"Pop Punk"

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they fronted being yobs.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:34 (twenty years ago) link

#1 i think avril could write/play the music that the descendents made
#2 avril is how old 17? that's how old milo was when he joined the descendents

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:34 (twenty years ago) link

dude, jess, the descendents had the EDGE! coffee coffee coffee.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:37 (twenty years ago) link

Avril never wrote "Enjoy!"

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:38 (twenty years ago) link

#1 i think avril could write/play the music that the descendents made

could NOT

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:41 (twenty years ago) link

Nabisco, but I want to say that there are more signifiers of pop-punk than just three chords. If all I was playing was three chords, I might just as well sound like Chuck Berry or Bob Dylan or Belle & Sebastian. On a thread about chord progressions, I mentioned that I-V-vi-IV has a peculiarly pop-punk feel. Also, there's a tendency -- maybe more so in emo than in pop-punk (but what's the diff, right?) -- for the lead guitar to play the same arpeggiated line while the bass and rhythm guitar change. I especially like that technique: isolate that bit, score it for orchestra and it's Philip Glass.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:43 (twenty years ago) link

could TOO
just with less of a sneer and more of a squelch

― Felcher (Felcher), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:43 (twenty years ago) link

watered down essence...check
slick unnatural production (add bonus points if done by the Matrix)...check
Hot Topic inventory...CHECK

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:43 (twenty years ago) link

The Descendents didn't front being anything, which was the only problem with them.

― Kris (aqueduct), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:46 (twenty years ago) link

They fronted that they farted a lot.

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:49 (twenty years ago) link

That's crazy! I'm just done farting myself.

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:51 (twenty years ago) link

there is possibly an argument for Milo fronting being an anti-intellectual.

Let's go down to Mrs. Gooches for some apricots

Wait

Close the window
Close the window

MUSTARD GAS

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:51 (twenty years ago) link

C'mon now: "I'm the One" versus "Sk8er Boi." Not exactly miles of difference music-wise; Avril's is just a little lighter, sweeter, fluffier. Six of the pound cake, a half-dozen of the angel food. The are a lot of differences, but they're not in the song-format.

Yeah, Jay, I'm not saying that's all the stuff is, just that ... trying to think of a way to put it. You know how high-school pop-punk bands can turn any moderately simple pop song into a punk cover by having punk drumming and playing the guitar chords as muted, distorted clicks? There's this basis of few-chords simple-melody pop it works from -- same goes for plenty of Belle and Sebastian or whoever -- which I don't think is super-difficult to assemble (hence high-school punk bands) but takes a lot to make work right.

I mean, every American rock kid I know learned to play by being in a band like this. You get the equipment. You write a song with a few chords and a catchy melody; probably you try to write funny lyrics. Everybody plays eighth notes. If things are going badly you yell "G!" before the bar that's on G, etc. As you get better you all start doing basic tricks and variations. And if you can do this with loads of grace and form, you might wind up playing "All the Small Things."

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:51 (twenty years ago) link

90's Descendents is NOT cannon.

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:53 (twenty years ago) link

You gotta measure the good with the bad. I mean, the world gave us the Descendents, but they, in turn, invented Blink 182, and hence, the decline of Western civilization.

Oh, wow, that's funny on more than one level. It all comes full circle!

And yea, I agree with Jon. ALTHOUGH, I'm The One is, arguably, a GREAT song.

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:55 (twenty years ago) link

It's a very great song, best on the album.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:55 (twenty years ago) link

Maybe in the songwriting? As in it's of a much higher quality?

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:56 (twenty years ago) link

That's not a very good album.

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:58 (twenty years ago) link

That was directed toward Nitsuh, sorra.

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 15:58 (twenty years ago) link

Nabs, I agree with you on the difficult-to-make-it-work part. I'm always amazed at Yo La Tengo's ability to make a three-chord progression soar. My whole point was really just that my sometime affinity for pop-punk is maybe more in those peculiar details I mentioned than in the basics. That is, if I play pop-punk on the keyboard intuitively, it's because I also play those Philip Glass-ish elements intuitively -- I don't inherently dig the simplicity of a C-F-G progression. (Of course I like plenty of songs that use it.)

