Green Day drew controversy among conservatives during their first U.S. gig this week after changing a lyric to anti-MAGA.
  • Godort@lemm.eeEnglish
    278·
    3 months ago

    Green Day used to be anti-establishment, now they are the establishment.

    American Idiot is almost 20 years old and the message hasn’t changed. Do these people just have zero media literacy?

    • rainynight65@feddit.orgEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Media literacy has never been a thing with conservatives - to this day they don’t understand what the Bruce Springsteen song ‘Born In The USA’ is really about. Reagan famously wanted to use it for his campaign in 1984.

      Also somehow conservatives have been so keen on appearing as ‘not the establishment’ that by now they have terminally deluded themselves into believing that they really aren’t part of the establishment. How their voters believe this is anyone’s guess.

      And let’s not talk about how the self-proclaimed defenders of free speech constantly take issue with speech they don’t like.

    • not_that_guy05@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3913·
      3 months ago

      I don’t man, I don’t consider them punk punk but pop punk, but still doesn’t change your statement.

      I’m still surprised punk hasn’t made a come back. We are dying of old age and this is the right environment for punk to flourish.

      • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
        615·
        3 months ago

        The least punk thing is to gatekeep the genre.

        • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          102·
          3 months ago

          classifying in genres is by definition gatekeeping. somewhere you have to draw a line between punk and everything else, otherwise the term punk loses all meaning.

        • not_that_guy05@lemmy.worldEnglish
          95·
          3 months ago

          Classifying them pop rock would be gatekeeping. I still classified them within the punk genre and still agreed with their statement of punk.

      • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
        29·
        3 months ago

        The day Trump was elected I was excited for a new wave of anti-government human-rights protest music. The best we got was “This Is America”.

        Edit: I appreciate the few examples you’ve offered but I was thinking of the movements of the 60s and 80s. It wasn’t just the hippie peace love anti war music or rap music, it was poetry, fiction, movies, documentaries. It was the culture around the people rising up to protest their government. Now any shmoe can tweet at the president.

        • sarcasticsunrise@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          3 months ago

          Oh shit! How could I forget the best of the best when it comes to leftist punk: Propagandhi! "Less Talk More Rock and Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes are essential listening. I’m hella dating myself with these albums, the Adderall has kicked in way too late I guess

        • skulblaka@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          Check out Poor Man’s Poison and, if you’re a rap fan, Cal Scruby has some pretty on-topic pieces (“Captain America” comes to mind as an explicit example).

          But seriously, check out Poor Man’s Poison, he encapsulates almost everything that I’m feeling.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        3 months ago

        Not punk but industrial. Though KMFDM has always been political. But there’s a few tracks on the new album that are far less subtle than usual.

        Also forgot to point out that punk was a product of its time. And it’s environment. Very much a DIY ethic. Which lent to its sound. DIY today is going to sound a lot different. Unless people are going to ape the sound without any of the influence.

        Even many of the iconic punkers got tired of it and moved on when new things became available. As mentioned John Lyden AKA Johnny rotten. Left the pistols for Public Image limited. Last I heard Jell-O was still trying to get into California politics?

          • TexasDrunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            3 months ago

            Huh, TIL. He’s a shitbag, but I really think guys like him do it because being a backwards ass hat is unpopular now and he only knows how to be against things, not for them.

            I was like that in my teens and early 20s. Not conservative, just hated anything that appeared popular. I was insufferable. This dude really seems like an old ass pizza cutter. All edge, no point.

        • TexasDrunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          3 months ago

          TL;Dr: Long, rambling old man shit incoming.

          You’re absolutely right. The DIY landscape is so incredibly different. Now you can get an electric guitar with reasonable QC and an amp with modeling and a hundred presets that plugs directly into your computer to record. There’s loads of free lessons online that show people how to play instruments. There are tabs for almost every song put out by any semi-popular artist so you don’t have to try to reverse engineer them anymore. There are backing tracks. We didn’t have any of that shit. We had a solid state amp with two channels, one of which was poorly distorted.

