Music

NAUGHTY: Year of the hiatus

by Tyler Munro

In our annual festive Naughty and Nice feature, AUX compiles the best and worst of the year in music.

I’ve asked this on here before, but to adapt an old saying: if the Black Eyed Peas go on hiatus but will.i.am’s solo career continues, did it actually happen? And the answer, obviously, is… who cares. Going on hiatus is a modern phenomenon. Not only that, it’s really fucking irritating.

This could just be my well documented idealism—or keeping it real’ism—talking, but I definitely remember a time when bands either broke up or they didn’t. At this point, going on hiatus is meaningless. Bands that go on hiatus are just eager to keep their names in the news when they’ve run out of ideas and are tired of touring, but at this point, how do you even define it? Going on hiatus creates two news stories nobody cares about, one to announce it and one six weeks later to say, “sike!”

Believe or or not, being in a band doesn’t come with the obligation of being active 365 days of the year, and the recent phenomenon of going on hiatus just perpetuates the opposite. Good Charlotte announcing that they were going on hiatus was the first reminder I’d had of their existence in years. Ultimately, that’s the point. Disturbed announcing that they were going on hiatus ended up just being a way to peddle some shitty compilation and a few tour dates before they go on a break. That’s what it is. Either that or your broken up, but its a decision the bands themselves need to make before the press releases come flooding in. The point, I guess, is that nobody gives a shit if you’ve gone on hiatus because it means you’ll be back eventually. It’s the musical equivalent of saying you’re going to make dinner, but only after you take a quick nap. If you’re worth it, we’ll wait.

Let’s go back to the Black Eyed Peas for a minute. They’ve been whispering about a hiatus for close to a year now. They’re going to take a break after this tour. After that tour. After this appearance on American Idol or X-Factor or whatever the fuck show is ready to spoon-feed them liquified cash. The catch is it’s all just white noise at this point. Their hiatus is the antithesis of a band like Good Charlotte’s—they announce they’re taking a break just so we’ll notice they’re not around anymore. At this point, will.i.am’s nasally raps and Fergie’s gut-tickling howls go by in a blur that sounds like the Dirty Dancing soundtrack vomiting over a Timbaland beat. They’re inescapable, so when they say they’ll go away, we intentionally take notice of them for the first time since “Where Is the Love?”

But then they go on hiatus and will.i.am releases a song like “T.H.E.,” one that’s so bad even Jennifer Lopez should be embarrassed about it. Something Lopez shouldn’t be embarrassed about? Fading away. That’s what artists used to do. They recorded and toured until they didn’t anymore. Sometimes they broke up, but usually they just kind of…stopped. That’s how comebacks happen. Comebacks…that’s where the real draw is these days, but with artists playing and pausing their careers at will, announcing their little stoppages like a ten year old’s SNES-prompted piss breaks, we’ll be in a much different state a few years from now. We won’t have reunions or comebacks because bands will never have actually broken up. Go away or don’t. I don’t care anymore, honestly. But next year, make sure I don’t hear about it unless it matters.

Return to the Naughty and Nice master list.