Punk's Not De... INVITED
What's worse than watching the Grammy awards? Watching them when you're in the middle of a 24-hour flu attack. Granted, I was able to time my trips to the bathroom at crucial junctures (Coldplay, Neil Diamond, the superstar "rap pack" summit meeting), although maybe if I actually saw some of said perfomances, I would've expelled the renegade microbes out of my carcass a lot faster. Sure, my wife and I high-fived when Robert Plant and Alison Krauss copped an award, and I really enjoyed the all-star tribute to Bo Diddley starring Keith Urban, John Mayer, B.B. King and Buddy Guy. But to me, the mainstream is just as inane as it ever was. You want to make the Gramms interesting? Suspend Chris Brown on a huge cable by his ankles and have Samuel L. Jackson pass ax handles out to the audience. Line forms on the right, please be orderly...
If you've been to Warped Tour more than twice or have posted incisive commentary on everything from the AP Moshpit to Punknews to Absolutepunk, this year's Grammys were a big freakin' deal. You had the double whammy of Blink-182 announcing their intentions to reform, record and tour. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Enema Of The State is over 10 years old and now you're listening to something far more sophisticated for your rarified tastes. But you don't need to drink frappachinos with Alex Gaskarth to realize that Blink were an enormous influence on the pop-punk legions that continue to land in AP's orbit. Maybe it was my stuffy head, but I don't remember tumultuous applause from the crowd when Mark Hoppus told the crowd he and his bro's were back together again. Meanwhile at the AP Skyscraper, every press release we got regarding the trio's appearance pretty much buried this fact in lieu of, oh, I don't know, Radiohead's first US TV appearance since they did SNL in 33 years or something. (Let the record show I'm not dissing the 'head. I did wonder where the other three-fifths of that band were during their performance with the First Presbyterian Bar & Grill Marching Band or whoever they were.) I probably don't need to tell you, dear reader, that Blink reuniting is a major friggin' deal in our subculture. But in a world that allows Duffy near a functioning microphone, the gesture seemed like a time-filler so the next hip-hop bore could saunter onstage.
Likewise, Green Day officially announced the title of the follow-up to American Idiot at the Grammys, and it seemed to be rather anti-climactic in the audience's eyes. I don't get it. We know the music industry responds well to dollar signs, so given the multi-platinum success of Idiot, you would think there would be a round of "yeaaaaaaah's" with the announcement of 21st Century Breakdown. More perfunctory applause, probably followed by discussion of what parties the folks in the choice seats were going to later that night.
I know I've touched on this topic before in this space, when I was dry-heaving over the American Music Awards ceremony. While lots of people like to bitch on message boards on how Moderately Successful Band A is a "sellout" or Unknown Band X Who Sing Through Their Adenoids Suck Because They Have No Facial Hair And Come From Someplace Other Than Gainesville, Florida, it needs to be said that the whole contemporary-punk scene is still very much in the underground to the much wider world of what your parents, little sisters and the elderly manager at your local Hallmark store thinks is "good." Grizzled punk dudes like to carp about what's "not punk." Seeing how Green Day and Blink were received by the Grammy audience, it seems like le punque moderne is still on the outskirts of what is "acceptable" to those walleyes. Sorry Cyndi Lauper: Money doesn't necessarily change everything.
Okay, sociology class is over. Please enjoy this artifact of a time from long ago in AP's history.
If you've been to Warped Tour more than twice or have posted incisive commentary on everything from the AP Moshpit to Punknews to Absolutepunk, this year's Grammys were a big freakin' deal. You had the double whammy of Blink-182 announcing their intentions to reform, record and tour. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Enema Of The State is over 10 years old and now you're listening to something far more sophisticated for your rarified tastes. But you don't need to drink frappachinos with Alex Gaskarth to realize that Blink were an enormous influence on the pop-punk legions that continue to land in AP's orbit. Maybe it was my stuffy head, but I don't remember tumultuous applause from the crowd when Mark Hoppus told the crowd he and his bro's were back together again. Meanwhile at the AP Skyscraper, every press release we got regarding the trio's appearance pretty much buried this fact in lieu of, oh, I don't know, Radiohead's first US TV appearance since they did SNL in 33 years or something. (Let the record show I'm not dissing the 'head. I did wonder where the other three-fifths of that band were during their performance with the First Presbyterian Bar & Grill Marching Band or whoever they were.) I probably don't need to tell you, dear reader, that Blink reuniting is a major friggin' deal in our subculture. But in a world that allows Duffy near a functioning microphone, the gesture seemed like a time-filler so the next hip-hop bore could saunter onstage.