          And I’m here for it. It’s not my dad’s punk. It’s not my punk and pop punk. It belongs to new people and I’m excited for them to look back at it the way I look back at the bands that excited me when I was a kid. They’ll have new genres built upon the shoulders of the ones I listened to, which stood on the shoulders of those that came before.

          • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            3 months ago

            Yep at the time an old guitar and a beat-up drum set was realistically what you’re getting. Maybe a basic organ / keyboard. Which is what led to the distinct sound along with General lack of production and mastering.

            Now you can pick up second hand synthesizer sequencers etc etc etc. The Landscapes opened up a lot more and as you said with digital audio workstations Etc pretty much make any sort of sound you want.

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
        9·
        3 months ago

        I grew up in (what I perceive as) the heyday of punk, but mostly ignored it. Lately I’ve been tempted to take a closer look at some of those old punk bands I always heard about back in the day.

        • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          3 months ago

          Those kids were right. Not so much as adults anymore some of them. John Lydon in particular having become a bit of a disappointment. But it’s still a fun era and easy to listen through. Seeing as it really encompassed about a 5 to 6 year span.

          Post Punk/ dance Punk is having a bit of a Resurgence again though. Lots of good new stuff coming out. Though not as much political necessarily.

          • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
            6·
            3 months ago

            it’s still a fun era and easy to listen through

            Posing the same question as I did to someone else - can you recommend an entry point or two? Heavy on the political/social messaging is fine with me, but a more understandable lyrical style than what I remember of a lot of those old punk bands would be preferred.

            • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
              8·
              3 months ago

              Wikipedia has a decent list to get an entry point. At least for the big ones. Start following any of those through YouTube Spotify Etc and you’ll get down into rabbit holes of small bands that only put out a few songs as live bootlegs that only five people in the world remember. Rabbit holes are always a good time.

                • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  4·
                  3 months ago

                  Punk was a musical big bang of a sort. I spend most of my time in adjacent subgenre. Most people do without realizing it honestly. Postpunk, goth, new wave, alternative, and industrial all descend from it. As well as other genera like ska, psychobilly, and horror punk. Though I’d argue that a lot of the political sentiment today is in industrial and EBM. Alec Empire and Atari Teenage Riot 20 years ago were suuuper political. I mentioned KMFDM elsewhere, they go way way back to the early 80s. Even Trent Reznor and nine inch nails, very political. Even male model Marc Massive and his group Massive Ego. Really continues the political and social commentary.

          • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
            4·
            3 months ago

            I will do - can you recommend an entry point or two? Heavy on the political/social messaging is fine with me, but a more understandable lyrical style than what I remember of a lot of those old punk bands would be preferred.

            • not_that_guy05@lemmy.worldEnglish
              61·
              3 months ago

              The partisans, subhumans, the exploited, discharge.

              Cheap sex, the casualties, cockney rejects for newer late 90s early 2k. Some of the ones I think would be what your are looking for.

              Hardcore punk, oi, crust, anachro punk.

      • teawrecks@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        4·
        3 months ago

        Check out Desaparecidos, side project of Conor Oberst. They have 2 albums, one in 2002, one in 2015, both just as relevant today.

      • irish_link@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        I’m down with you being all in on the statement but I have a question for you.

        What would you consider Punk in 1990 or even 94?

            • not_that_guy05@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              3 months ago

              Narcoleptic youth, total chaos, rancid, one way system, nofx, penny wise.

              Playing? TSOL, circle jerks, the adicts, D.I, the exploited

              • irish_link@lemmy.worldEnglish
                11·
                3 months ago

                On Wikipedia Rancid, NOFX, Penny Wise all have a similar paragraph about all the other bands that came out of the same area and Green Day is in all of them.

