those Bop centerfolds have to come down sometime

Teens 'n' tweens are super into music. Like, duh. I know I had my obsessions. It actually started pretty early on for me, when Hanson burst onto the scene in 4th grade. I had their album Middle of Nowhere on tape and listened to it constantly. I didn't need any other album; this was really it. And they were like, a real band. They played their own instruments and, presumably, wrote their own songs.Something changed around 5th or 6th grade though. The infestation of the boy bands began, and each girl had to pick which one was her fave. I decided on Backstreet Boys. I think they came out a little bit before NSync, and they were just... better. More sophisticated. Better voices. Better hair. A.J. McLean was my favorite BSB. He was the bad boy. He had that mischevious streak that drove the girls wild. No wonder he became a porn addict and alcoholic after the demise of the band. I kinda still love him though.

Since Backstreet Boys and NSync--along with the poor man's versions of the two (I'm thinking LFO, 98 Degrees, or any other group that didn't have the necessary 5 members)--lost their swagger sometime around Y2K, who has replaced them in the hearts and lockers of teens everywhere? Is pop music still really what's hott? This blogger reports that the bedsheet-wearing Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift-dating Jonas Brothers are insanely popular with the tween set, so maybe pop acts still have an audience for those 12 and under, but these seem too babyish for teens. By the time I was 15, I was on the hunt for "real" music and started listening to bands like Modest Mouse. So indie. Nevermind that my real motivation behind downloading their stuff was because the jerk I had a crush on at the time listened to them. They were okay. I also got into grrl bands like Le Tigre and Sleater-Kinney (still so good), started making zines, keeping an angsty LiveJournal, and it goes from there. Is this the natural shift that happens for every kid at this time in life? Is there always this drastic switch from Jesse McCartney to My Chemical Romance? I think it's just the simple fact that adolescents are susceptible to the changing tides of trends. Their love for Tokio Hotel will fade soon, but if they're anything like me, they will come back to this music in a few years and remember what they loved about it. Or maybe they'll realize how truly awful their favorite bands really are.