The MC5, The Stooges, the Fugs and VU weren't punk, despite what some try to classify them as. They were forefathers, for sure, but it was garage rock plain and simple. Not part of the punk movement that began in NYC in the early 1970's.
Green Day returns
- Thread starter Brodirt
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The MC5, The Stooges, the Fugs and VU weren't punk, despite what some try to classify them as. They were forefathers, for sure, but it was garage rock plain and simple. Not part of the punk movement that began in NYC in the early 1970's.
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- #22
And some say it started in the UK and that's all as political as you can get. I think though that aside from reggae, punk is the only music genre that is inseperable from politics.
By definition, punk starts with the Ramones. Certainly some bands that pre-dated them can be construed as proto-punk. But Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy brought it all together.
Oh, and I don't know how the Velvet Underground could possibly be mistaken for a political band.
- Thread starter
- #24
Yah, my bad on VU, I was equating Lou Reed's, and to a certain extent John Cale's, entire careers with VU. I was too young to be impacted by them when they were producing their seminal stuff.
I don't see, though, punk as starting with The Ramones, dont get me wrong...I love them and saw them many times (at CBGB on several occasions, in fact, and at other local clubs as well) and fully appreciate them as the punk explosion, but there was a fuse and a lighting of the fuse before them.
While I certainly agree that The Ramones have nothing to do with politics, I still stand by my original statement that punk is political.
Now...funny thing. My older daughter, almost 10, had a synchro swim tournament today and it was about a 90 minute drive each way. She is as much of a fan of hard rock and punk and Green Day as a kid born in 1999 can be and after a listen through the album twice...once each way, she says most of it is very different from other Green Day and she isn't sure whether she likes it as much even though its good. I got a kick out of the fact that an almost 10 year old is tuned in enough to hear the difference.
I just sat through SNL to see the two Green Day performances because of this thread.
Both songs were plain ol' stupid. Here's the lyrics to the first one. I'm sure Dylan, Waits, and all the other *good* songwriters are cowering in fear at Green Day's skills.
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
Violence is an energy
Against the enemy
Violence is an energy
Bringing on the fury
The choir infantry
Revolt against the honor to obey
Overthrow the effigy
The vast majority
Burning down the foreman of control
Silence is the enemy
Against your urgency
So rally up the demons of your soul
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
The insurgency will rise
When the bloods been sacrificed
Dont be blinded by the lies
In your eyes
Violence is an energy
From here to eternity
Violence is an energy
Silence is the enemy
So gimme gimme revolution
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
Overthrow the effigy
The vast majority
Burning down the foreman of control
Silence is the enemy
Against your urgency
So rally up the demons of your soul
Trite. Juvenile. Useless crap.
Both songs were plain ol' stupid. Here's the lyrics to the first one. I'm sure Dylan, Waits, and all the other *good* songwriters are cowering in fear at Green Day's skills.
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
Violence is an energy
Against the enemy
Violence is an energy
Bringing on the fury
The choir infantry
Revolt against the honor to obey
Overthrow the effigy
The vast majority
Burning down the foreman of control
Silence is the enemy
Against your urgency
So rally up the demons of your soul
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
The insurgency will rise
When the bloods been sacrificed
Dont be blinded by the lies
In your eyes
Violence is an energy
From here to eternity
Violence is an energy
Silence is the enemy
So gimme gimme revolution
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
Do you know the enemy?
Do you know your enemy?
Well, gotta know the enemy
Overthrow the effigy
The vast majority
Burning down the foreman of control
Silence is the enemy
Against your urgency
So rally up the demons of your soul
Trite. Juvenile. Useless crap.
- Thread starter
- #26
So you just compared the radio single from a pop-punk band to Bob Dylan and Tom Waits and determined it to be crap...brilliant.
See, I had this conversation on an earlier post and was accused by Strat of offending when I mentioned that dinosaur worship is best done in a museum with one's kids!
I hope you enjoy listening to the same stuff over and over and over. When was the last time that Waits and Dylan (both of who I acknowledge and accept as greats of their time) did anything relevant or likely to grab the ear of a new listener? Did every song they write have profound meaning? I dont think so.
I love Dylan's "Visions of Johanna." Its probably one of my favorite songs of all time, but really, what do all those lyrics mean?
Here, the best section, in my opinion:
Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel
I have spent enough time trying to figure it all out and I cant. I love the song, I have my ideas what it all means but, really, who knows.
Tom Waits...Downtown, a song i love too:
red pants and the sugarman in, the temple street gloom, drinkin' chivas
regal in a four dollar room, just another dead soldier in a powder blue night,
sugarman says baby everything's alright, goin' downtown down downtown.
montclaire de havelin doin' the st. vitus dance, lookin' for someone to chop
the lumber in his pants, how am i gonna unload all of this ice and all this
mink, all the traffic in the street but it's so hard to think, goin' downtown
down downtown.
frankie's wearin' lipstick pierre cardin, i swear to god i seen him holdin'
hands with jimmy bond, sally's high on crank and hungry for some sweets, she's
fem in the sheets but she's butch in the streets, goin' downtown down
downtown.
