In his defense.....He is 100% right.

And 100% jealous....money for nothing (but several hit songs and an eventual dynasty....) and chicks for free......

Yeah. Green Day is a bunch of frauds.

Pfft.

Sure he might be right, but it was bands like The Sex Pistols (a boy band, in essence, created by Malcom McClaren) that jumped on the bandwagon too.

Bands like The New York Dolls and The Ramones made a huge splash and the world ate it up. All of a sudden, you have The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie, X-Ray Spex, Joy Division... etc, jumping on the very same bandwagon that still clunkers around from city to city in the Western world... Washington D.C. and Los Angeles had their turns in the early 80s, then Boston, Seattle... in the late 80s through the mid 90s, the Bay Area punk, thrash, and funk scenes were very active and influential. Bands like Operation Ivy and Primus get national attention, so the record companies come sniffing around for the next Nirvana.... and it came to nobody's surprise (nobody that ever saw Green Day play shows back then or ever knew them personally) that GD was going to get huge.

It irks me when people declare what PUNK REALLY IS, DOOD. It sounds old, Johnny! (Hope the filthy lucre you've earned cashing in on New Wave w/ PIL and the 90's Pistols reuinion sustains you!)

These arguments make me roll my eyes... ...treating a genre of music like it's an institution. Especially punk, the so-called revolutionary sound, a sound so steeped in rigid traditionalism, ironically.

Give it a rest.

Plonk? Man, that's cold.

heh.

a kid asked me what punk was. i kicked over a garbage can and said "that's punk". so the kid kicks over another garbage can, and said "that? that's punk?" and i said "no, that's trendy".

i'm no green day fan, but i've always remembered that quote from their singer.

You know what's really punk rock? Arguing about who is the most punk rock.

Wait...

Buck Futter
In his defense.....He is 100% right.

Yep. Old school punk bands would have kicked the shiat out of those green day wussies... while playing their show uninterrupted

Sorry, Johnny, but you're old 'n busted. Green Day songs are too melodic to be punk. But they aren't bad.

antialias: You know what's really punk rock? Arguing about who is the most punk rock.

Exactly.

pots and kettles!

Green Day is a good pop band.

Sex Pistols - truly outrageous, dangerous, changed music.

Pete_T_Mann: Yep. Old school punk bands would have kicked the shiat out of those green day wussies... while playing their show uninterrupted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSt3GWTZwPo (pops)

not like lydon didn't bandwagon the stooges, mc5, new york dolls, the ramones, etc. isn't punk about telling people who are telling you what to like to STFU?

always wanted to straighten out his lazy eye.

malconsidine: The Sex Pistols (a boy band, in essence, created by Malcom McClaren)

Bears repeating.

While I don't like Green Day, Johnny Rotten need to keep his trap shut...The Sex pistols were basically the Monkees without proper hygiene.

I grew up in the mid- late eighties punk scene here in Providence and Boston, and while I really dug the music (Neutral Nation, Verbal Assault, The Freeze, to name a few) and the fact that kids were making their own music without any help from major labels, organizing their own shows, and and basically having a good time, I couldn't stand the elitism and "punker than thou" attitude of a lot of folks. There were a lot of cool people, but there were a lot of assholes too.

To me, "punk" is making music on your own terms by yourself without worrying about what anyone else thinks about it. Though the word itself is basically powerless now and it's laughable that folks still put it up on a pedestal.

Like D Boon said, "Punk is whatever we made it to be."

Sex Pistols = revolutionary music
Green Day = music for mallrats (the people, not the movie)

I much prefer to think of John Lydon as the frontman for "Public Image Ltd."

PIL > Sex Pistols, IMO.

Haha! "they're bandwagoning on something they didn't come up with themselves." Pot, this is Kettle - you're black! I wonder if the name McLaren means anything to Mr. Lydon? You know, the merchant who invented his band?

If anything, Lydon is bandwagoning onto Green Day, to keep the wolves of Obscurity from his door.

Keylock71 beat me to it. The Sex Pistols were about as real a musical band as the Monkees. They couldn't play, didn't really want to play, and were handpicked for their looks and attitude. If that is real punk, give me something else.

Aside from Anarchy in the UK, can many music fans besides a really true fan (or high school poser) name another one of their songs? How is their music revolutionary? They were revoluntionary because their idea captured a huge moment in 1976.

There were many, many punk bands musically superior to The Sex Pistols. They were like Nirvana with more attitude and way less talent.

Why does anyone care what this asshat has to say?

Let's keep the Monkees out of this, mmm-kay?

"All my life I've seemed to have this need
I think at times it even turns to greed
We all want to join some family
We'll even sacrifice a moral changing"

egomann: Let's keep the Monkees out of this, mmm-kay?

Yeah, wouldn't want to jack up that bastion of musical integrity.

