The 90s and early 2000s were a time when rock music collided into a genre of melt-your-face electric with literal rip-your-heart-out pop punk that can be cute to a 16-year-old or it can be a timeless heartbreak when that 16-year-old is older and hanging in the bar that is bumping the former most popular song of the early 2000s. I know I am touching a controversial subject when I equally appreciate pop/alternative rock, punk, and other rock(ish). I am not saying they all are the same, but I am telling you they do all play with each other.
I guess I was born a little too late to casually hang in the affordable, but rough part of Manhattan where CBGB was and punk rock called out the mainstream music industry that was selling their soul while making an unholy relationship between corporations and government. I should have been there, I mean look at the tattoos and nose ring. Instead of being at CBGB, I got a Master’s of Journalism which kind of proves my dad right. When he first saw my nose ring he said, “I can’t even look at you without hearing ‘Do you want fries with that?’ because that is the only job you’ll be able to get with that thing in your nose.” I am not broadcasting the nightly news. Instead I am musing about CBGB.
Of course Dad was right when he glared at me about the nose ring because he died suddenly a few years ago. So I’m not sure he’ll ever be wrong now. It’s kinda funny how after someone dies they are perfect…the myth…the legend. He left me like every man I love does. He didn’t leave like how guys normally leave their daughters that have daddy issues. You know the guy that goes out to grab a gallon of milk at the grocery store and ends up a town away and never comes back? My dad left to go get me a car part and he unintentionally never came back.
I unfortunately, was not born in time to enjoy the punk era in the early CBGB days. However, I was born in time to feel edgy listening on the playground to 1985 by Bowling For Soup and then, equally touched when I was rolling through a thrift store that played Hey Jealousy by The Gin Blossoms. That song originally changed the world in the early 90s, just a few years before I was born. The 90s era alternative rock has a sound and style different from rock songs of the past, but arguably the misunderstood and slightly angry vibe of The Gin Blossoms is reminiscent of original punk. The way that alternative bands like Bowling For Soup are easily accepted into pop circles is similar to bands like Fleetwood Mac that went from gypsy, witchy light rock(ish) to pop music.
Fleetwood Mac left a notorious toxic relationship. That we all can look back on with envy. Unless you are not attracted to toxicity and red flags. Which is good for you if you are not, but if love and life is too easy, it is boring. The members of the band wrote these great songs (the kind you sing out loud after you had a break up and you think it’s making you feel better and then, you get to that one lyric and you start to weep ugly tears). But the members of Fleetwood Mac wrote them about each other and then forced them all to sing the song with each other. The pain is probably even worse than when you’re into an entertainer and still go to their show after they tell you to take a hike. That is the level of toxicity that I aspire to.
Alt rock, pop, and punk are not the same thing, but they all have different aspects that I find intriguing. They speak to me at different times of my life and probably will continue to. The name CBGB even highlights how different genres of music fit together even when the mainstream has done its damndest to make us think they’re opposed enemies. The birthplace of punk rock is CBGB which stands for “Country, Bluegrass, Blues.” The icon of toxic relationships might not be Fleetwood Mac after all. It might be the country bar that infamously represents punk rock.
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