Pitting one band against another is silly. Its like politics, but there are more choices.
Here, lets pick U2 and Radiohead, two of the greatest bands of today, two of my favorites in fact. Most people consider them great lyrical bands.
U2, Elevation (a big hit)
High, higher than the sun
You shoot me from a gun
I need you to elevate me here
At the corner of your lips
As the orbit of your hips
Eclipse
You elevate my soul
I've got no self control
Been living like a mole now
Going down, excavation
High and High in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high
Elevation
A star
Lit up like a cigar
Strung out like a guitar
Maybe you can educate my mind
Explain all these controls
Can't sing but I've got soul
The goal is elevation
A mole
Digging in a hole
Digging up my soul now
Going down, excavation
I and eye in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high
Elevation
Love
Lift me up from out of these blues
Won't you tell me something true
I believe in you
A mole
Digging in a hole
Digging up my soul now
Going down, excavation
High and high in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly
So high
Elevation
Elevation
Elevation
Elevation
Radiohead, Kid A:
Kid A, Kid A
Kid A, Kid A
Everything
Everything
Everything
Everything in its right place
In its right place
In its right place
In its right place
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Everything
Everything
Everything
Everything in its right place
In its right place
In its right place
Right place
There are two colours in my head
There are two colours in my head
What, what is that you tried to say?
What, what was that you tried to say?
Tried to say
Tried to say
Tried to say
Tried to say
Everything in its right place... (to end)
I'm just saying that Green Day is lousy and insipid. I don't see lots of folks saying any of the bands you mention are lousy and insipid.
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- Thread starter
- #28
I'm surprised that without Belushi, Radner, Murray and Akroyd on screen you made it so far as to see the band.
Green Day strayed very far from their roots. After Insomniac the tried harder and harder to fit the mold in the mainstream. Much like Metallica with their Black album. I'll give the new Green Day a listen, but unless I'm highly impressed I probably won't buy it.
It was pretty painful. SNL just can't seem to get itself together
My big point about seeing the band on SNL is they just happened to be there. I didn't pick out the two songs (the other was 21 Guns). My problem with them is that once you take away the youthful angst of Dookie and subtract the Republican/Bush/War hate from the last two albums there isn't any substance left. It's not even fashionable to hate Bush and the war anymore (yes that is bothersome). The "now" thing is Obama and hope for the future. I mean, this album isn't even topical anymore.
Green Day has managed to preserve it's signature lurching sound - slide the root up a half step, syncopate alternation of the 4th and 5th on the power chord. It wasn't all that creative or interesting when they started doing it years ago. Now it's just boring and trite.
- Thread starter
- #31
Like Dylan and Waits became 25 years ago.
Sure! The same way that Mozart did way before them or Miles Davis and Charlie Parker did in the 40's and 50's. Nobody listens to that sh*t anymore because it's boring and trite
- Thread starter
- #33
Sure! The same way that Mozart did way before them or Miles Davis and Charlie Parker did in the 40's and 50's. Nobody listens to that sh*t anymore because it's boring and trite
I have this discussion with my brother all the time and it all boils down to this...give them time if your gonna make that comparison. History may, in fact, toss them aside and regard them as some novelty of pop-punk-classic rock convergence, but in another 25 years, when you need something to wake you up after trying to dig out the gravel Tom Waits left in your ears it just might be Green Day you turn to.
Mozart is a different consideration because there just weren't that many people writing and/or producing music, and the preservation of the music is the actual paper it was written on, but since the advent of the LP for every Miles or Parker, or Dylan, or Zeppelin there are 1000 other performers that didnt make it. Its time that filters out the junkand time that amplifies the value of what survives. The time sample for Green Day is just too small to make the kind of comparison your making.
As for musicianship and writing...I dont always need brilliance to enjoy myself. Heck, I love a fine Bordeaux or single-malt scotch but more often I find myself with a Coke or a Dunkin-Donuts coffee...and we all like to be the guy that invented Coke.
The politics in this thread is becoming extremely tiresome....
We've moved on past politics. We are now discussing whether or not this music has value.
As it is in many threads. Politics are like a car wreck we just have to look, or in this case comment.
Way to go guys, we should be able to keep all conversations gentlemanly and civil without delving into the ungentlemanly realm of politics and without being prodded by Mods. As gentleman we should be able to police ourselves. - Thread starter
- #38
As it is in many threads. Politics are like a car wreck we just have to look, or in this case comment.
I dont think this discussion has been political at all. It started out with some political commentary that was quite broad and has moved onto one of the big topics in entertainment...whether or not an artist's value can be judged by its success and, if so, when.
I rather like this topic as it is a great imponderable that is worth discussing. Some of my comments have been a bit jibbing, but I dont think Arghblech minds or has been offended, he has more than hit back! I think Timmy's comment in this thread after his admonition of a few weeks ago is out of place and is an unwarranted buzz kill. If you wield the big stick that he does he should choose to wield it more wisely.
I think as a moderator TimmyB chose to interject before things turned ugly. There is a clear political undertone by some members in this thread and I feel he was just preempting anything further.
