Punk rock is dead.<\/p>\n
I have written that multiple times, for English papers no less, and it has become a music journalism clich\u00e9. For some people, punk rock was born in 1977 and died in 1978, and in a stylistic sense, that\u2019s not too far from the truth. With regards to substance though, it\u2019s pretty hard to agree. If Punk Rock is just musical minimalism paired with some kind of anti-establishment sentiments, then we can trace it from Richard Hell and Iggy Pop to The Ramones and Sex Pistols, to Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, even to more polished, modern bands like Green Day and Against Me!<\/p>\n
Punk rock is stale.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s probably more accurate. I\u2019m no purist. Slick production in the Butch Vig mold doesn\u2019t bother me, and I think American Idiot, for all its naysayers, is still one of the most important punk albums of the last decade, both for its popularity\/visibility and its attempt to take both the standard punk stylings and overwrought \u201cstadium rock\u201d tropes and blend them into something relevant. Recently though, they\u2019ve lost the plot. The Uno! Dos! Tre! Trio of albums aren\u2019t bad, but they\u2019re misguided, and mostly scatter messages everywhere, hoping to find something that sticks.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure if you scour the awesome, seedy punk rock scenes of the world, you can find something real, but whatever \u201cmainstream punk\u201d (ew gross) is out there is either clinging to Green Day\u2019s blueprint a decade after the zeitgeist, or has become Warped Tour-ized, catering to \u201cedgy\u201d junior high students who ride around on skateboards and doodle little Anarchy A\u2019s in the margins of their math homework. Punk is losing relevance. Everyone wants to be \u201cauthentic\u201d and the movement is turning on itself, even as most people don\u2019t even know it still exists. Such is the subject of Against Me!\u2019s 2010 single \u201cI Was A Teenage Anarchist\u201d. It\u2019s a great track, if not particularly innovative. It speaks to that \u201cauthenticity crisis\u201d. Against Me! Aren\u2019t very \u201cauthentic\u201d. They started as acoustic anarchopunks, and have become increasingly electric and apolitical as they move to bigger and bigger labels.<\/p>\n
But now, with Transgender Dysphoria Blues<\/i>, they\u2019ve given up the ghost and blown all notions of \u201cauthenticity\u201d out of the water. A pseudo-concept album that\u2019s sort of about lead singer Laura Jane Grace, who came out as transgender in 2012, Transgender Dysphoria Blues<\/i> makes one realize how silly it is to hold onto 1970\u2019s standards of false \u201cauthenticity\u201d or \u201ccred\u201d, instead of trying to make something real. This album is real. It\u2019s released on Against Me!\u2019s own label, Total Treble Records, and it comes it at under a half hour, but it cuts deeper than any contemporary \u201cpunk rock opera\u201d twice its length.<\/p>\n
Grace\u2019s lyrics bite, and she doesn\u2019t pull any emotional punches. She plays with language, vulgar and sultry all in the same breath, and when she snarls \u201cYou want them to see you like they see every other girl, but they just see a faggot\u201d, you instantly realize that this is not some ivory tower punk philosophy, but real, ugly experience. It\u2019s her lyrics that give the album a sense of gravity. It\u2019s never pretentious (an occasional failing with some of my favorite punk records, unfortunately) and Grace doesn\u2019t see herself as some kind of idealized punk rock savior, but rather an angry, vulnerable, fully realized human.<\/p>\n
Lead Single \u201cTrue Trans Soul Rebel\u201d sticks to the \u201cI Was A Teenage Anarchist\u201d musical mold, but rather than aim her gun at a dangerously (at times) out-of-touch subculture, Grace turns it on herself, expressing every vulnerability (mental, physical, social, sexual) as an almost anthemic rally cry for the sexual outcasts, the weird kids that helped make punk a real genre, only to be cast off in favor of screamo brats with bad haircuts and worse attitudes (how\u2019s that for a run-on sentence?).<\/p>\n
Still, Grace\u2019s greatest lyrical strength is making the album, part auto-biographical, part fictional, resonate. You don\u2019t need to be trans, or queer, to empathize. It takes the visceral, painfully specific reality of her life and this story, and gives it the voice of ten thousand different outcasts. At its core, it is an album with a message, a powerful, beautiful message, but it\u2019s a message that can echo throughout the entire genre. It\u2019s a shock to the heart. Maybe if Punk can get away from phony posturing about authenticity and cred, and get back to making damn good records that mean something REAL, we\u2019ll see more albums like this in the future, but for now, this is the best we\u2019ve got, and it\u2019s pretty damn spectacular.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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