Likewise, Green Day officially announced the title of the follow-up to American Idiot at the Grammys, and it seemed to be rather anti-climactic in the audience's eyes. I don't get it. We know the music industry responds well to dollar signs, so given the multi-platinum success of Idiot, you would think there would be a round of "yeaaaaaaah's" with the announcement of 21st Century Breakdown. More perfunctory applause, probably followed by discussion of what parties the folks in the choice seats were going to later that night.
I know I've touched on this topic before in this space, when I was dry-heaving over the American Music Awards ceremony. While lots of people like to bitch on message boards on how Moderately Successful Band A is a "sellout" or Unknown Band X Who Sing Through Their Adenoids Suck Because They Have No Facial Hair And Come From Someplace Other Than Gainesville, Florida, it needs to be said that the whole contemporary-punk scene is still very much in the underground to the much wider world of what your parents, little sisters and the elderly manager at your local Hallmark store thinks is "good." Grizzled punk dudes like to carp about what's "not punk." Seeing how Green Day and Blink were received by the Grammy audience, it seems like le punque moderne is still on the outskirts of what is "acceptable" to those walleyes. Sorry Cyndi Lauper: Money doesn't necessarily change everything.
Okay, sociology class is over. Please enjoy this artifact of a time from long ago in AP's history.
10 Comments:
The USA today had no mention of Blinks reunion, however go to any person under the age of 25s facebook and I can almost garuntee that they had some update about Blink being back. It's insane how little they cared about good news of a band getting back, and are more worried about Chris Brown hitting his lady.
On the Grammy's website, there's a poll asking what the biggest surprise of the night was. There is not a single mention of Blink.
That seriously annoyed me about there being nowhere near as much applause as there should have been. 98% of the people in that audience did not even know how monumental that event they just witnessed was.
They were probably whispering "when did they break up?"
What should also be noted is that Blink themselves didn't seem too ecstatic with the news. It just seemed like a strange, awkward moment in time.
You just said everything I was thinking Sunday night.
I didn't even watch. I figured I'd spare myself that torture and just read the list of winners the next morning. I don't think I missed much.
I always loved that AP cover... nice homage to The Damned
The Mars Volta winning a grammy I thought was pretty awesome.
Okay first of all let me say that the grammy's were much more interesting this year then in previous. That being said, it definitley tops the vma's which was a horrid skeptical to watch overall. Blink 182 is exciting news of course because they have had such a heavy influence on the genre, and Green Day has always kicked ass. Though this might enrage some people, I USED to be a HUGE fan of Green Day, before American Idiot that is, why? you might ask, because American Idiot was complete garbage. The only reason i say that is because it was highly political, they became way to serious instead of being the nonsensical spontaneous band they were in the past. And well the reason why no one cheered for either of the announcements is because no one really has an appreciaton for the veteran artists anymore, it's all about the newest people on the scene, which is nice sometimes but seems ignorant honestly. Anyone can become a successful artist these days whether they have talent and creativity or not... In the age of itunes there is no hope, sure I can't say that buying just a single song, or two or three songs isn't nice, hell i am guilty of it myself, but it destroys everything for the musicians and record companies alike. People walk around saying they like certain artists and can only give you a single track name off of an entire album ( keep in mind sometimes they don't sometimes even know what album it's off of! ) It just seems there are a lot of ignorant people who talk like they are knowledgeable, and well that is your answer to why people didn't seem ecstatic, or remotley excited when a good veteran band announced there reuniting. Having said that, here's another thing to think about, what about all of the ANGELS AND AIRWAVES fans who shed a tear in the absence of there favorite CRUDDY band.
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