As you can perhaps tell, I’m not getting much unicycling in at the moment. None at all, in fact.
I was chatting to a friend about Green Day, American Idiot yesterday, and we agreed it was pretty poor - very derivative of what I think of as late 1970s punk/new wave, but unimaginative, and with synthetic anger. It’s been a big-selling album, and has probably sold to lots of people of my age who have a bit of nostalgia for that sound, and the days when music was played on guitars, and the songs were angry.
I was in Selectadisc today and made one of my semi-random purchases from the “loud music for boys” section (I don’t get too hung up about fine distinctions of genre. ) I bought For Blood and Empire, by Anti-Flag - Their 2006 album.
It’s a very similar sort of thing to American Idiot, but it’s done so much better. Each song has a different style and a different hook, there’s lots of excitement, changes of rhythm, and musical humour, and the lyrics are more convincingly angry about the worst aspects of American foreign policy and militarism. It almost sounds like they mean it - which is as good as you can hope for in these days when rebellion is an off the shelf commodity like anything else.
I actually don’t like Anti-Flag very much…but I guess I haven’t heard much of their stuff. Green Day I do like, though. Green Day’s entire purpose is not to bash on the American government, like Anti-Flag is trying to do. American Idiot is the only song that was trying to do that, and I think they got it right.
green day is awsome new and old i dont think atall they are just trying fit in i think they just have grown up a bit since dookie …thats what they said …i like all there old stuff but there new stuff rocks aswell
Possibly, until you listen to the real thing. I was attracted to Greenday by a snippet of their music I heard on the TV - it sounded pretty much like stuff I remember from about 1979. So I bought the album and listened, and it sounded pretty much like they were trying to sound like 1979 but not quite getting it right.
It’s the same on my rare visits to 50s rock ‘n’ roll clubs. The bands who try too hard to sound like the real thing are the ones who are least convincing.
If we loosely categorise Greenday as “punk” (I said, “loosely”) then it fails.
Rock and roll should make you dance and think of sex, booze, bikes and big cars.
Punk should make you jump up and down and feel good-naturedly angry with the stupidity of it all.
I like original punk, but I also like a lot of Green Day’s stuff. It’s not the same thing - I wouldn’t say that Green Day are trying to replicate the Ramones, Pistols, Dead Kennedys or whoever.
About the American Idiot thing (assuming you mean the song itself), political message aside, I don’t think it’s one of their best songs - they’ve done much better. If you mean the album, I think there are some very good songs on there (but then I listen to it for the music rather than trying to find a political message).
I can’t comment on Anti-Flag, I haven’t heard any of their stuff.
Rob
EDIT: Anti-Flag have some streaming clips of the album on their website - I quite like it. But I like Green Day as well.
Perhaps not, but they sound to me like they’re trying to fit in at the pop end of an existing genre, whereas the others (at least at first) were creating a new sound. It’s an attitude thing. Hey, don’t argue with my mid life crisis, dude!:o
I’m listening to that Anti-Flag stuff on their site now and I like it - reminds me a lot of earlier Rancid or Lars and the Bastards (and, dare I say, some Green Day). I don’t really listen to lyrics of punk though, so I’m not going to comment on the political value.
Start with an easy one: listen to the lyrics of The Exploited’s “Sex and Violence”.
There are only three words, and they are repeated often enough that even the most inattentive listener may readily become familiar with the gist of them.
I like Green Day. I never liked punk and I think that my favourite Green Day songs are the more ‘rocky’ ones like Basket Case (I think I like any songs that smack of mental health difficulties) and the one about his shadow (can’t remember the name of it) and dislike the more ‘punky’ ones.
I didn’t mean I ignore the lyrics completely, just that I tend to listen to it as music rather than looking for a message. I’ll listen to and buy music by people who I would probably not get on with at all - I don’t need to like a person or agree with what they think to enjoy the music. I do hear the lyrics, they just don’t tend to sink in :o (unless it’s a song I want to play, then I’ll learn the lyrics).
Lyrics are very important to me because I am largely ‘tone deaf’. I can not hear or recognise melody and tune, although I still enjoy the rhythm of the music. I hate music without lyrics and find it extremely boring and irritating. So good lyrics are a must. I’m constantly amazed/amused at how poor some song lyrics are. I like the ones that rhyme and tell a story.
I think a lot of their “less punky” stuff is their main strength. Basket Case is an excellent song, and I like a lot of the quieter more melodic stuff like Macy’s Day Parade, Good Riddance et al.
Very few people are literally tone deaf. Listening to melody is a skill you could develop, in the same way as you once learned to read, or (if I may mention it in this forum!) ride a unicycle. If you hear an old style police siren (dee da, dee da) and it sounds like two different notes, one high and one low, then you are not tone deaf. The rest is detail.
I say that as someone who was repeatedly told he was tone deaf, then learned to become a halfway decent musician and occasional singer.
But anyway, rhythm is 90% of music. If someone taps the rhythm of a well known tune, most people will recognise the tune. If someone plays all the notes of a well known tune, but gives them equal time value (and therefore removes the distinctive rhythm) then few people will recognise the tune.
Anti-flag’s newer stuff is pretty much rubbish. Well, I guess its just different than their older stuff. Its a lot more whiney and more mainstream sounding. Check out any of their albums besides Terror State and For Blood and Empire.
You’re not supposed to have a good singing voice - it’s punk! If you don’t listen to the meaning behind punk songs or the lyrics you are left with… uhm… bad music. It’s about the message and that attitude, not the musical talent.
Green day never really was punk. Dookie was a GREAT album - but not really punk, and all their albums since have been lame in comparison.
Anti-Flag, from what I’ve heard of them, are punk. The song “die for your governent” is done really well. I haven’t heard much past that.
Well, after starting this thread, I listened to the two albums back to back.
Green Day. They are to rock what tricycles are to unicycling. My first impression on hearing the album was that it was punk-style, but on relistening, I realise that they have simply added punky sounding bits to a mishmash of fairly banal directionless pop, and I must have drifted off in the other bits the first time I listened. In fact, comparing Green day to Anti-Flag is like comparing… oh… something that isn’t like something else to the thing that it isn’t like. (Maybe an apple to a banana or something.)
Anti-Flag - definite punk feel, but more at the Buzzcocks end than the Exploited end of the style spectrum. The lyrics appear sincere, if sometimes a little naive. But what would punk be without its refreshing naiveté. It would be just another niche-marketed product aimed at an unsophisticated younger age group with sufficient disposable income to buy CDs and T shirts…
And punk bands don’t have singers, they have vocalists.
) I bought For Blood and Empire, by Anti-Flag - Their 2006 album.
