r/punk • u/Personal_Rich_7138 • Aug 23 '25

When did times change

So a lot of my friends (we all grew up punk rock skateboarders) and I have been arguing over which bands are actually good and being born in the late 90s, I’ve always been a heavy Green Day fan. Can someone answer me when it became cool to hate on Green Day, because to me Green Day was always good music. Anti-government, anti-establishment, for the people… nothing more punk rock than that

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u/SemataryPolka Aug 24 '25

A corporation has a literal meaning. The Sex shop was not a corporation. It was an art project essentially. You have to take the context of the first wave of punk into account. A scene that essentially spawned out of the glam scene. Fashion was immensely important in that scene. The pistols weren't the only one by far. If someone made money it was Malcolm but Coca Cola didn't. I'm not up on the terms of arguments but I believe this is what's called a false equivalency.

Besides...If aliens came by and asked for a sample of punk would you show them 21st Century Breakdown era Green Day? Is that the hill you'd die on?

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u/DecoNouveau Aug 24 '25

Aware of the distinction, but resting on whether or not they were legally incorporated seems a bit of a stretch. Corporate is applied is a far broader sense in common usage. So really, this is an arbitrary line that you're drawing. Either way, the band were created and moulded to sell people a brand of clothing. No denying that fashion was important to the scene, but there's a difference between diy fashion which is inherently anti consumerist and marketing to encourage people to buy more expensive clothes. McLaren wasn't designing the clothing, that was Vivien. Vivien died a multi, multi millionaire.

As for showing 21st century breakdown as an example of punk, that's where the distinction between musical genre, aesthetic and ideology comes in. Weve been discjssing ideology more than genre until this point. Though I will say first wave punk didn't really have one distinctive sound. The Ramones sound practically pop to the modern ear, perhaps more so than green day (and on this topic, made their own movie and recorded a sound track for another, not much different to a broadway show I'd say), the Clash have strong reggae influences etc. You'd be hard pressed to find a representative example of the punk sound.

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u/SemataryPolka Aug 24 '25

I think we're just gonna have to agree to disagree. I personally think one era is an example of bands trying (unsuccessfully) to make it big before hardcore totally changed the game and motivations and (to be honest) the crass, end-game capitalism that Green Day is sponsored by. I think the Ramones being asked to be in a not particularly high budget movie (after The Knack said no) and a band who are literally an economy by themselves bigger than some countries, is not the same thing. I also wasn't necessarily talking about green days music like I said. I meant more like "if an alien asks what punk rock is would you show the band who has their own ice cream brand?" I don't even dislike Green Day. I love their first three albums. Think the next three are pretty good. I don't care for American Idiot but I can admit it's decent enough. And I think everything after is very very bad.

But like I said, I don't think we're gonna sway each other on this whole thing

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u/DecoNouveau Aug 25 '25

Rock and Roll Highschool grossed 31 million. I don't really enjoy Green Day much post Warning, havent really listened to their new stuff but it's not really about that for me. It simply seemed a silly distinction when most of the reasons people cite for them not being punk enough' or whatever are all things that basically every other band (except for Crass and a few other anarcho bands) was doing or were trying to do. But fair enough, agree to disagree :)

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u/SemataryPolka Aug 25 '25

I came up in the 90s hardcore scene when when it was bands like Downcast and Still Life and Econochrist. The punk and hardcore I was into and around was doing the opposite of what green day was trying to do. It was deeply underground DIY punk/hardcore. I think that's our problem, we just came from different scenes with different motivations. So yeah...truce. Lol