While browsing through a paltry Spin magazine recently, I came across one of those advertisements that make me want to chew my eyeballs out of their sockets and spit them in the face of pop culture. The ads I’m talking about are the ones with the super-hip rock stars who hawk useless garbage for an extra buck.
In the ad I am referring to, the bass player for the band Fall Out Boy is peddling clothing for GAP. If this were Madonna selling her soul via GAP ads, I wouldn’t think twice about it, because everything she represents is basically cultural backwash anyway. Maybe what gets to me about this guy and this band in particular is that they do a pretty good job impersonating punk bands of the past without having any of the grit or soul. Hey, but if the GAP doesn’t scream rock ’n’ roll then what does?
American Hardcore, a documentary that tells the story of the hardcore punk movement in the 1980s comes out later this month. A few bands that get mentioned in the film are Minor Threat, Black Flag, The Germs and Dead Kennedys. These were bands with heart, bands that wouldn’t give an inch, and bands that weren’t playing their music because it was a lucrative business. The ’80s hardcore scene was basically what remained of real punk after all the bloated stars became new wave and started writing songs that were hip for suburbanite moms.
Ian MacKaye, the singer for Minor Threat, is the embodiment of all that is great about punk rock and hardcore. He refused to let his band turn into some watered-down shell, and they disbanded in 1983. He’s basically the creator of the straight edge movement, which is a lifestyle that consists of avoiding alcohol, tobacco and all other crutches. It’s an ideal that he considers sacred enough to avoid doing interviews with magazines that carry tobacco advertisements. How many artists today have that kind of integrity and commitment? I bet most would sell their mother’s souls for an opportunity to be on MTV’s “Total Request Live.”
And where are all the bands that actually have something to say? We have one of the worst presidents in history in office and where’s the musical representation of this? Oh wait; there was Green Day’s American Idiot which is so passively weak that nobody bothered to care what it was about. Where are the bands like Reagan Youth and Dead Kennedys that throw down their ideals and beliefs like a sledge hammer? They didn’t just deliver a message, they were bashing out nuggets of anger and hostility just for your consideration.
Many people might say that it’s just music, and it’s just not that important. To take a page from the book of the great comedian and philosopher, Bill Hicks, these aren’t simply just musicians we’re talking about. These MTV demons are here to lower the cultural standard and make the world dramatically stupid in the process.
Hopefully people will go and see American Hardcore, and capture an image of music at its peak of social frustration. Maybe some people will be inspired to jump to their feet and take some sort of artistic action, or at the very least go home and punch holes in their walls.
How else are you going to enrich your life?sit around and listen to Paris Hilton’s new album?
