Skip to main content

Too fast to enjoy?

Since college, I've noticed a rather large percentage of repulsion towards fast punk rock by people who are into indie/underground/hipster music. Ever since then, I've wanted to know why.

Back in the late-'70s/early-'80s, punk rock was seen as this life-changing approach to making music. It wasn't necessarily about how fast you played it - what was empowering about it was that almost anyone could play it. For the guitar, if you could hold your hand in a barre chord formation and the traditional open chords (G, D, C) long enough, then you could do it. For the drums, if you could keep a steady, solid beat, you could do it. For the bass, just do what the guitarist does. For the singer, sing however you want to.

Somewhere in the '80s, as punk became rougher and faster under the moniker of hardcore, it seemed like punk stopped being all-encompassing. It stopped being hip as it was often thought of as strictly youthful, narrow-minded and too fast. As somebody who came up in a time when "mall punk" was crystallizing (the mid-'90s), I still think of punk rock as a gateway to open expression, no matter how commercialized it gets. Plus, I still think it's a great style of music.

Of course a lot of modern mainstream punk rock is watered-down, polished and easily digestible for "the kids." While I can't relate to a younger person's belief that a band like New Found Glory or Fall Out Boy is great, I can relate to the ones that dig further into punk's history in order to understand the present. That's how I got into it and I'm sure there will be more that follow this same path.

I've always liked a wide variety of music, but what has always puzzled me is how quick people are to judge something that's played at a high rate of speed. To me, great songs are great because there's a connection with the melodies, the moods and/or the lyrics, not the tempos. So why is punk rock speed such a deterrent from enjoying a song?

I forget which member of Husker Du said this in Our Band Could Be Your Life, but he described the band's songs as folk songs played at a fast speed. I think that's a fantastic way of saying it because this was the case with many of Husker Du's material. If you were on a camping trip and brought along an acoustic guitar, you could easily fool people into thinking a song like "Makes No Sense At All" was a protest song from the '60s. But there's a key difference between acoustic and full-on, electric rock: amplification. With punk rock, it's amplification and speed.

I'll admit it: there is a vast quantity of pop-punk that is perfect for your hyperactive fits. Whether it's NOFX, Bad Religion, Lagwagon, Propagandhi, Pennywise or Grey Area, the list goes on and on. But even in calm times, I can still groove to punk rock. Besides, what really attracted me to pop-punk was the strong melodic attachment to the songs. When I would hear a simple guitar lead supported by four notes making for a powerful harmony, I was hooked. A song like Screeching Weasel's "The Girl Next Door" is a perfect example of this.

I don't know if other people I know who dig punk rock have seen this kind of resistance too, so I'm curious as to what they think of this.

Comments

Eric said…
Dude. You always mangage to commuicate ideas that I've always wanted to say. I also think that If I commented on every post it would be overkill....

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J

Hello, Control

I'm still a big fan of iTunes . I haven't tried Napster , Urge or eMusic as I've been perfectly happy with Apple's program ever since I downloaded it two years ago. However, an annoying new feature has come up with its latest version, 7.0. Whenever you pull up your music library, a sidebar taking up 3/4ths of the screen appears plugging the iTunes Music Store. Why is this an annoyance? Well, first and foremost, since you can't close the sidebar, you can't escape it. I believe a music library is a private collection, a spot away from the music store. So what's the need for constant advertisements and plugs? To provide a better visual, let me describe what I see whenever I pull up a song in my iTunes library. When I listen to "This is a Fire Door Never Leave Open" by the Weakerthans, I see a graphic for Left and Leaving , the album that it comes from (and available in the iTunes Music Store), along with a list of the Weakerthans' other albums,