Dog bites man. Sky rains fish. Granddad fights off young robber.
In Journalism school, you’ll learn these classic attention-grabbing seeming-contradictions. It’s not often that they’ll piss you off, though. So try this one out: “Green Day on Broadway”.
After listening to all of the band’s recent hits, rock fans are starting to try and pinpoint why Green Day pisses them off so bad. The reason is elemental to rock. They violate one of the most important rules about rock and roll. The very ethos of rock is that “they’re too cool for you”, and that’s a GOOD thing.
There’s an old joke, forwarded in e-mails about a flashy sign on the exterior of a nightclub. “Smarts. The most exclusive club in town. Everyone welcome.”
The joke connects on several levels, but most poignant is the fact that the sign is simultaneously stupid and insulting. The reader huffs – Don’t try and lure me in with promises of identification and belonging. One of the strongest lures to a scene, company, clique or team is the fact that your acceptance must be earned over time, with nothing but disrespect given at the beginning.
Whether in a slimy night scene or a corporate board room, the lure is to be an outsider and gain the respect of the “old guard”.
This is why kids idolize sports heroes… they’re distant titans who cannot be talked to. Far too big time for you.
This is why men idolize sex symbols… they’re the impossible girl who’d never have a two-minute chat with you.
This is why young men in bad ties and khakis work unpaid internships. They want to prove themselves at a sacrifice.
Exclusivity is a valuable thing! Keeping the latchers-on and the pretenders at bay is what makes clubs, bands, think-tanks, and publications cool and on the cutting edge.
This is why Green Day is the most insulting band on the market right now. It isn’t clear if the guys still fancy themselves a “punk” band, or if they’re at peace with the fact that they’re old corporate establishment now. The word “sell-out” should be avoided, because it’s easily misunderstood and often abused. Green Day started off as the snot-nosed, suburban California punk band whose only real complaint was that life sucked and was boring.
So the image reversal in 2004 seemed more slippery than slick when the band returned with eyeliner and pretended to have something really important to say about Iraq, 9/11, and American teenaged life. (something they only had a fleeting grasp on when they were touring Dookie in their mid-20s… In 1994.
While on the topic of their 2004-2010 look, it should be added that the neo-sarcastic-fascist look that Green Day, My Chemical Romance, and other bands took on for awhile there was confusing as hell. Was it some kind of “Bush is a Nazi!” complaint, yet intended to look good and cool and sell records? If it’s a look you’re embracing, and posing and posturing like an Italian brownshirt, then your anti-Iraq/Bush/whatever message is even more baffling.
American Idiot is one of the most frustrating, dumb albums in recent years. If you want to write a “mad as hell” album, write one. American Idiot is clueless espousal of vaguely idealistic teenage quasi-angst packaged in friendly melodies. It tries to rouse you to anger and the desire for something better by tickling your ears with pop ballads heavy on electric guitar. So what’s the point?
Then, when this kind of journey for the sake of the journey non-point of an album written by a middle aged man became a hit with 15 year-olds everywhere, Billie Joe and the boys had no real way to engage in the objectless anger they’d created in American kids. There was, and still isn’t any kind of next step to this Velveeta rebellion. The album convinces hormonal idiots that their lives are being wasted by Ritalin and MTV and fueling American war… and then doesn’t recommend an antidote, because it doesn’t want one… and enjoys the play it gets on MTV.
This idiot’s rebellion just invites you to feel connection in disenfranchisement.
Since the album was that big of a hit with those emotionally retarded enough to identify, the next step wasn’t to DO anything or CHANGE anything. Nope, the next step was to invite more people to the stupid party.
So how do you take a widely recognizable concept and rehash it for more money? Ask the Lion King. You put it on Broadway.
Rock is quickly becoming too accessible. It’s not an exclusive club. It’s not lavish, super-sexed grunge stars who bleed cool while you strain for a chance to get closer to the blood.
Rock is twittered. Rock is merchandised in family-friendly formats. Rock isn’t your father’s rock opera. It’s your mothers. Rock can be found online for free and made into your wallpaper, your screensaver, your stickers, your pins, your e-mails. Want wants to get in touch with you. Rock wants your brand loyalty and would love to have you on its e-mail mailing list.
Rock is Pepsi, because Pepsi paid for it to be so.
When rock is a club that everyone can get into, the real fans don’t remember why they were fighting for a piece to begin with.