The Deal

Dear Big Hair: What's the deal with hair? --Scottie

Dear Scottie: You tell me.

Clearly, you're don't get it.

Take a look at something as simple as a music video. I'll reference two from the eighties that I saw just this evening: A-ha's "Take On Me" and Kraftwerk's "The Model." Now, back in the eighties, which band was IT? That's right. A-ha. Kraftwerk, while nice "musik," was nerdy. Now take a look at the hairstyles of the two groups. A-ha--big, well-crafted doos. Kraftwerk--clean-shaven, clean-cut, might as well be your dad.

In "Take On Me" a girl drops in to a cartoon she's so enamored by the band leader's hair. Later, she takes the cartoon home just to lust after his picture.

In "The Model," by contrast, the band stands around a clean studio making "musik." They sing about models, women models, with big hair--who they can't have. Clearly, the women got it here, but the men didn't. Kraftwerk should have taken a page out of A-ha's notebook. If they had, the model would have been a song of seduction rather than of longing and loneliness.

That, my friend, is the deal with hair.