Rock stars aren't rocking the look
We first started to notice it at the Grammy Awards back in February. There they were, the new queens of pop -- Fergie, Natasha Bedingfield, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift -- swanning around the red carpet in forgettable designer dresses, their highlighted extended locks cascading over their shoulders a la Gwyneth Paltrow. They looked so interchangeable, they might as well have been femme-bots.
Since then, the blah-ification of style in the music industry has been impossible to ignore. Pink ditched her one-legged pants for cocktail dresses, the crimson-mouthed Christina Aguilera started wearing (gasp!) nude lipstick, and Mariah Carey started covering up.
Billboard's top men are in an even sorrier state. Daughtry's bad suits, Jay-Z's stuffy tuxes and Pete Wentz's mall-punk looks -- these guys could pass for models in a department store fashion show. When did rock and pop get so boring?
Mainstream songsters have always set the trends, but suddenly they're following them: dressing in what sails down the runways -- the same as actresses, reality TV stars and no-talent celebutantes. Long gone are the days when we took style cues from pop stars, donning Madonna's lace gloves or Michael Jackson's white socks and black loafers.
For decades, cultivating an individual look was as important as cultivating an individual sound. Patti Smith in her menswear; Kurt Cobain in his grandpa sweaters; Janis Joplin in her hippie-gypsy garb; Cher in her beaded peek-a-boo Bob Mackie gowns. Their style influenced the cultural tides almost as much as the music they made -- and reminded us that mavericks dress the part.
What are Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Simpson conveying? Mystic tans and power squats?
These Barbie-fied stars are "giving you fashion, they're not giving you style," said Michael Schmidt, a local clothing and jewelry designer who's made custom pieces for almost every iconic music artist in the last 20 years, including Cher, Madonna, Tina Turner, Aerosmith and Elton John. "They're not interested in being stylistically daring or having a unique place in the world. They just want to be a mouthpiece for fashion so they can end up on the covers of magazines."
The reasons for pop music's style drought are as varied as Avril Lavigne's personas.
With the recording industry in decline, artists are no longer making money merely by selling music. They're reeling in the dough by selling their names and images to the highest bidder. Which means, for some, adopting a blank-canvas look that's equally appealing to Procter & Gamble and Dolce & Gabbana.
