punk is dead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5dF6Sj3 ... re=related

LOL, musta been having a bad day

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riley

GreenDay is truly !@$.

Of course they are punk. (And yes, so is Rancid.)

These 3 guys began just like any other punk band, touring the country in a van. They played the same crummy little club (RIP) I played. Punk, including the early Green Day albums, has ALWAYS had a pop element to it-- you can sing along to most anything the Ramones, Clash, or Pistols ever did. This supposed dichotomy between "pop" and "punk" is a false one.

Green Day's only sin in the eyes of many "punk pointsters" is that they're commercially successful. If you think that the Ramones or the Clash or the Pistols didn't want to be just as successful, you either haven't read what they've said (repeatedly) over the years, or are engaging in deliberate historical revisionism. And BTW, all those early punk bands listed above were on major labels too.

Last, before I get personally slammed as some Hot Topic mall kid who must think that Green Day is punk because I didn't experience punk's earlier times and scenes, guess again. I've been playing in local, "100% independent," DIY, massively unsuccessful punk rock (and other rock) bands on my local scene since around 1980.

You may not like Green Day. They may be too poppy for you, or have made too much money for you to feel comfortable about. But to say they "aren't punk" is downright silly.

Sh*tstorm in 3...2...1...

First of all...most genres/labels people assign are lame and ridiculous. GreenDay is contradictory in their business habits as well as their lyrics. They are strictly rock driven pop music now...which is fine. But punk is the last thing I would call them. Punk is about attitude and rawness. Maybe GreenDay started off as "punk" but I would just call them typical mainstream american pop music these days. Again which is fine if you want to do such things I won't stop you. I will however bash you in everyday conversation and on internet forums. And I will not support you financially.

the first 4 albums were punk, but now they ARE pop..... also, i challenge you to find an ounce of pop in the germs, black flag, JFA, or the adolescents

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Favorite bands:

Melvins
The Jesus Lizard
Cows
Big Business
R***man
Minutemen
Flight
Minor Threat
Big Black
Shellac
Karp
Scratch Acid
Wipers
Pixies

The Germs had their moments. Fleeting yes, but they were produced by Joan Jett, for heaven's sake.

But at any rate, citing individual bands that aren't poppy does not disprove my point that "Punk [the genre]... has ALWAYS had a pop element to it." (Bracketed matter supplied.) The key word there is "element," and your apparent misreading of my intention regarding its use. By saying that punk has always had a pop element to it, I did not say (nor did I mean to say) that every band that has "validily" or undeniably been considered "punk" itself had a pop element to its music, as your counterargument presumes. Had I meant to say that every punk band ever has had a pop element to its music, I would've said that.

But I didn't.

Instead, my intended point is that there are bands that everyone does agree ARE punk, but had lots of pop appeal. So the the dichotomy between "pop" and "punk" is a false one. Saying a band is "pop" does not rule out it also being punk, unless you want to deny the punkitude of bands like the Ramones, Pistols, and Clash.

And don't even get me started on the "Pistols were a boy band" canard. Absolutely silly, and naiv in the extreme.

Why Brian? They shared all the same attributes of a boy band. Musicaly not so much, aside from them not recording their own material and using others to do it. Atleast live they couldn't use offstage players. Much the same way modern boy bands do.
Being a managed product rather than a band that got together under more conventional methods? They tick every box.
I'm in no way a pistols hater, though I do love and hate them at the same time. As I said previously. They were one of the first alternative music bands I heard. I think the Blockheads preceeded em. For that I'll always be thankfull to them. It hardly denies that they were a managed product rather than a band though.

All? Nope. There are passing similarities, but the differences, to me FAR outweigh the similarities. First, their music, as you admit, was not in the least mainstream. The whole "boy band" concept is to use mainstream hack writers (not the band members) to write songs, for some good looking and marginally talented singers/dancers whose formula is to appeal (not cause revulsion in) the absolute largest teen/young adult demographic possible. And when the kids chosen get a few years older and no longer appeal to that mainstream demographic, for whom looks and sex appeal is well more important than any actual music being released, chuck 'em and get a new batch.

The Pistols were the absolute opposite of that. Good looking? Uncheck. Cary a tune in a bucket? Uncheck. Backed by a backing band of music pros and/or tape so their shows could focus on their good looks, vocals, and choreography? I don't bloody think so. To compare them to a boy band is to compare Malcolm, who surely wanted to cash in but also had a very real Situationist agenda in mind, to some money-grubbing drudge like Lou Pearlman or Simon Cowell.

As they used to say on Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the other."

Yeah but your missing the point mate, really. They were not the first punk band Mclaren saw. He was well used to the likes of Iggy and the Stooges, The Ramones and The New York Dolls before the Pistols were even a thought in his mind. What did all those bands lack that he could exploit? They weren't from recession hit, 3 day working week Britan. They were very much out of sync with British life at the time. So he put the Pistols together and managed everything about them, exactly the same way a boyband is managed. They couldn't fart unless Mclaren said so, why do you think Lydon hates him so much? He controlled their careers and influenced certain members into actions that cost them their lives. Lydon has always considerd himself a smarty, but Mclaren fooled him back then. He got him to do all the things he wanted to for a reason he hated. They were just as controlled by managment albeit to produce a different image and sound. But I view that as hardly relevent, especialy when they didn't (aside from Matlock and Lydon) have their instruments on record. Aside from some of The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle. You can certainly hear the tracks they played on for that record.

Your analysis makes any rock band with a controlling powerful smart svengali manager a "boy band." That would include the Beatles with Epstein (who contolled their look and exerted influence over their membership and producer) and the Stones with Andrew Loog Oldham (who did the same). Which is utterly ridiculous. All bands at a certain higher level are managed product and to think otherwise is both naiv and ignores the historical precedent of big rock bands in Britain at the time, long before the concept of "boy band" even existed. To make the comparison is historical revisionism at its worst.

And I have yet to see any good evidence supporting your claim that Jones and Cook were not on Bollocks. Not true.

Except that the Pistols, unlike the Beatles and more like Take That, were put together by the manager. They didn't go through members because they wanted musicianship. They were put together in a hurry by Mclaren. When Matlock could be replaced he was. The members were picked entirely on their image.
Mate it hit me hard when I realized it, but the truth is, they were a punk rock boyband. Something to grab the headlines which brought little known bands to the fore? Yes. A band put together by the manager and managed/manipulated just like a boy band? Yes.

I like green day and the offspring but they have more like a punk tinge than being totally punk. Especially when you look at bands like the sex pistols, TSOL, The Clash, Dead Kennedys, Subhumans, The germs etc...

of the two, the offspring is (well, was) probably closer.... their first album was DEFINITELY real punk, just with hella distortion

_________________
Favorite bands:

Melvins
The Jesus Lizard
Cows
Big Business
R***man
Minutemen
Flight
Minor Threat
Big Black
Shellac
Karp
Scratch Acid
Wipers
Pixies

Amoeba by the Adolescents had some pop melodies in it