Why 'pop-punk' is not punk.....
 

The following rant on 'pop-punk' is based upon my experience within the punk subculture and what I have witnessed, heard, and seen over the last twenty years or so. That is to say that I am not totally talking out of my ass. I wasn't there in the beginning, but I once dated and knew first generation LA punks, so I have some insight into that era as well.

Green Day, Blink 182, Good Charlotte, and a countless number of other bands that are called 'punk' by the mainstream media are NOT in fact punk. I can imagine people saying things like 'Who the hell are you to judge what bands are and aren't punk!', after reading that sentence. I am not making a judgement call, I am stating the truth.

So, now that THAT is out of the way what the hell is punk rock music to begin with? Let's first begin with what it isn't. Safe. Early punk bands, and some modern ones that are carrying the torch, formed in order to express their rage and frustration when it comes to society. The 70's and 80's were pretty crappy times to live in and if you didn't belong, in any sense, you were made into an outcast. Something to be pushed around and made fun of. You didn't purposely want to be an outcast because that meant getting bottles thrown at you and getting jumped for walking down the street. I have heard stories first hand from some of the people who were in LA during those times. Police would arrest you for just walking down the street, and you would get jumped if you were found alone by a group of people who thought you were the scum of the earth for being a ‘weirdo’.

Rage. What do you do to express yourself when you are really pissed off? Well, early punk bands formed, in both America and England to let that rage fly. Pissed off because you hate your government? Sing about wanting to shoot the president. Hate conformity? Sing about how fucked up the mainstream record industry is. None of this music was safe. In fact it was so 'out there' that major labels, after the first wave of punk in England circa 1978, totally ignored the punk movement. They wanted nothing to do with it because it would frighten the masses. The masses didn't want to listen to angry fast music. Instead they wanted their music safe and 'easy' to listen to. Why rattle your brain too much about politics or the world around you when you could relax and listen to some bland crap that didn't tax you brain at all? Why indeed.

Now let's take a look at what the mainstream record industry is pushing as punk these days. When 'grunge' kicked the bucket they needed another subculture to exploit. Um......look at those funny punk rockers and the music they listen to! We could never sell records full of that kind of anger but if we water down the message and make it safe enough we might just make millions and millions of dollars!!! Cool! So, they found, and signed, the safest bands playing at punk clubs and marketed them to the masses as 'real' punk. I actually saw Green Day, Offspring, NOFX and various other marketed 'punk' bands before they got signed at Gilman in Berkeley. A whole lot of us didn't consider their music punk because it was boring and safe. No confrontational stances, no anger. Exactly what the record labels were looking for.

Marketing their form of what punk is to the masses was easy. Tell teenagers that they are rebellious by listening to it and that if they dress a certain way they too will be 'punk rock'. A lot of teens want to feel like they belong to something so the ploy worked. All too well. Masses of 'punk' bands were signed to the major labels and soon you couldn't tell one band from another. It got so big that clothing stores even started to carry clothes that would make you 'punk' just like all of your friends. The mainstream media, in all of its forms, made 'punk' safe and easy to listen to. Just the opposite of what punk was originally.

I remember, and was a part of the punk/goth subculture, before all of this happened. I lived in the SF East Bay and I can't tell you the number of times that my life was threatened or how many times people threatened to jump me because they didn't happen to like who I was. I was full of anger over society, Reagan/Bush, and how crappy most of the music was. It wasn't safe to be who I was even though I lived in one of the most liberal areas of the country in the late 1980's, early 90's. I can safely say that I was the most hated liberal in my high school. I didn't wanted to be accepted by society because I hated what it stood for. Life in a safe little bubble with no worries about what is going on outside of it.

The crap being labeled as 'punk' by the mainstream media is safe. There are still real punk bands making angry confrontational music that makes you question society,etc. Those bands will never be signed and promoted as punk by the mainstream media because their anger will actually frighten the people who think Green Day is what punk is all about. Punk music should not be, and never was meant to be ‘safe’ music.

Millions have been conned and the record labels, and businesses cashing in on the 'punk' trend are laughing all the way to the bank.

