Tuesday, July 28, 2009

When did punk music die?

That's the question that I'm posing right now. I just don't know when exactly did this important sub genre in rock music just either died out, sold out, or even if it's still here and it's not as prominent as it once was back in my day. Seriously, I may be one of the biggest music fanatics out there when it comes to all things rock, but what really burns me up is the decline of punk music. Good quality punk music. The way it was back in the day shouldn't even be compared to the tripe that is considered punk right now. Hell, I don't even think that there is punk anymore, they call it pop-punk, emo, and all that other bullshit. And that amongst itself is barely in my opinion considered music; given the fact that it consists of a chord or two, a tempo to follow, and a relative idea of amalgamating notes to make harmony/melody/rhythm/crap.


I mean there's a few that are out there still and can be considered punk. The biggest out of them that are still rockin' hard has to be Pennywise. These guys rock. They're true to their punk natures since 1991. I've gotten to them from fellow skaters that I used to hang out with while I was in high school and after some kick ass listening to them, I was hooked. These guys knew how to keep the tradition of what punk's really all about. From the super-stardom of The Ramones and Bad Religion to the last great punk acts of Offspring and Green Day (both before circa 1998) no one had done it better during their reign than Pennywise. It had balls, it was harsh yet simple, it had meaning and was true, not any bubblegum-pop prepackaged stale piece of shit that out there now.


Then of course there are some 'punk' bands that are half way decent, almost like hybrids, they're like the E85 ethanol vehicles of 'punk' banks. Taking on some of the old sound of punk and generating a thumbprint for themselves. So in short, they have balls, but not made of steel like their predecessors. Bands such as Authority Zero (Mesa, AZ FTW), Sublime, anything from Blink-182 up to 'Dude Ranch', Unwritten Law only up to and including their self titled album, Pepper, MxPx, Tsunami Bomb, and to a last resort, the first two No Doubt albums. These lighter sounds are an excellent gateway to introducing someone to true punk rock. Don't get me wrong, these bands are/were good in themselves; but if you want to ease someone to what punk really is, then start 'em off with them. You'll thank me later.


And then further down the road, there are bands that claim the title of 'punk'. Trust me, it's about as punk as the likelihood of Toby Keith collaborating with Lil Wayne and Elton John for a song. These abominations that dare to even tread on the brand sickens me like the black plague. This consists of anything that is included into the genre of 'PopPunk.' This is not a genre, it's a spoonful of bullshit that is tried to be stirred into your medicine to put as many varieties of crap and mix it into something that is solid and true to make it more bearable to swallow. It's a joke. These include such lame ducks such as Avenge Sevenfold, Good Charlotte, Plain White T's, and others that if I continue that I would probably drown in my own vomit.


Also those that were punk and then either sold their soul for profit or stardom to produce said crap. Much to the demise of Blink-182, their split-up showed two very different sides of the bands. One of which was Angels and Airwaves which was a lame experiment with Tom DeLonge of Blink and Noodle, the guitarist of Offspring, to produce an emo piece of crap. The other was +44 which was Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker's attempt to be punk again, but it was all for not. But the biggest pain in this is the succession of putrid has to be the rise of Green Day. Somebody tell me how does a band in which their songs were all three chord fast paced 'give em hell kid' music (especially in the success of Dookie), to a bunch of middle aged emo punk wannabes that try to show politico-social-emo *gulps own vomit before continuing* wretched pile of buffalo dung. I think it's safe to say that all of us that remember what good punk music was we would hold Green Day to that standard. But ever since I think Warning with their song 'Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)' that they would just begin to suck it, and suck it hard.


When, I say, when did music begin to die. For my grandparents generation it was told in 'American Pie' by Don McLean. For my parents, music was resuscitating back into its prime. In my generation, it's dying again; and I just want to pull the plug on it and let it die. So for all those artists that are sucking all the goodness out of music in our airwaves, here's two big fat middle fingers in your general direction (( nlm mln )).



BootLeG sampler.. signing out...

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