Am I the only one who is sick of all these would-be music critics bashing a band because they don’t fit the label that some fat cat arbitrarily slapped on them to sell records to the droves of mindless teeny-boppers who have been buying drivel for the past 50 years?
Am I the only one who thinks that Blink 182 sucks – not because they aren’t ‘Punk’ enough to meet my definition, but because they actually just aren’t very talented?
Am I the only one who thinks that Coldplay are just boring – not because they aren’t as daring as Radiohead, whom they are frequently likened to, but because they are just not a very exciting band?
Am I the only one who sees almost NO similarities betwixt The Hives, The Vines, White Stripes, and The Strokes? But, also note: I don’t judge these bands by some imaginary 00s “New Garage Rock” criteria that spin-doctors have cooked up to fool us into thinking that the market is somehow significantly different than it was 12 months ago. There is no New Garage Rock movement that unites these bands. The Hives are a freaking Garage Punk band who basically sound just like the Makers (who sound like a less talented Billy Childish, who is ripping of the Sonics), and aren’t really very melodically gifted. The Vines are somewhere between a Nirvana cover-band and a hooky Beatles-esque Brit-Pop act. White Stripes are very much indebted to Rhythm & Blues, and bear a terrific resemblance to a 70s riff rock act sans bass player. The Strokes are basically all the rocking elements of Velvet Underground distilled to a perfect, but predictable formula. If I tried to judge them by this “New Garage” criteria, I would have to say that one of this bands was ‘the most garage’ and that others were ‘not garage at all.’ Which is basically what you hacks are doing with the Pop Punk topic.
Your objection is semantic and arbitrary: Punk can’t be pop. Because when we examine the meanings of those individual terms they are mutually exclusive. But we can understand that each musical style has elements which it can be broken into, and then reassembled using elements from another style, yes? Thus, “Pop Punk” can be described as a style of music which combines elements of Pop with other elements of Punk. It is a style. It is elements combined to form something new. We can name at least a half a dozen bands which fall into this category. What all you babies are crying about is that the kids today think of this style as THE Punk style, while you are aware that it bears little resemblance to its name sake from 25 years ago.
But what style of music does bear much resemblance to its precursor of 25 years? Think of what Rock was 25 years ago, and then try to fit Primus into that niche definition of an era we have randomly selected to freeze Rock’s progress in. Everything after 1977 is post-Rock; everything before it is proto-Rock. Punk in 1976-77 sounded very different from what it became in 1980… hell, it even sounded different from 1978. And then it split into about a dozen subsets and mini-movements which evolved into other genres like Hardcore, Emo, Grunge, Goth, and Psychobilly. Are you going to claim that the Clash is MORE PUNK than the Dead Kennedys? Are the Circle Jerks more or less Punk than the Exploited? Are the Damned punk? Why? Are they anymore punk than Sum 41? Are the Dead Milkmen any more punk than Good Charlotte? Have you even heard of Naked Raygun? Good for you.
So, in short: You are all assholes and you are wasting your time whining about how the popular kids are now using your special terms to refer to stuff that is too catchy for you to like. Then your little group isn’t special anymore, is it?
Instead say this: Blink 182, Sum 41, New Found Glory, American Hi-Fi, et al suck.
But you should probably mention how many Old Schoolers suck while you are at it.
