Wednesday, May 9, 2007
!PunK!
Often when people think of punk music they might think of the seventies and eighties, “down with government, beat the hell out of your neighbour, get wasted” stereotype. Well that’s I think anyway. It goes without saying that punk music has produce its status for being high impact, intense energetic and loud. Punk has its very own only one of its kind style. Although punk sports hard edges, leather jackets, shaved heads, bright colours, Mohawks, and army boots, you can't really tell if a person is a punk by the way they dress nor doing their hair. Punk fans have strong political themes and rough instrumentals so characteristic of punk rock did not appeal to the masses. Instead, a subculture was formed following the emergence of punk music. This subculture quickly became associated with disillusioned, rebellious youth and an anti-government mentality. With this subculture punk music enjoyed a fair amount of fame in the United Kingdom during the late 1970's with the ‘Sex Pistols’ where the genre did not enjoy much popularity elsewhere. Because Punk bands typically rejected mainstream culture, it not until the turn of the century, I believe, that punk became popular because of the emerging alternative rock genre that is found within the sub cultures of punk.
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I agree, I think at the turn of the century alternative rock especially in the form of Emo helped to make Punk more mainstream. Originally the word Emo used to describe subgenre of hardcore Punk which originated from Washington D.C, bands such as Rites of Spring, Embrace, One Last Wish, Beefeater, Gray Matter, Fire Party, and, slightly later, Moss Icon we considered among the first. While they performed, they may have dressed like conventional punks and had similar chord changes etc… but they acted emotionally so fans started calling this type of music Emo Punk. Also when the music became popular, certain fashion trends and attitudes began to be associated with Emo and ideological set of ideas evolved around it. Nowadays the underground status bands like this have been challenged by popular cultures conception of Emo Punk which we now call Emo. It seems like one of the most popular Emo bands now are My Chemical Romance because they are highly profiled.
Usually people get confused by the term Emo. The stereotype of a band such as Fall Out Boy as an Emo is unjustified. Just because Fall Out Boy use the same sort of musical similarities and a common fashion sense does it consider them Emo? For example in their music videos they may wear Mascara, have choreographed guitar dances and have a “boy meets girl” high school plot but that doesn’t necessarily mean their Emo. Conventional Emo bands such as A.F.I and Funeral for a Friend make use of a more authentic Punk sound because of their guitar tone and vocal style. These bands embrace rejection with open arms and as it seems are forever crushed emotionally. Fall Out Boy however, don’t seem to be suffering rejection because in all their music videos, they are having a great time and doing rock star activities such as, trashing hotel room as in their music video This Ain’t a Scene Its An Arms Race.
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