I DON’T WANNA GROW UP / JOHN B. MOORE

A Decade of Punk Rock - the Good AND the Bad

By John B. Moore

With apologizes to my fellow Blurt writers, I loathe End of the Year/End of the Decade music lists.

They just seem like a useless game of one-upmanship that gives critics the excuse to trot out their pretentious musical tastes and try to outdo each other with obscure sub-indie references to bands that only dubbed a dozen cassettes of their warbling and handed out to their friends and "Oh, oh I have a copy and realize how brilliant they are". I put it right up there with militant vegans, former smokers and people who claim that they "don't even own a TV".  

... But deep down, I'm a pretentious twit myself (though I love red meat and watch as much TV as possible,) so two weeks into the New Year, here's my list of bands that nearly killed punk rock this decade.... And those that saved it.

Five albums that almost killed punk rock...

• Boys Like Girls - Boys like Girls (2007) Over the past decade, major record labels, not content to just screw up every other genre, decided that they could give a band instant credibility by tacking the suffix "punk" at the end of "pop" on any band's bio. One of the most obvious examples is the Boston top 40 pop band Girls Like Boys. The name isn't the only thing unoriginal about this glorified boy band, last seen lip-synching in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last month. This four piece was the Trojan horse that helped smuggle in equally pitiful acts like Cute is What We Aim For and Breathe Caroline - not one who ever owned a Clash or Ramones album.
• Good Charlotte - The Chronicles of Life & Death (2004) I pity the real punk rockers with neck tattoos. Thanks to these light weight twins from Maryland who equate ink with street cred, the guys in Rancid and Dropkick Murphys now have to spend the next year getting their tattoos lasered off lest anyone equate them with Good Charlotte. These guys could almost be excused for their Hot Topic brand of bubble gum punk if they had stopped at The Young and Hopeless, but then they had to try and become artists on their third album. The result was a dozen faux serious, whiny odes to being a teenager. Next stop double dates with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie. Long live punk rawk!
• Powerspace - The Kicks of Passion (2007) Powerspace came to represent just how low the once promising indie punk label Fueled By Ramen had fallen in the 00's. Once the breeding ground for bands like The Pietasters and Jimmy Eat World, the label devolved into mindless drek like this keyboard-fused excuse for pop-punk. Equally mind boggling is the fact that FBR had to compete with other labels to sign this band.
• A Static Lullaby - A Static Lullaby (2006) OK, maybe it's not fair to single out this band in particular, but the Chico Hills-based A Static Lullaby represent a crappy metal/hardcore/scream-o hybrid that had no business associating itself with punk rock. Cookie Monster vocals and mediocre metal riffs equals nothing more than noise from over-privileged suburban kids desperate for attention.
• Cobra Starship - While the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets (2006) Labeled as pop-punk, this band wrote a song for the movie Snake on a Plane, which goes to show just how bottom of the barrel scrapping desperate this group was even at the beginning of their existence. Started by former Midtown bassist/singer Gabe Saporta, the group has a freakin' keytar player for Christ sake, going to show that tweens have an extreme level of tolerance for obvious irony... as well as crappy pop-punk.

And 5 albums that saved it.

• Bad Religion -The Empire Strikes First (2004) George W. Bush may have been the worst president in history, but he was great for punk rock. Exhibit A is The Empire Strikes First, a baker's dozen of brilliant angry political punk anthems. Songs like "Los Angeles is Burning" and "Let Them Eat War" stand up against anything the band put out in the 80's and 90's.
• Green Day - American Idiot (2004) And Exhibit B is American Idiot, Green Day's best album in an already decent career. A raised middle finger to Bush and the status quo, this radio-friendly record also showed that there was still a little life left in the rock opera.
• Flogging Molly - Float (2008) With Flogging Molly, The Pogues have finally found someone worthy enough to pick up their Celtic punk rock banner. The LA, by way of Dublin rockers have regularly turned out stellar albums, but Float raised the bar to its highest level with destined to be classic Celtic punk gems like "Requiem for a Dying Song" and "Between a Man and a Woman."
• Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound (2008) Punk rockers have always had a crush on Springsteen, but with New Jersey-based Gaslight Anthem's second full length, the band finally came out and fess up to their devotion. The '59 Sound, also drawing inspiration from influences as varied as Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, is as close as one can come to a flawless record.
• Bouncing Souls - The Gold Record (2006) Fifteen years into an already impressive career, Jersey punks The Bouncing Souls turned in their most evolved album to date with this fantastic record. Sweeping anthems, topped off with surprisingly personal lyrics, The Gold Record is the ultimate sonic promise that was hinted at with the band's five previous releases. Pardon the pun, but pure gold.