2:59

I really have problems with people basing their opinion on one total extreme or another. I read it in the Punknews comment boards every day and you hear it all the time when people talk about music. Take any subject, be it the worth of a genre or the ever-popular major label debate and someone’s always taking a completely black & white view of the world to some silly extreme.

If you’ve, in the past 6 months, taken a view in the form of “X is evil,” then it’s very likely that you are indeed a douche bag. Punks like get up in arms about conformist activities such as organized religion, but don’t seem to flinch about making big absolutist comments using blanket terms like “evil” and taking strong unrelenting stances based on faith in abstract concepts.

“The less you know and the more loudly you don’t know it, the more your opinions are taken as fact.” - Brendan Kelly of The Lawrence Arms

RE: ”Major labels are evil”

Yes, it’s true that major label’s have driven good bands into the ground. It’s also true that your money would, for the most part, be much better invested in a small independent label who actually cares about artistic development and the elusive idea of “scene” that we all seem to enjoy. However if you stop listening to a band for the sole reason that they’ve signed with a label you dislike, you have to ask yourself if you’re a fan of music or if you’re actually a fan of companies.

I come from a family that has run, and still runs, various independent businesses. I’m from the mentality that small business’ should thrive and I carry that opinion over to record labels. However I listen to punk music first and foremost because I ~like~ punk music. I think it makes a positive impact in my life. When I was first introduced to punk music in the mid 90s through Green Day and Less Than Jake, I had no idea about the business underlying it. If I turn around now and create some arbitrary boundaries about music I listen to based on the underlying label, then I am not really in it for the music anymore. The music is secondary to my real passion: the politics of business.

It sounds to cliché but the kids really have to realize that there is good and bad on both ends of the spectrum. Island Records (a division of the Island Def Jam Music Group, a division of the Universal Music Group, a division of Vivendi Universal) has been very enthusiastic about working with us at Punknews. I’ve yet to hear a negative comment from any of their recently signed punk bands, nor have I heard any evidence of this “major label pasteurization” in their records. By all conventional MRR-based punk logic this company should be pure evil and it’s absolutely silly to believe that some employees there have any actual passion for music.

…and yes, I’ve read Steve Albini’s “Some of your friends are probably already this fucked” article from MAXIMUMROCKNROLL. I’ve been lectured by major label insiders on how the “respectable indie numbers” sold by bands like Thrice wouldn’t even pay Island’s phone bills. But again, at the end of the day this should have little impact on how much I’m enjoying what’s coming out of my speakers.

So lets replace “Major labels are evil” with this “Major labels have lots of problems in both their business model and the way some of them treat bands. Supporting independent labels is good and should be encouraged, but not with a blind eye to the fact that indies have problems as well. At the end of the day you are a music fan first, a business fan second.”

But unfortunately that’s not as concise and won’t fit on a placard.

RE: ”Emo is evil”

First, let it be known that I use the word “emo” because you all know what it refers to nowadays. I can assure you that I do not use the word to actually described bands on Punknews, nor would I ~ever~ want to use the word to describe a band’s sound. I’ve seen it be used to talk about everything from indie rock to power pop, No Idea-style punk rock, Fugazi influenced post-hardcore, acoustic singer / songwriter, etc. I don’t tend to use the word emo because it’s a catch-all term popularized by lazy journalists and opportunist labels trying to market to a product

Let’s talk about that popular post-Fugazi sound that mixes a clean sounding singer with shrill screaming over mid-tempo pop-punk and hardcore. Kids call it emo. I was of the opinion a few months ago that this form of music was indeed “evil.” Like any self-respecting child of the Green Day 90s I clung to my skate-punk / ska bands and venomously dismissed this new era of high school-poetry and faux-emotion.

Six months later I’m still pretty much doing that. However I can’t stand by my declaration of all these bands as universally horrible. Groups who were around before the current glut have slowly gained my respect with a string of decent releases and respectable moves. In all honesty I can’t blame Thursday or Glassjaw for inspiring hundreds of horrible bands, it’s not their fault that so many kids look up to them. The same ratio of 5 or 6 good bands to a few hundred horrible imitators was there when ska and skate-punk was “in” as well.

Writing off an entire genre of music was a mistake and a direct contradiction of my argument against judgements of “good & evil” in music. I’ll try not to do it anymore.

Now, that being said, crap is crap. The next derivative screamo album I get in the mail I’m returning to sender with a fistful of anthrax. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll listen to it with a more open ear now then I would have earlier this year… but now that I actually respect the bands you’re ripping off I’m only going to give harsher reviews.

Plus there’s a new Descendents record on it’s way and I highly doubt your insipid yelping will be more entertaining then the song “Cool To Be You,” which can be downloaded by clicking on this gratuitously linked sentence.

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There you have it, a dump of my recent gripes and observations. This has been a week when five University courses all simultaneously had exams or assignments due. After a weak of non-stop writing, nothing helps you unwind like writing. Funny that.

Spinning:
Every Time I Die – Hot Damn!
Thursday – War All The Time
The Libertines – Up The Bracket
Give Up The Ghost – We’re Down Til We’re Underground
Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Question The Answers