If somebody wants to move this to the music section that's fine. I wasn't sure where to put it.

I concur.

"Pop-punk" is a terrible oxymoron-- something like "techno-folk," but even more fundamentally wrong.

Beautiful "rant"(I shudder to call such an eloquent peice of thought and truth a "rant"). I obviously was never a part of te old subculture... it came about years before I was born. But think it's important to know what the hell you're tlaking about. I feel like I'm about to vomit rusty nails everytime I have a conversation that goes something like-

pozergrrrrrl!!-"I LOVE PUNK ROCK!!"
me-"Oh... so, who do you like?"
pozergrrrrrl!!-"Linkin Park! Green Day!! ROCK!!!"
me-"..."*dies*

I don't understnad how people get brainwashed this easily... especially with the internet at their fingertips >.<

Propaghandi, F.E.A.R., GG Allin, Circle Jerks (Killing For Jesus), Vandles, Sex Pistols, Anti-Flag, Black Flag, Ramones...

Those are punks!

Green Day, Good Charlotte (the worst band in exixtence), Linkin Park, Sum 41, Blink 182...

Those are wanna-be's!

It's really sad that people have such easy access to information yet they chose not to use it. Either through ignorance or because they think they know everything already on the subject. Back before computers you mostly learned about punk bands through word of mouth. I blindly bought Bedtime For Democracy by The Dead Kennedys and a 7 Seconds album in high school without hearing either, because none of my friends were into the music. I pretty much got into it on my own. I would have killed to have had the information easily available to me. Thanks for the compliment by the way! :-)

Circle: I totally agree that the term is an oxymoron.

Tenet: Killing For Jesus is my fravorite Circle Jerks song! ;-) Loose Nut by Black Flag is THE album I listen to when I need to vent. Excellent album!

Thank fuck for that, people who thinks like I do. The stupid argument I’ve have with little 'pop-punks' who thing Green Day is all that when they have never even heard of Sex pistols or Iggi Pop.

Green Day are a pop band so is the rest of them. I’m not a fun of punk but a respect a band who stays under grown so they don’t sell out. You want real puck then go where the music’s at it best. The clubs

It doesn’t bother me at all. I’m talking a bout puck sell outs not bands that make it out of the under grown. Good for them, so long as they don’t changes their music. If they do then, to fit in more, they’re not the same band.

Ever band i like, started in the underground.

I agree with you. There are some punk bands that have been around for 20+ years that still put out records and play clubs who refuse to sign up with mainstream record labels.

It has been my experience that when bands of any genre don't stay underground and sign up with a major label that their sound changes on some level. They either have to tone down their lyrics or tone down their sound. No punk band that I have ever been a huge fan of has ever turned around and signed up with a major label. The reason being that the major labels aren't interested in them. Their sound is too harsh and their lyrics too 'out there'. It would be very hypocritical for a hardcore punk band that has been singing against corporations,etc..., to turn around and then become a product of one. I would lose total respect for the band because they would now be a part of something that they were originally against. There are many so called 'punk'(pop) mainstream bands who attempt to sing political songs and yet they themselves are part of the system that they are saying that they are against. That is one reason why I cannot take any of those bands seriously. They are trying to talk the talk without walking the walk, so to speak. It is nothing more than hypocritical bullshit.

Greenday is Punk as Marilyn Manson is goth.

Ha, ha, that's true.

*spits soda on the screen*

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Horrorgirl, love the 'rant'.

You speak eloquently about your beloved sub-culture. How you feel about punk is how I feel about goth. I was still a very young child with absolutely no clue when goth was in full swing, but at least I'm ed-ju-muh-cated.

;)

Thank you for the compliment. :-)

Green Day and Marilyn Manson ought to have a deathmatch. I would pay to see it. Oh....the lovely carnage.

My best friend's 6 year old loves Green Day. So does the 8 year old that I babysit. 'Nuff Said.

Some people at my school think they're "punk" because they listen to Green Day, My Chemical Romance, and Fall Out Boy. However when I make them listen to the Ramones or Sex Pistols they say that Sex Pistols and the Ramones are nonsense and can't understand what they're singing about. Oh how I wish people were more open-minded...

