aggravated Category: Music
MySpace does everything that it can do into scaring me and cause me to continue to weep for the future. Today, I noticed that they are featuring a movie that does their job for them, which is blurring the lines between specific genres and sub-genres of music and culture. A film titled "Punk Is Not Dead" was on the opening page when I logged on this morning. Normally, I ignore 99% of the shit on the log in screen while I check MySpace. While I do not doubt the filmmakers' ability to bring together information, footage and interviews to make for a compelling documentary, I am questioning their ability to research music and accurately put appropriate bands within their context of "punk rock music." Where do I get off, you ask? Well, I get off all the time and here is what I found while searching around their site. But first, this entry is presupposing that I have not seen this movie, keep that in mind. It's more about the musicians or bands than the film itself.
So mainly, I'm referring to the actual list of bands on the MySpace site which was no doubt erected (I love using that word in a sentence or all by itself) by the film makers themselves. Some bands listed are punk rock founders and are quite obvious picks to the average mainstream music fan. A few of those bands include the likes of The Ramons, The Sex Pistols and The Clash. Other originals that are not as famous are Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, The Germs, Dead Kennedys and Minor Threat. Interestingly enough, one of my favorite punk bands, the Descendents, are not on the list. However, some bands that are questionably punk at best make their way on to this list. Are you ready? Wait, are you sure? Ok, here goes. Sum 41, Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, the Used and My Chemical Romance are not fucking punk rock bands. Even Green Day isn't punk anymore, at least not in the traditional musical sense of the punk genre, whatever that is. Ok, my opinion here. If you are a 42 year-old soccer mom and can take your 13 year-old daughter to a Green Day concert and can both enjoy yourselves, it's not punk, sorry. At least they had the good sense to leave Fall Out Boy off the list.
The NP bands (not-punk) as I'll label them are mildly punk sounding on their best day and on their worst, well, they basically equal this…
The movie itself is trying to capture and answer to the question of "can [the] true, nonconformist punk spirit still exist in today's corporatized culture?" Well, when you interview Deryck Whibley from Sum 41 who is married to Avril Lavigne, I'm going to go ahead and say "no." Flipping off the paparazzi is not punk, either. Neither is being Canadian. That's what I call a double whammy for the couple in question here. Sum 41 is about as punk as Pat Boone doing an album of punk rock covers. Wait, that is sort of punk. Damn it. How do I always do that? Ok, maybe this will work better. A band like Sum 41 is for the MTV TRL crowd. They're adored by kids and are family friendly. There, that's better.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put punk down as a movement, or punk rock music down as an art form. It worked in it's time and it's made a lot of people a lot of money and it still does today. It's just that when you put a list together of punk rock bands, don't put NOFX on the same line as My Chemical Romance. It's a slap in the face to bands like NOFX who could have gone on MTV and become a household name but basically told MTV to fuck themselves when they came calling, turning down a possible payday that could have brought the band millions. That's punk. Or stupid, depending on how you feel about the ethos of punk rock and making money.
I think the word itself "punk" and using it to describe a movement is fucking stupid. You know who got labeled as "punk rock" before bands like the Pistols, Ramones and the Clash were labeled as such? The Patti Smith Group, Bruce Springsteen and the fucking Bay City Rollers. You know them, they're the "S-A-T-U-R/D-A-Y/Night" guys. Ask your mom, she'll know what I'm talking about (insert obvious mom joke here too, for your funny bone pleasure). I like a lot of the bands in the list or liked them at one time, however I have issues with injecting that list with bands that do nothing to uphold the anti-establishment credo and create non-mainstream music that make punk rock what it was. I want to resurrect Wendy-O Williams so she can snuff out Karen O onstage in front of a nationally televised audience. I want to raise Joe Strummer from the grave so he can talk Burt McCracken into going home to
Punk is a movement, it's an ideal, it's a frame of mind. If you get a tattoo or pierce your body, that does not make you punk if you think it makes you punk. Other people have to call you punk in order for it to be punk. Get it? If it's part of a process it's not anti-establishment. The only way to go against the grain is to think for yourself and be yourself. Your nose ring, your tattoo in the middle of your lower back and your 45 collection does not make you fucking punk rock. Stop fooling yourself. Punk died when bands like the Pistols and the Ramones gained popularity and sold millions of records. Sorry, it just did. When I see a guy walking downtown while I'm at work wearing a pair of $300 jeans, a sport coat and a Ramones t-shirt on, it just confirms that your idea of punk rock is deader than Dillinger.
Punk rock music is just another sub-genre of music now, so if you want to call it something call it "post-punk" or "kinda-punk", or "I'm a whinny bastard child with mascara on from New Jersey-punk." Just stop lying to yourselves into believing that you are a part of something. When you join a large group of people that all think, act, walk and talk the same you are part of a group that is unable to think for itself, and that is the least punk thing you can do. Punk rock would be walking into a punk rock show or going to the Vans Warped Tour in an outfit from the Gap. The full nine yards too. Khakis, a button down shirt with a sweater over the top of it. Preferably in some pastel palette that will make you stand out in the crowd. Maybe a nice periwinkle or warm salmon*. That's fucking punk rock, and if you don't get that and think my previous statement or notion is incorrect or flawed in any way, then you just don't get it. You should go back to the mall. You should go back to listening to pop music. Also, you should get a job and stop clogging up the aisles in the used record stores I frequent.
Don't fake who you are, like who you like, do what you want to do and stand on your own two feet. You'll call it punk, I'll call it using my brain.
 | Currently listening : Everything Sucks By Descendents Release date: By 24 September, 1996  |
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 | Jami   |
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