They put on a terrific show (they’re actually much better on stage than on video). It was the tour plugging their “New Traditionalists” album and part of the schtick was that they were all dressed up in NAZI boy scout uniforms. The whole album, even the title, was about the inherent contradiction between “New” and “Traditional”, and I suppose the Hitler Youth outfits were supposed to satirize that anachronism, there was nothing new in that particular iconography. I suspect the audience missed that, though.

At the end of the show, which they closed with a solemn, anthem-like rock ballad, the audience rose en masse and saluted the stage, silently, rigidly at attention, with an upraised right arm topped with a clenched fist.

It scared the crap out of me.

The hair bands were far more entertaining as well as alternative groups like Wall of Voodoo and those guys with the flower pots on their heads- Devo.

Whip it good Jody

Oh sure, we as consumers get to persuade the market how we want it to “serve” us, but the marketeers get to do a little persuading of their own as well.