Bad Religion’s Christmas album and other reminders that punk is meaningless

by Josiah Hughes

October 25, 2013

0

0

0

0

0

Email this article to a friend

The worst of the week, every week. This week: Bad Religion's Christmas album.

Each Friday on Garbage Day, we rummage through pop culture’s trash cans and pick the week’s grossest item to keep forever. This week: Bad Religion’s Christmas album.

When I was in high school, my friends and I used to play hacky sack with some of the “punk” kids at lunch. One of them, a scrawny snowboarder with a pierced eyebrow and an assortment of NOFX t-shirts, would get so annoyed with me for pronouncing Pennywise’s Land of the Free? album title as if I was asking the dumbest question (which, come to think of it, I was). I remember one day, he went around the circle and rated us. “Punk,” “punk,” “punk,” (pointing at me) “not punk,” “punk”, etc. I forgot to mention that he was also a manager at our local McDonald’s.

Punk’s not dead, but it’s also not not dead. The conversations we have about the genre or lifestyle or whatever it’s supposed to be are usually murky, frustrating, and confusing. What exactly is punk? Total freedom to say and do whatever you want? That’s also how your dad describes capitalism and free enterprise over heated family dinner convos, bub.

Punk is a state of mind, according to some. But others use that as a reason to spout stupid bullshit like “Miley Cyrus is the most punk person out there!” On the other side of the spectrum, the crust punk trust fund kids (crust fund?) update Tumblrs on their Samsung Galaxys while playing make believe on a curb with some poor three-legged dog.

There’s obviously an in between, and the DIY spirit is an important force in culture at large, but the word PUNK, which evokes shitty Sex Pistols lettering on a tartan iron-on patch that mom helped you sew on, is pretty meaningless at this point. Even Penny Rimbaud, a founding member of anarcho punk legends Crass, told Vice that he doesn’t care if Urban Outfitters wants to sell a shitty Crass jacket, and he kinda likes it when celebs wear Crass shirts.

Things have been getting weird for a while, but it’s been an especially bad week for punk, no matter what your perspective is.

First, let’s take it back to the most important American hardcore band of all time / the reason your little sister has four black bars tattooed on her forearm because she thinks they look cool: After recently losing their court battle against FLAG, Greg Ginn and his version of Black Flag announced details of their new album. It’s called What The…, and that couldn’t be more fitting. Just look at the album art:

 


 

Shit looks like it was drawn up by an edgy grandmother who was trying to draw the Ween logo from memory in MS Paint. This goofy character has bad pink punk hair, and is sticking out his tongue while doing the “rock on” devil horn hands. The album, which features songs like the one exemplified in this horrendous music video (complete with bad Photoshop filters and the crayon font):

 


 

It truly seems like Black Flag have lost their minds, though there’s a song on the new record called “You Gotta Be Joking.” Dudes, is that song about you? Then again, maybe I’m just mad because they C&D’d my Bieb Flag shirts.

Then there’s Billie Joe Armstrong, the dude who’s so punk that he had an onstage meltdown about Justin Bieber last year. His piles of money and guyliner and many, many Green Day albums are no longer enough to keep him happy. Rather than take a step down the fame ladder and spend some time with Pinhead Gunpowder, however, he’s teamed up with the vanilla-est of vanilla jazz pop singers, Norah Jones, to record an album of Everley Brothers covers punnily titled Foreverly.

Worst thing you’ve ever heard of, right? Especially that photo — they look like awkward engagement photos between a washed-up weekend warrior and his high school sweetheart. What’s actually the worst, however, is that there’s really nothing wrong with their new single, “Long Time Gone.” It sounds kind of nice, actually. Fuck.

 


 

The whole thing reeks of midlife crisis, but we’ve known that about Billie Joe Armstrong for decades. Another band struggling with an identity problem, however, are Bad Religion, who get the coveted spot atop the weekly trash heap thanks to the holiday jeer being spread by their new Christmas album, an assortment of mixed messages and general douche chills.

Bad Religion, whose name itself suggests that they’re not too stoked on religion, are gearing up to release Christmas Songs, an album celebrating Christmas, one of the largest religious holidays of the year.

This week, they shared the first taste of the album with a cover of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” An ancient hymn prophesying the arrival of Christ, it’s a more overtly Christian choice than overt Christians MxPx put on their own Christmas album. Maybe they should change their name to Rad Religion?

 


 

Of course, there are countless explanations for why Bad Religion would cover this song. Maybe they’re being subversive. Maybe they’re willing to accept the holiday for what it represents to so many without succumbing to “Happy Holidays” fever. Maybe they’re actually a Christian band (there are countless Yahoo Answers groups trying to figure that out through impossibly frustrating conversations). Maybe they just like the melody.

Bad Religion’s intent here isn’t clear, so let’s just take this song at face value. With that in mind, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” boasts a corny, over-produced guitar lead, a fistpumping rhythm section and… okay, I’m sorry. I can’t take this at face value. Even at the best of times, Greg Graffin sounds like he’s singing pirate shanties for poli-sci students, but when you factor in the “Shall come to thee oh Israaaaaeeeel” it just sounds absurd.

Oh yeah, as the song continues there’s a gross echo effect occasionally added to his voice (as though, perhaps, the pirate ship he was singing from passed through a tunnel) and the guitar lead evolves into a showy guitar solo.

All things considered, it could be a lot worse, but it still asks, nay begs the question—why does this exist? Who’s idea was it for Bad Religion to make a straight-faced album of Christmas songs? They had such good will this year, too — everyone who likes Bad Religion seemed to like True North, as it didn’t have any gaping moments of extreme embarrassment.

Still, Bad Religion is, among other things, a business, and the holidays are a lucrative time to crank out some Christmas covers. Moms who only swap out the disc in their SUV CD changer once a year will already have plenty to choose from, with Christmas albums on the way from Susan Boyle and Kelly Clarkson. Swoop-haired 14 year olds can get aggro with Fearless Records’ Punk Goes Christmas comp, and now the snowboarder-who’s-heard-of-Noam-Chomsky in the family can enjoy a nice punk edge when it’s his turn to pick a song.

Seen as a cash grab, it’s hardly the most embarrassing thing that guitarist Brett Gurewitz has done with his Epitaph label. The once-great pop-punk institution has spent the last few decades falling apart in a sea of interchangeable Warped Tour crabcore acts. Even their latest signing came off of a recommendation from emo metal convict Ronnie Radke, and play a bastardized, overly aggressive form of punk/metalcore that sounds like the All American Rejects deflowering a broken Casio synthesizer while a Transformer listens to the top five crabcore breakdowns and jerks off. Unfortunately, their video for “Where I Belong” was released on September 11 (hmm) so they don’t qualify as the worst of the week, but it’s still worth sharing in the context of being Bad Religion’s label-mates. I almost forgot — the band’s called Survive This! but I bet you can’t.

 

Tags: Music, News, Bad Religion, garbage day

0

0

0

0

0

Email this article to a friend