(Or maybe I'm just being defensive. Jaymc: I'm a genius because I can play pop-punk! Nabisco: It's really just three chords. Jaymc: It's more than that! *cries*)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 20 June 2003 16:19 (twenty years ago) link

Hahaha. I guess I was just stressing the interchangability of it because when I write three-chord songs they could go either way: when I was younger I'd write one that was more pop-punky, then go "actually, I think I'll record this as an acoustic B&S-type song," then later try it the other way again. . . . In the indie-pop world there seems to be a lot of this interchange, bands that alternately jangle and click and always sound like they're happy enough to go either way.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 June 2003 16:25 (twenty years ago) link

Out of curiosity what specific acts make the songwriting on "I'm the One" so very much better than the songwriting on "Sk8er Boi?"

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 June 2003 16:27 (twenty years ago) link

(it's funny/sad that when people think "descendents" they think "i'm the one")

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 20 June 2003 16:40 (twenty years ago) link

In the "pointing out to Descendents fans that they have no good reason to hate 'Sk8er Boi'" game, I don't think the emergence of "I'm the One" should be particularly surprising.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 20 June 2003 16:42 (twenty years ago) link

But Milo *is* THE ONE.

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 20 June 2003 16:44 (twenty years ago) link

okay, why not "good good things" or "silly girl" though?

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 20 June 2003 16:50 (twenty years ago) link

Bikeage / Cameage / Myage = amazing

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 20 June 2003 16:52 (twenty years ago) link

and here's the thing about the descendents: bill could write all the "avril fan-ready" nifty three chord pop songs, but milo and whomever was playing guitar or bass on that particular album were more than capable of making bitter/complicated art-punk-metal that transcended the saccharine of the previous track.

too much sugar rots your teeth, balance is the key.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 20 June 2003 16:57 (twenty years ago) link

The main gimmick to defending superficial chart pop in thoughtful writing, as far as I can tell, is the contrast between the subject and the commentary. Pop punk, by affecting even a shred of rebellion, exhibits some kind of thought, and is thus less "daring" to write thoughtfully about.

― ara, Friday, 20 June 2003 17:13 (twenty years ago) link

The reason the Descendents are among the greatest bands ever:

http://www.dragcity.com/catalog/records/dc30.jpg

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Friday, 20 June 2003 17:15 (twenty years ago) link

my vote:

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc500/c503/c503697u32b.jpg

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 20 June 2003 17:17 (twenty years ago) link

What is the Descendents' connection to Nig-Heist?

― Sam J. (samjeff), Friday, 20 June 2003 17:33 (twenty years ago) link

i think bill drummed for them in the black flag years when the descendents were on hiatus

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 20 June 2003 17:47 (twenty years ago) link

Revis are great.

Also, Travis Barker will end up being the most-aped drummer of our era.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Friday, 20 June 2003 17:53 (twenty years ago) link

Avril and Milo are both pretty good at self-aggrandizing, delusional psychoanalyses of "tragic" females. Is "Bikeage" the one that goes, "Who's gonna pick you up / and take you home with them tonight? / Not meeeeee"? Neither seems afraid of coming across as truly repulsive human beings in their songs. Good for them, I say. However, "Sk8er Boi" is quite a musical anomaly on the album; the rest is really boring. The Descendents had those cool, fussy basslines and more manic energy.

I'd like to hear a DJ Sammy treatment of "Hope". Maybe Avril can sing it.

― Kris (aqueduct), Friday, 20 June 2003 18:37 (twenty years ago) link

My favorite Descendents song is pre-Milo, "Ride The Wild." I think it's the drum sound, it always reminded me of early Violent Femmes (though listening to it now, I'm not hearing that connection).

