Do you regard Green Day as a real punk band?

I don't know the numbers, but I'm willing to bet that Green Day are the most commercially successful punk (pop) band ever. So there's going to be a lot of backlash, as we are seeing from some here. You can say "Oh they ripped off the Buzzcocks and Ramones and weren't as good", but how many albums did those bands ever sell? Not that making mega-cash is the end all be all, but are we supposed to salute bands like The Clash for imploding in the wake of mass commercial success? Remember Joe Strummer's press conference at the US Festival? It wasn't pretty.

 

I saw BJA called Billy Joel Armstrong once in a newspaper, chortle...

 

No!

 

What's NA, Negative Approach?

Anyway, ironically enough one could argue that musically a band like the DK's were even less punk than Green Day. A lot of their early stuff is almost more like a souped-up Ventures or Dick Dale, what with East Bay Ray's surf/Morricone-influenced guitar lines.

 

There's a very U.S.-specific--maybe even D.C.-specific--definition of punk that concerns trying to evoke positve change with your music and putting the audience on your level. No rock star attitude allowed. I think Green Day are one of the only major-league rock bands that seem to practice this for real, so in that way, yes.

Disclaimer: This isn't really my definition of punk, but I started with the British bands.

 

Punk purists will say, "No way!" Some people consider them "post-punk". And some just simply hate this band. There was guy guy once who had a website dedicated to spewing all sorts of vile hatred for Green Day.

Well here's my take: Yeah, OK, these guys have been a HUGE commercial success and I normally feel wary about artists who are that widely and hugely popular but that doesn't mean I reject them outright. To my way of thinking, a record like Dookie rocks hard, says a number of things I can relate to and is just a pure gas. I'm all for it. If someone else thinks it's crap- fine, listen to something else. But I really get irked at people who think their own tastes in music come from God and that gives them the right to slam something that doesn't fit their self-righteous opinion.

Sorry to be so harsh but I really get tired of armchair critics who slam music they don't like.

 

I agree with everything you said. Who cares if there punk or not, they still make great music that fans love. I think that people just try to put down what's popular, who knows what people would have said about the Velvet Underground if they would have sold millions of albums in their era. People probably would have bashed them as well.

 

You could say the same about X, which is arguably rockabilly on speed.

 

Except it was early 60's DIY, garage, surf stuff that was the very impetus for punk. Lots of punk 'incorporated' other genres in that ironic kind of way. The Ramones for example...the Beach Boys.

 

I might ask the same thing about The Clash. Was 'Rock The Casbah' punk?

 

No. I like Green Day but they are surely not a punk band.

 

No real punk, more "punk pop" if that makes any sense. But they released some very enjoyable albums. And they are still relevant.

 

Who IS still punk?

 

1st?

"Green Day were the first (or the first to break big) of a huge number of bands from California in the 90's that combined punk rock with "pop" melodies and harmonies (they owed a lot more to the Ramones than they did the Sex Pistols)."
Why did you post the "90's"?!?!
"Green Day" formed in '86.
Many, many, 80's 'Punky Poppy' Cali bands made it before them.

You can say they were a part of the, half dozen or so (those you posted + "Sublime", "Pennywise", "NOFX", "Rocket from the Crypt"), Cali bands that broke nationally around mid-Nineties. However, since "Punk" never died in NorCal or SoCal; saying "Green Day" was "first" is a bit sacrilegious here, "No Doubt"!
Ha, ha!!
Popular in the 80's Cali punks "Jane's Addiction", "Red Hot Chilli Peppers", "Social Distortion", "Suicidal Tendencies", & "Faith No More" may have something to say bout anyone saving or reviving "Punk" in the 90's.

 

For me it would be a No!! That is no disrespect to them it's just that they aren't punk. I would say that they are a commercial pop band.

 

I'd throw Bad Religion in there too...

 

Punk isn't just a narrow musical stereotype though so although the DKs had that sound they are a million times more (authentic) punk than a band like Green Day.

 

Yes. Someone who actually knows the music.

 

Total posers

 

Absolutely

 

check out the history of Lookout Records.

 

Is there any descriptor in music more policed by the faithful than punk?

I love lots of music that could be described as punk of some kind or another.

But I hate purity and religious zeal and all efforts to keep holy words from being applied incorrectly.

What am I to do?

 

Not really, but keep in mind that once we get to the historical point where hardcore developed, I tend to use "punk" so that it's synonymous with only hardcore and crossover (well, and Oi! and stuff like that I consider punk, too--basically I should just say that only the more aggressive, energetic stuff seemed like punk to me by the 80s). Once hardcore etc. developed, no one else seemed punk to me any longer, although I did have a grandfather clause for bands like the Ramones as long as they kept doing work in the same style. So for a band like the Clash, for example, I only consider the first two albums punk.

However, I don't care what anyone else calls anything . . . I'm just reporting how I use the term. I'm fine if people call Green Day punk if they want to. Or if they call them country, or polka, or whatever they want to call them.

 

Absolutely not.