[horrorgirl]

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.