Ever since I really started loving music, punk rock has been one of my favourite genres. It all started when I got a CD from the drummer in my brother’s band. It was Blink-182’s live album The Mark, Tom and Travis Show.
I was instantly in love. Music with lots of guitar and drums, but still with a catchy tune that keeps echoing in your head for days. Lovely.
Soon I started listening to other bands, like Green Day and Sum 41, who at that time were having their big breakthrough in Europe with their hit “Fat Lip.” But what is real punk rock? I really hate boxes. If something is good, it is simply good. Why stick a label on it? That does not change the feeling the music gives you. At least not for me.
For me, only the music counts.
Although I can also really enjoy hip-hop and house, I will always prefer a solid punk rock song. In recent years there has been plenty of choice. But people love labels, and labels blur. So you make new ones. That is why you increasingly hear terms like “pop rock” and “power pop.”
But when you play those power pop bands on your iPod, they turn out to be four guys in a band ripping a catchy tune out of their guitars, with an attitude like they are going to conquer the world.
New bands appear every day. It is becoming a little standard. They all have issues with their parents, school sucks, the girl next door does not want them, and the government is a Nazi regime because they are not allowed to buy alcohol.
And the solution is always the same. Mess up your hair, put fresh sneakers on your feet, and make noise in your parents’ garage on your father’s old guitar.
As long as the music is good, you will not hear me complain. But lately it feels just a little too manufactured.
Bands from abroad are still okay, but the Netherlands is a joke. By accident I recently watched TMF, and there was Destine. I saw that typical image again. Four guys in skinny jeans, All Stars and Famous Stars ‘n Straps shirts. Hey, then you are really punk, man.
Losers, they are. Their music is awful too.
But when I found out they were a band from the Netherlands, I became a little curious. Until I read their biography: “The Dutch answer to Fall Out Boy, Paramore and Simple Plan.”
Get lost.
FOB is the best punk rock band since Blink-182. Paramore has a woman as frontman and gets away with it. And even though Simple Plan could now easily work for Disney Channel, they did deliver some pretty cool albums in the past.
What does Destine have, besides a lack of originality? The fact that you even want to start a band to be “an answer to…” is deeply sad. You make music because you love it, but also because you have a message to tell. You should ask your own questions instead of being an answer.
But if Destine is the answer, I wonder what the question is. How do you make yourself look as ridiculous as possible as a band? They do not look good either, those Destine boys. Kind of Tokio Hotel meets Good Charlotte, but Dutch. I just cannot take it seriously.
Ah well, they will probably split up within two years anyway. First they will behave horribly around twelve-year-old fans after another terrible show, and then quickly return to ‘t Gooi to work at daddy’s company.
There will probably be more bands like that walking around. Even from holy America. And sometimes the music is simply damn good. So good that I do not care at all whether they are fake between rehearsals, or whether they were put together by a talentless music manager.
Bands like Blink-182, Fall Out Boy and Green Day make my heart beat very fast. Even bands like Sparks the Rescue, All Time Low and Boys Like Girls do something for me.
But bands like Destine or the Jonas Brothers give me nothing except heart failure.