I like a lot of pop-punk, older stuff. I don't find the new stuff offensive in the least, but why would I buy any of it when I still have a binder full of Descendents, Mess/Darlington, Green Day and so on? I still pull out some of those albums, but less than I used to. Rancid's [i]Life Won't Wait[/i] holds up pretty well, I like the One Man Army CD I picked up the last time I went to a Warped Tour show, of course the Descendents and the Buzzcocks.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 20 June 2003 19:03 (twenty years ago) link

Another reason I'm not drawn to the Sum 41s and New Found Glories of the world is that I never liked the bands that inspired them (NOFX, Lagwagon, etc.).

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 20 June 2003 19:05 (twenty years ago) link

I don't know how to respond to this because I love All-American Rejects and Good Charlotte, but I hate New Found Glory and Dashboard Confessional and don't care about Sum 41. I don't think these bands are all one and the same. Dashboard Confessional is a fuckin' Lisa Loeb who won't stop talking about high school. New Found Glory suck so bad they only get SLOWER as the song goes on (they are phyiscally incapable of speeding up). Sum 41 are just kinda really boring (like Weird Al, who would sound like Sum 41 if he was a young punk kid, they do make great videos though). All-American Rejects use grandiose production to make their generic heartbreak yarns massive (god bless 'em!) and Good Charlotte simply made the best pop/rock album since the Replacement's "Let It Be." I can't tell if they're a baby Clash or not since they haven't been around that long. But they made an album a baby Clash would be proud to have in their catalogue.

I notice Good Charlotte gets a little more love each time they release another single. That rocks.

Descendents are ok (my fave is probably "Jean Is Dead"), but yeah, anybody who likes them but hates ALL the pop-punk out there now is probably doing it based on some ass-backwards principle.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 20 June 2003 19:17 (twenty years ago) link

Not really. The production is enough for me not to.
But, uh...I do like Good Charlotte. Don't tell!

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 20:02 (twenty years ago) link

And I'm pretty sure I'm not biased and alone when I say the lyrics to most Avril Lavigne's songs don't do anything for me AT ALL, even when getting in touch with my inner pre-pubescent femininity.

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 20:14 (twenty years ago) link

Try Kelly Osbourne. She's WAY better than Avril on all counts (ok, Avril's bellowing on "I'm With You" is out of Kelly's range).

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 20 June 2003 20:17 (twenty years ago) link

You know what's really sad? Sony have done a really awful job of marketing her album. Even with the show's hype she hardly gets a favorable push. It's sold poorly which is a shame. I've only heard the singles, but they're NAHZ.

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 20:24 (twenty years ago) link

yeah, anybody who likes them but hates ALL the pop-punk out there now is probably doing it based on some ass-backwards principle.

I haven't heard all the pop-punk out there now and to be frank based on what I HAVE heard, I'm not in the mood to hear more.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 20 June 2003 20:24 (twenty years ago) link

yeah, but Ned, you don't like anything now! You don't count. I'm talking about the I'd-like-Sum-41's-single-if-the-copyright-was-1982.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 20 June 2003 20:25 (twenty years ago) link

yeah, but Ned, you don't like anything now!

I think the more people wrongly simplify my stance the more I'll be amused. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 20 June 2003 20:28 (twenty years ago) link

For me, I suppose it all stems from my soft spot for NOFX. :B

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 20:34 (twenty years ago) link

:B --->buckteeth, not a split tongue

― Francis Watlington (Francis Watlington), Friday, 20 June 2003 20:59 (twenty years ago) link

I like Blink-182 - what i've heard is fun and catchy. Dont underatnd whythey're bing accused of/seen as a sign of decline of wetsern civ.

― H (Heruy), Friday, 20 June 2003 22:09 (twenty years ago) link

It's worth noting at this point -- I don't think anyone made this distinction earlier -- that Avril Lavigne did not write "Sk8er Boi," or "Complicated."
and Jess/Dubplate... I stand by this:
>> not much of a historical reference point for the "sound" of the Backstreet Boys <<
explain the "?!?!?!?!?!!!???????."

― Ben Boyer, Friday, 20 June 2003 22:22 (twenty years ago) link

Sum 41 is fantastic. "Still Waiting" might be pop-punk's shining moment - of the last five years, at least.

― Samuel Bloch, Sunday, 22 June 2003 16:22 (twenty years ago) link

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