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Anyone who thinks stylists can’t kill a band’s career should check out Living Colour’s 1988 “Cult of Personality” video. I mean, here’s a group at the absolute top of its abilities, effecting a masterful hybrid of pop-metal and math-rock, and its greatest legacy is singer Corey Glover’s yellow wet suit. Journalists at the time covered Living Colour by golly-geeing about black people playing metal, even though the group’s breakthrough album, Vivid, was packed with ideas about what a hard-rock band could be, mixing meathead music with art rock (a Talking Heads cover!), loft jazz, and even nods to hip-hop. So what if that cleared the decks for 24-7 Spyz? For a minute, probably the one before someone handed Glover the neon Body Glove, Living Colour seemed like the future of rock ’n’ roll.
LIVING COLOUR PERFORMS AT 7:30 P.M. AT THE BIRCHMERE, 3701 MT. VERNON AVE., ALEXANDRIA. $35. (703) 549-7500.