Reason 800 Not To Have A Website
One AM on a Monday night, and the caffiene is finally wearing off. I'm on the brink of shutting down the computer. Then I get an email from someone I've never met named Bob, calling me an "adolescent contrarian" and bashing me for daring to say, over at Salon, that Green Day is a more relevant band right now than Led Zeppelin. Also, he cc'ed all his friends on the email, urging them to drive me into the ground with a series of withering responses. Let's tune in:
"yeessh. green day, what sex? a band so "tight" they've got ZERO
seduction, featuring the most bland, formulaic vocalist since bon jovi
-- green day worked hard and led zeppelin didn't? right. they're
churning out derivative pop trash. meanwhile let's piss on a group that defined decades of rock. pollack makes such awkward comparisons, across vast oceans of style, one wonders if he ever listened to SST in the early to mid 80s. now that was the punk that green day is not."
Yeah, like we've never heard THAT argument before, Bob. When you were young, it was punk, and it meant something. Here's what I wrote back, though I didn't actually write back in bold.
Bob:
So I make a snap judgment on deadline. So I've never liked Led Zeppelin, or at least not since I was 12 years old, which was the last time I found solace in pretentious mytho-poetic nonsense. And so I admire a band like Green Day, whose music isn't exactly original-sounding and whose lyrics aren't Leonard Cohen, or even Henry Rollins. So what?
Green Day found their initial success through the classic punk-rock DYI model, playing fun songs for relatively comfortable kids. It's not their fault they were born into a post-shock, post-rebellion world, or that they found a formula for commercial success. "American Idiot" may not be deep like, say, "Misty Mountain Hop," but what's so wrong with making an anti-establishment statement that's also palatable to the mainstream? Is it only acceptable for a small number of head-bobbing followers to criticize authority? That model didn't exactly change the world, either.
Popular music is good right now. It is exciting. I stand by my judgment.
Thanks for the passionate response. Please don't encourage your friends to blast email me anymore.
Best,
Neal Pollack
I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about most of the time. Now I really am going to bed.