There's no denying that MySpace is an extremely important marketing tool for today's up and coming bands. In the past, a band from a small town or even a mid-sized city would have to partake in some extensive touring to get their name out there. Now, with a friend adder and a bass player with a lot of free time on his hands, any band from any out of the way location can create a reputation for their group. Each week, we'll pick a random town or city in the United States, enter it into the MySpace band search, and review the most popular group. We might like it, but probably not. This week, from Tempe, AZ: The Maine.
The Maine want you to like them. More importantly, they want you to buy their merchandise. They have one of those annoying top banners on their page (that took entirely too long to load), with a picture of the band decked out in matching paint splatter shirts and retro sunglasses, commanding me to pre-order their CD now. In fact, if I pre-order the CD this moment, I will also receive a free t-shirt. My bet is that it only comes in youth extra-small so my I can show off my budding teenage breasts at the mall next Saturday.
The band sports the standard issue emo "wet kitten" haircut, and in other pictures, they are sneering or throwing up fake gang signs, but still manage to maintain their cuteness enough to appeal to girls too old for the Jonas Brothers, but not quite ready for the world of "dangerous" rock 'n roll. There are also many mentions of their appearance on this year's Warped Tour—for which they certainly have a chaperone.
The music is generic pop with punk guitars and safe hardcore-type breakdowns. This typically passes for Emo these days. The vocals have that annoying effect on them, and the subject matter is, not surprisingly, about girls and broken hearts. One of the songs has a curse in the chorus, not a really bad one, but bad enough to let us know they won't be on the Disney Channel anytime soon. There's a fat guy in the band (who probably writes the songs), but they seem embarrassed by him- sticking him in the back of all of the promotional photos.
As you continue browsing their very full Myspace page, even more atrocities become apparent. Apparently, they were featured on a compilation put out by Fearless Records called Punk Goes Crunk, where they covered "I Wanna Love You" by Akon! This makes me want to kill myself.
Every comment on their Myspace is from fifteen year old girls begging them to come back to their town soon. It must be hard to deal with the fact that the drummer from some shitty band from Tempe, AZ doesn't care that he was the first guy you ever blew. Well, maybe he'll think about it twenty years from now when he sees a girl that looks sort of like you at the gas station he manages.