I think the whole problem stems from people actually believing everything that the mainstream media tells them. The media tells them that Green Day are punk, so by listening to Green Day they think that they are being punk. It's not even a generational thing. I have met people in their 20's who have that same attitude and who are not willing to listen to music that is outside of the little bubble that they put themselves in.

Dont forget Reagan Youth, LARD, and some of Jello Biafra's newest stuff.

My boyfriend is a huge Melvins fan so he has one of the cds that Jello recently did with them.We were supposed to so see them when they came through here but it sold out.My favorite Jello project outside of the Dead Kennedys is the album he did with D.O.A. LARD was pretty cool. Jello and Jourgensen ought to get off of their asses and do another LARD album.

Lovely rant. I also randomly bought Bedtime For Democracy by The Dead Kennedys. I wanted some punk music to listen to, real punk music.

When bands become mainstream, yes, they usually do change their sound because their label wants to appeal to the growing generation of moneyed youth. Face it, catering to a subculture alone isn't generally going to net you the big bucks, no whammies.

If the sound changes, I'm of an opinion to wait around a bit; for me, the lyrics are the carriers of value, so even if a song is wildly popular because of the sound, such that you could ask some poseur "Hey, what's this song about?" and they couldn't tell you, if the lyrics stay with the message I want my music to have then the poseur can go have their own good time. It just means if I go to a concert I won't likely have anyone to talk to!

Great rant. I especially hate that dumb bitch Avril Lavigne. Calling herself punk--******, please! What a dipshit.

Very well-written "rant", Horrorgirl!

The major record label commodification of "Pop-Punk" [also known as "mTV Punk", "Mall-Punk" or as I used to call it in the 1990s, "that Epitath Records shit"] is what helped divide the Hardcore Punk subculture in throughout the mid-to-late 1990s. [And no, I'm not talking out of my ass either. This was all personal observation/experience. 3 words: Tragedy as teacher.] I've watched as divide-&-conquer exhibitionism destroyed whatever unity existed amongst Punks in nightclubs & houseparties back then. It brought with it this atmosphere of constant shittalking. Sometimes, it would get violent. Green Day Punks [if you want to call these people that] fought with Agnostic Front/Warzone/Cro-Mags Punks fought with Nausea Punks fought with G.B.H. Punks. It sucked for me. It made me ashamed to even be a Punk in those days. Thankfully, I listened to both Gothic music & Industrial music occasionally & was attracted to the women & trappings of the subculture that I'm part of now [ordering shit from Ipso Facto & the now-defunct Moon Mystique stores & having subscriptions to Propaganda & Industrial Nation magazines helped]. In 1998, after cutting all of my fake Punk "friends" out of my life & ditching that scene, the transition from Punk to Goth was easy.

You know she called herself the "Sid Viscious" of 'our generation'? Maybe that's why we're all so horrible.. we HAVE no Sid Viscious...

I have always listened to both punk and goth and have been in both subcultures. Back from 88-92 I would go to a goth club one night then to a punk club the next. What was interesting is that I saw close minded people in both subcultures.In the punk scene it was the street/gutter punks against anybody who had a decent home. Seriously. In their eyes if you still got along with your parents,did not live in Berkeley and drove a car that you were nothing but a suburban brat.What was funny was that the vast majority of them were from out of state and had only lived in the San Francisco area for a short time. I didn't go to the clubs when the whole 'pop punk' crap exploded, so I didn't have to witness that carnage. When I started going back to punk shows starting in 2001 I saw that things were a bit different.It seemed a lot more catty. Again, the people who were the biggest dicks were people from out of state or from L.A.. I met some really cool people though so not all hope is lost.The only icky factor of going to shows again is having guys 15 years younger than me picking up on me. HA!

I have dropped completely out of the goth subculture because I have had some pretty horrid experiences with promoters/djs/etc.....involved in it. I think it has become a total mess with no hope of redemption. It's has become nothing more than a passive agressive
fashion show.

Sid Vicious was nothing but a junkie. Maybe she should OD and do us all a favor.