did on "Burn, Piano Island Burn," and, shit, Gatsby's American Dream did the same thing on "Ribbons and Sugar" -- at least those bands are good enough to boast such hip artwork.

Unlike Nightmare Of You, P!ATD's (doesn't that look like ATID?) lyrics don't rely on politics (both scene and actual) as much as they do on...you guessed it...relationships! If you simply read the lyrics, they're actually a collection of dopey rejects from Fall Out Boy and Bright Eyes, complete with ridiculously long song titles like "Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" and "I Write Sins, Not Tragedies."

Like a million other Purevolume bands, Panic! At The Disco's music and lyrics rely heavily on a Mad Libs-style of filling in the blanks with generic (and seemingly uninspired) inspirations. Like a real '80s band, however, it seems that they exist solely on getting some $$$$$$.

In closing, I highly recommend the poppy/occasionally condescending debut from Nightmare Of You, and I recommend that Panic! At The Disco break up and go back to parking cars at Circus Circus. If this is the end of the '80s trend, I can't wait for people to start ripping off EMF and Barenaked Ladies for the '90s trend that will no doubt happen.