Sex Pistols: Invented by Malcom McLaren
Green Day: Rose to the top after years of playing clubs and basements

Who's the poser, exactly? Rotten talks a big game, but that's all the Sex Pistols ever did either. Their music didn't change anything, it was their attitude. Green Day, on the other hand, had a significant impact on music in the 90's, and are probably at least partially responsible for kids today even knowing who the Sex Pistols are. Besides, I'm sure Green Day are going to be crying about this as they go pick up their enormous paychecks.

You can argue all day about what punk is. I could argue that a lot of Alt. Country music is much more punk than a lot of punk music. Uncle Tupelo. early Whiskeytown.

Will Explode: Sex Pistols - truly outrageous, dangerous, changed music.


I dont think so.
The Sex Pistols are to music like Vincent Van Gogh was to art. Very creative, not socially acceptable in their respective contemporary times as they are now, but not musically influential (*see below about non-music influence.) No. There wasnt a popular "Sex Pistols sound."

VVG didnt have immitators or a "school" of art like Gauguin or Picasso did. The Symbolist and Cubist schools influenced much of early/mid 20th century art, where VVG had no school and little influence.

The Sex Pistols didnt really change the sound of music. But they did change musical publicity, giving rise to bands that had an "image" or a "shtick." The Misfits, Nation of Ulysses, Urge Overkill... or even the "boy bands" NewKidsOnTheBackStreetBoyz2MeN'Sync.

SuburbanCowboy: I could argue that a lot of Alt. Country music is much more punk than a lot of punk music.

Is it me, or did you ever notice that the Billy Bragg/Wilco/Woodie Gutherie recordings are a lot more rowdy than Billy Bragg, Wilco, or Woody Gutherie ever were on their own?

What a Rotten thing to say!!

I'm pretty sure that Green Day doesn't claim to be some outrageous punk underground band. they've fully embraced rock stardom.

Bukharin

Hey hey man, long time no see...

The wife and I should be heading out to Chicago in Sept...I'll keep you posted.


Your post was pretty much on the money, by the way.

Please. The Sex Pistols rode in on the coattails of true innovators... like The Ramones.

To bad Joey didn't smack this fool down back in the day like he is trying to do to greenday today.

Never mind the Sex Pistols. When Henry Rollins and Ian McKaye think someone's a fraud and a poser, they're a fraud and a poser. Sorry.

Mr. Chainsaw:
Green Day: Rose to the top after years of playing clubs and basements

Damn you, man, don't do that. I nearly crapped myself laughing.

They're drug-addled popstar losers who got lucky. Not the worst band on the planet. But not the best band even to come out of that pissant tract of dirt in northern California. Not even the best band to come out of their collective high schools. Just the one that got noticed.

/went to school with the drummer
//family is friends of the band
///hate the fact that morons misidentify their music as belonging to my favorite genre or claming it has artistic merit

Practically all music is "jumping on the bandwagon." No matter what you're influenced by what you hear around you. I mean, what would happen if nobody was allowed to imitate or admire other genres?

/Still can't stand Green Day

Green Day and Billy Joe What's his name?

Josh Globan in eye liner, Britney Spears with a d*ck.

Pop music, pure and simple.

JR is right.

Lydon invented STFU.

Especially punk, the so-called revolutionary sound, a sound so steeped in rigid traditionalism, ironically.

Eh, not really true at all unless you are defining it that way. Punk is one of hte most experimental and forward thinking genres and has been from the start.

The debate about whether Green Day is punk or not seems uninteresting to me. They play a similar sound to stuff going on in early 90s which was only slightly modified from the 77 sound, so soundwise they are fairly punk.

However, they are not a part of the punk rock scene and thus aren't an argument fro "traditionalism" or non-traditionalism in the punk rock world. Green Day are a popular mainsteram band playing popular mainstream music. No problem with that, but they don't represent the punk rock world at all.

And again, from the early days of punk (with bands like Suicide, Television, Talking Heads, early Devo, Discharge, etc.) through to today the punk rock scene and members of that scene have been some of the most experimental and innovative musicians in western music.

To call punk rock a genre steeped in tradiationalism is either just silly (ie, it is only true in so much is at is true for all genres of music) or just ignorant.

2007-02-10 08:40:58 AM beve [TotalFark]

malconsidine: The Sex Pistols (a boy band, in essence, created by Malcom McClaren)

Bears repeating.

No it doesn't, because it isn't really true.

a) McClaren didn't write any of hte music, or have any influence on the music. Cook and Jones and the bassist hired McClaren and he helped them find a singer with Rotten, but he didn't dictate the music

b) McClaren didn't write or have any influence on the lyrics. All rotten

c) McClaren didn't even dictate or control the style. Rotten and Vicious had been dressing that way for years. All McClaren did was imitate Rotten's style in his colothing shop.

