music is the message; what's in a name?

i think you can tell a lot about the zeitgeist of the nation's youth by the names of the bands.

in the 50s it was cutesy and braggy - the comets, the rockets, fats domino, chubby checker...

in the 60s, animals and delicious optimism - the temptations, the righteous brothers, the supremes, the beatles, the monkees, the turtles - lovin spoonful??

the 70s gave us war, and a funkadelic parliament. but also got us high and sexy with names like wings and cream, and later peaches & herb, kiss...

anyway. i'm sure someone somewhere is writing a dissertation on this right now. no need for me to go on... and you could easily argue the point that i have no point, or that i'm wrong.

but i was watching some fuse over the weekend and it seemed to me that the kids all have the same bleak outlook... the bands i saw were:

anti-flag
armor for sleep
against me
senses fail
the casualties

add to these my other fave band names:
my chemical romance
and
i love you but i've chosen darkness

this is totally unscientific, because all of these bands are in the same vein - emo/screamo/indie/punk/rock - but i still found the nihilistic pessimism interesting. or maybe just appealing.

by the way, anti-flag's video for this is the end is one of the better videos i've seen lately. low budget, DV, with energetic screaming kids and a message. what else do you need? i think hip-hop should go in this direction - strip it down, lose the slickness (that feels 90s anyway) and get real.