                Green Day may have shifted over time into Rock or Pop Punk as you say but make no mistake when they originated they were Punk. Especially if NOFX, Penny Wise, and Rancid is. The problem is that when a band hits it, they are usually tagged with whatever they were defined as from then on. So they are punk because they were originally punk. I know I am arguing and I am not meaning to. Just trying to point out that there isn’t much reason to say they aren’t punk anymore.

                It’s like my argument about “hover boards” I lost that one a long time ago and it doesn’t help anyone to keep correcting people an say it’s not a hoverboard. The name stuck from the start.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        The revolution will not be televised. It’s out there but there’s no money behind having them go big anymore.

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    103·
    3 months ago

    Never ceases to amaze me when “fans” of a band appear to completely ignore their lyrics. Are these people who only know “Longview” and “Time of your Life?”

    • finestnothing@lemmy.worldEnglish
      37·
      3 months ago

      I loved when Republicans were screaming at rage against the machine to stop making political music, like… what machine do you think they’re raging against? The mcdonalds icecream machines?

    • paraphrand@lemmy.worldEnglish
      172·
      3 months ago

      I’ve had times in my life where I’m oblivious to lyrics, and times when I’m really tuned in to them. So I can see how people get carried along with the music regardless of the lyrics.

      It’s still funny when people make realizations like this though.

  • folkrav@lemmy.caEnglish
    66·
    3 months ago

    Did these conservatives miss American Idiot, or are they just being reactionary as they so often are?

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
      30·
      3 months ago

      This is the same group of people who (somehow) thought Killing in the Name Of was aligned with their views, and now make comments like “I liked RATM until they got so political.”

    • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      3 months ago

      Most of them are just peanut brains with the Goldfish attention span who only like the sound but never listen to the lyrics. Hell one of the local grocery stores around here in their mix has a few tracks by the stones in particular give me shelter. It’s an iconic song. But most people have no idea what the lyrics are. It’s sort of surreal to walk through the store listening to the singer scream out rape and murder it’s just a shot away. It’s a fun sort of irony I suppose.

      • folkrav@lemmy.caEnglish
        10·
        3 months ago

        American Idiot and the what, 3 albums before it and all the following, were all on Reprise Records (Warner). American Idiot specifically had some very strong marketing campaigns. If one really does subscribe to that “selling out” rhetoric, they did so much earlier than that.

  • MermaidsGarden@lemmy.worldEnglish
    612·
    3 months ago

    So Green Day does the most Green Day thing ever and the MAGA crowd loses their minds. Who are the snowflakes again?

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    47·
    3 months ago

    Wtf were they expecting? Like, it’s green day, they’ve always been pretty forward about their politics, and it’s been in the lyrics the entire time.

    • NidoranDuran@kbin.run
      19·
      3 months ago

      Seriously. I don’t even listen to Green Day, and even I know that this isn’t new territory for them. Did these people not know about American Idiot and who that was about?

  • sarcasticsunrise@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    3 months ago

    Imo, this is the coolest thing Green Day has done since “Nimrod”

    “Conservatives freaking out that a popular pop punk band aren’t actually right wing psychopaths?! News at 11”

  • numberfour002@lemmy.worldEnglish
    37·
    3 months ago

    I chuckled heartily earlier today when I saw a post on the front page of the R-word site that was posted to the conservative sub. It was a picture of the band holding up a mask of Trump with idiot written on it and a title along the lines of “After Trump assassination attempt, Green Day holds up head of Donald Trump”.

    Literally, it was just a mask of Trump with something like “Idiot” written on it from a band that quite literally is known for criticizing the government (understatement).

    They were making it sound like it was an implicit threat to Trump and hateful rhetoric inciting further violence.

    I swear there must be some brain damage involved in those types of conclusions.

  • StrawberryPigtails@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    284·
    3 months ago

    ROFL!! Apparently the folks complaining haven’t actually ever listened to Green Day. Though the severed Trump head at the concert was probably a bit much.