McClaren likes to perpetuate the myth that the sex pistols were like robots under his control, but it just isn't true. Whta IS true is that McClaren was smart enough to exploit the band for his own wealth and image and also that he was good at marketing the band as a manager.

But a modern day boy band is totally constructed from people who don't know each other and then the music, lyrics, style and roles are dictated to them. Not like the sex pistols.

Real punk isn't played in heavy rotation at my gym.

I have to hear Billy Joe whine about his boulevard of broken dreams at least twice an hour while I'm doing my cardio.

2007-02-10 09:51:09 AM Federal_District_X

The Sex Pistols were about as real a musical band as the Monkees. They couldn't play, didn't really want to play, and were handpicked for their looks and attitude.

Again, not true. Cook, Jones and the original bassist (whose name I forget) already knew each other and were playing music together. McClaren and the band together auditioned Rotten and picked him and probably picked him forhis look and attititude. But that's it. Sid Vicious was Rotten's friend and joined when they kicked the old bassist out.

And again, the music, the lyrics, the style and the attitude all came from the band itself (mostly Rotten) not from McClaren.

Aside from Anarchy in the UK, can many music fans besides a really true fan (or high school poser) name another one of their songs? How is their music revolutionary? They were revoluntionary because their idea captured a huge moment in 1976.

Oh please, the Sex Pistols had a lot of great songs. I'd put Anarchy in the UK, God save the Queen, Bodies, EMI and Holdiays in the SUn as five of the greatest rock songs ever written.

Although beyond those five, most of the rest of hte album is just good to meh.

I do agree that their music wasn't horribly revoluationary. It wasn't horrible derivative like some people are pretending here, but the Nirvana comparison you made was apt. Both were great bands but not horrible innovative bands who just happened to ride the crest of the wave. The Sex Pistols popularized UK punk rock to the world, but it could have been The Damned or The Buzzcocks or the Clash or a lot of other bands. C'est la vie.

part of it is just the fetishization of british culture by americans I think. People who really know the history and the music would think all those early UK bands totally pale in comparison to the US punk rock scene (Television alone destroys anything the UK put out in the 70s, plus Richard Hell and the Voidoids, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Suicide, etc.)

Wow, that Weeners underneath the story. The poster had a good point until he mentioned American Idiot.

Green Day used to be punk. Their earlier albums were a bit heavier and had more of a punk element to it. But Billie Joe is a pop songwriter. He writes songs that are built to be popular and catchy so that fans will like it.

Dookie was still a punk album. So was Insomniac. The turning point came at Nimrod, where alot of those songs became more pop rock than anything. And don't even mention "Good Riddance(Time Of Your Life)" That song destroyed all credibility they had on that album. Since that, Warning, American Idiot, all pop albums.

You might argue that "American Idiot" is punk because it's anti-government. Which is pretty much wrong. It's anti-Bush material. Plain and simple.

/misses good satirical punk.
//Dead Kennedys, more please.

Green day sucks, they aren't worthy of carrying The Sex Pistols jock strap. Poseurs.

give bees a chance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSt3GWTZwPo

Missile Drop-kick = FTW!

"Green Day is plonk!" said John Lydon in an interview on his plush Italian leather sofa in his swank London home while planning his next appearance on another reality TV show.

Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

2007-02-10 10:44:11 AM Bukharin

SuburbanCowboy: I could argue that a lot of Alt. Country music is much more punk than a lot of punk music.

Is it me, or did you ever notice that the Billy Bragg/Wilco/Woodie Gutherie recordings are a lot more rowdy than Billy Bragg, Wilco, or Woody Gutherie ever were on their own?

Walt Whitman's niece is laden with double entendre, and is a pretty dirty song I suppose. Billy Bragg is often politically fierce. I think the merger of the three made for a great collaboration.

Green Day=DOOKIE.

Yeah man.. Greenday isn't punk because they are poppy... (Cue every single ramones song ever)

The Clash were pretty mainstream, to the point where Rolling farking Stone called them "the only band that mattered". Are we going to say that The Clash weren't punk? Because the Clash mop the floor with the Sex Pistols. The Pistols were Mannequins meant to sell clothing for McLaurens boutique. To pretend there was anything real about them is pretty silly. Also, for them to complain about Green Day and then have Blink 182 open for them on their "All about the money" tour, is pretty ridiculous. This is just Lydon doing what Lydon does. Running his big fat mouth about everyone because VH-1 won't ask him to do anymore reality TV.

He said Green Day was a "wank outfit," when in fact, that's a horrible name for a wank outfit.

We call our local one, "Fillies."

(They're not so much thoroughbreds, as they are cows.)

/Indiana

Do you have the time to listen to me whine?

NO

John Lydon's been firing blanks for years...