Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Myspace, the scene was ruled by a quintet of Christian lads from Dayton, Ohio who went by the unlikely moniker of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. The scene-prophets held council and declared them the heirs to the throne, The Next Big Thing. But alas, it was not meant to be, and the prophecy remains unfulfilled. Sit back in the overstuffed, high-back leather chair next to the fireplace in your library, your faithful mastiff curled up at your feet as the cold winds of the moors rattle the shutters of your Victorian mansion, and read on for more details regarding the tragic tale of TDWP…
lms if ur still listening to “HTML Rulez D00d” in 2014
If u can remember back to 2007 or so, if someone asked u to bet on who would be the breakout scene metalcore band, the smart bet would have been TDWP. Sure, ADTR, BMTH, SUICIDE SILENCE and ATTACK ATTACK had their fans but TDWP were definitely at the top of the heap and rising fast. They had it all: the Rockett gear, the synth breakdowns, the zany song titles, and the legions of jailbait groupies. I saw them on Warped 2009 and they CRUSHED it– one of the biggest crowds I have ever seen at Warped. It seemed like they could do no wrong, but it wouldn’t last forever (*VH1 “Behind The Music” voiceover/montage sequence*).
Fig 1: Compare the viewcounts of their recent videos with the ones from their Myspace-era peers BMTH… Even new kids on the block BEARTOOTH have them beat. ouch :/
Fast forward just a few years and the tables have turned: ADTR, BMTH and OM&M are all Billboard top ten #hardrock bands, and TDWP is in “oh, they’re still a band?!” territory. Even BLESSTHEFALL charted higher than TDWP’s last album, the BLESSTHEFALL is pretty much just the poor man’s TDWP (but importantly, with a much cuter singer).
Fig 2: TDWP circa 2014. Not sheriff they dress like semi-employed drifters as a fashion statement, or if they actually ARE semi-employed drifters
What caused this sad fall from grace? The fact that they look more like smelly vagrants every year probably has something to do with it, given that their scene is and always has been more about how cute the singer is and how GIF-able his stage moves are than the music. But their music isn’t helping the cause: the crabcore world has clearly moved on to #hardrock, but they’re still playing Myspace-style Risecore with zero hooks.
That might have worked in 2008 when breakdowns were still at a premium, but the market for breakdowns bottomed out in the great scene crash of 2012 (“Is Glamour Kills too big to fail??”). Ironically, when I listen to TDWP’s newest album, it just kinda sounds like a BLESSTHEFALL knockoff band to me. Mb instead of writing lulzy pretentious books about their lyrics, they should have focused on copying LINKIN PARK and SLIPKNOT riffs like the rest of their genre was doing in 2013.
Fig 3: newish single, which pretty much sounds just like the old stuff except somehow less interesting
It also probably doesn’t help that they are signed to the post-Monte Conner version of Roadrunner, alongside other “oh THEY’re still a band?” acts like THE AMITY AFFLICTION and “halfway between Ozzfest and Mayhem” bands like HEARTIST, where you’re not really sure who actually listens to them aside from the fat girl who you always see wearing their shirt waiting for the bus across the street from your work.
Whatever the case, let this be a lesson: the scene is a cruel mistress. With one hand she gives, and with the other she takes away. Don’t let this be you– don’t be the last guy on the block clinging to outdated trends. If everybody else is doing something, you should do it too. If the other kids think something is cool, you should say that you think it’s cool too. Just go with the flow, or u could be the next vagrant passed out behind the Greyhound station telling every kid with tattoos who walks past how u were the synth player in TDWP for 3.5 shows.
