Tales of a Tokio Hotel

While j-rock is my go-to, always dependable mix on my iPod, occasionally I wake up to the fact that the radio isn't a black hole of manufactured pop music, and on most good days I can find something new to spark my interests.  Even so, these past two holiday seasons I've stumbled upon music I knew I should have been listening to for quite some time, and just never picked up.  Last year, it was Paramore and Flyleaf.  This year it's Tokio Hotel.



I originally discovered them in Europe when I bought a copy of Rock One magazine as a souvenir (well, it came with a sampler CD, calendar, stickers, and Ruki was on the cover, so it wasn't such a random purchase XD). The main article was about their most recent tour at the time, and they were promoting their live DVD release of Zimmer 483.  They'd yet to hit America and their eclectic style really made me take notice, since I couldn't read much of the French article.  While Bill has the more punk rock vibe, his brother Tom has a decidedly more hip hop look about him.  But the clash here works to their advantage, their unique personas balancing each other out perfectly.

Not long after, they were featured in an American fashion magazine (pretty sure it was Vogue) upon their US debut in an article mapping out goth/emo/punk inspirations that were taking over the runways at the time.  I checked out a couple of songs then, mostly in their native German, but left my search at that.  Occasionally they would pop up on my fashion radar while flipping through magazines, but the few songs I had procured lingered on the lost playlists on my iPod, until recently I decided to revisit them and give "Humanoid" a long overdue listen.



I became hooked.  I instantly fell in love with the pop and elecro-infused "Human Connect to Human", "Love & Death", "Automatic", and "Dogs Unleashed."  After a good solid week of "Humanoid", of which I couldn't get enough, I quickly procured "Scream" and got a feeling for the more punk-rock vibe of their earlier music.  Now I'm in the process of backtracking to find some older releases, especially some more in German.

As far as outfits, they've only gotten better from when I first discovered them in Rock One.  Bill's hair is probably the most epic accessory he has, next to his classic leather jackets and superior bling of heavy chain necklaces he seems to favor.  As for the pieces I really want for myself, Bill's jacked from "Automatic" is high on that list.  Feathers, sequins, and asymmetrical sleeves?  Yes, please.

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