People Are Saying 5 Seconds of Summer can save Pop Punk, But Is That True?

                I honestly have no idea when I first heard of this band, all I know it that the people who liked them were obsessed. Like obsessed, a girl I go to school with literally stayed up all night so she could download their new single. My first thought was probably “5 Seconds of Summer? That is probably the worst band name since Nickelback or Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.” All I knew at the time was they were Australian, their faces did not look hideous (this is my way of saying someone is good looking, that and “decent looking”) they had tattoos (something I find very attractive) and piercings (another thing I find very attractive) they were a four piece band and opened for One Direction. The One Direction thing is what got me thinking, oh, they must be a pop band that sounds just like everything else in the world and somehow was different enough to get people to notice them.

When I heard it was a band of four boys who share vocal abilities, I instantly thought, “oh, it’s like a male Cherri Bomb,” but Cherri Bomb’s debut album had songs that didn’t blend together.  Yes, a few breakup songs like Heart Is A Hole along with Better This Way but both are different, one is saying “I admit I miss your face/but it’s better this way” and the other saying “now that you’re gone/my soul’s turned cold/nothing to fill this heart that’s a hole” they aren’t “baby come back” songs, but instead “It’s better this way” or “yeah, that sucked, my heart feels like a hole.” Other songs can be seen as non-romantic relationships like “Too Many Faces,” “Paper Doll,” “Sacrificial Lamb,” “Act The Part” and “Drawing a Blank” because “you say you will never go that far/ you’re not who you say you are/ you’ve got your heart in too many places/ you’ve got too many, too many faces” you’ve got “I’m not here to break your fall/ I won’t be your paper doll,” along with “now I’m drawing a blank” and “you don’t understand/close off shut down/sacrificial lamb” and then there are songs are their album that don’t appear to be about any human interaction/relationships at all, like “Raw. Real” (this is life, this is death/this is right, this is breath/this is true, how I feel/ this is raw, this is real) “Shake The Ground” (I won’t do what I’m told/ I will break you down/take you down/shake the ground) and “Let It Go” (it won’t die/this dream’s alive/and I won’t let it go) Cherri Bomb’s album isn’t all about some boy or romantic relationships, it has different songs with different meanings involving life and the people in it.

Now when it comes to 5 Seconds of Summer, their debut album consists of 12 songs that are either love songs or a song about wanting a girl back. The first song is actually decent. I heard it when my mom was watching the Billboard Music Awards. I will admit it is catchy and a nice song and then I noticed one of them looked like he was a young Billie Joe Armstrong. Even me, a cynical bitch who hates the world and all who inhabits it and would rather be watching Seth Rogan and James Franco kill Kim Jong-Un or my personal favorite thing, Star Trek likes a love song every once in a while. I enjoy Boys Like Girls “Hero/Heroine” along with Halestorm’s “Beautiful With You” and Rise Against’s “Swing Life Away” and my personal favorite “With You” by Sum 41 but I can’t listen to love songs nonstop, I will punch something. It goes that way with break up songs, I can enjoy stuff like Avril Lavigne’s “My Happy Ending” and Flyleaf’s “So I Thought” along with The Pretty Reckless’ “Make Me Wanna Die” or Three Days Grace’s “I Hate Everything About You” but I can’t listen to them nonstop all the time or a bunch in a row. You need diversity. When you look at the track listing for their debut album it consists of:

1.   She Looks So Perfect
2.  Don’t Stop
3. Good Girls
4. Kiss Me Kiss Me
5. 18
6. Everything I Didn’t Say
7. Beside You
8. End Up Here
9. Long Way Home
10. Heartbreak Girl
11. English Love Affair
12. Amnesia

As I stated, “She Looks So Perfect” is a good song, I like it, I downloaded it off iTunes, and I listen to it. Are their specific things about this girl that make her seem like it was written about someone or is it vague enough that any fifteen year old girl can pretend it’s about her? I will go for the second one.

“Don’t Stop” is another song about a girl. Like the previous song, nothing appears too specific about this girl except they don’t want her to stop what she’s doing because they like her but why wouldn’t they, all eyes are on her.

“Good Girls” is somewhat different because it mentions things she does like study and may go to Harvard, but then it goes into the not as known but still stereotypical story of how “good girls are just bad girls” and I guess this specific girl is one of those who just doesn’t get caught, but the amount of times the word “girls” or “girl” are in this song and how close they are just makes it feel awkward. “Good girls are bad girls” that just feels like an awkward sentence. I know it’s not in the ten page essay I am turning in for my University of Washington English class at my high school (neither is this blog, so if there are errors here, again, I am not turning this in to my teacher attempting to get a college level A, I am not printing drafts out and butchering them and rewriting, and then butchering and rewriting until I get it perfect), and that it is in a song, it just still feels like such an awkward sentence. It almost bugs me as much as the word (or lack of) “Ain’t.”

“Kiss Me Kiss Me” wow, another awkward sentence, and there appear to be a lot of “oh’s” another thing I can only take so much of is repeated words in some one song and not to mention the lyric “tell the truth/and I’ll show you how to dare” is even more awkward then the “oh’s” feel to me. I know Alex Gaskarth helped write this, I know he is in a band I have been a fan of for four years, but this song  states “kiss me kiss me kiss me.” More repetitive words. (at least it’s not “Tonight, Tonight” which is full of “La La’s” the whole damn song) and again, there is nothing specific about this girl, making this song appeal to fifteen year old girls who can pretend it’s about them. (Which I know is probably the smart thing to do since the song will sell to that demographic)

“18”I have to admit, when I first heard the beginning of this song, I started laughing almost as hard as in the first scene of The Interview. “I’m not saying I want to be Charlie Sheen,” seriously? Later on there is “pictures in my private folder/I know one day that I will hold you/I’ll make my move when I get older” also is just kind of weird. Not awkward but seriously, this song makes me think they are obsessed with some celebrity or something and then it also reminds me of the story my friend told me where he was talking to a girl who he thought was 16 and turned out to be 25. (That was a very awkward moment for him)

“Everything I Didn’t Say” isn’t as bad as the other songs I heard so far on this album, but the opening line did just not feel right at all. It’s not a love song though, which is nice, but it is about wanting a girl back because they regret it or something. Also, more “ohs” but the chorus is actually decent. It doesn’t make me feel like they haven’t taking a writing class and actually know how to put words together without making the listener feel confused and laughing at the way it is worded.

“Beside You” another love song, wow I’m surprised. But I guess this is better than the others, it’s not something I would download and listen to, but I can see that it could have some personal meaning and isn’t directly there to make them money. It appears to be about leaving for tour or something and them missing their girlfriend who doesn’t want them to leave. They want to go home to their girlfriend and be with her but can’t. But again, it’s different and doesn’t appear to be written specifically as a love song with nothing specific about the girl just to sell records.

“End Up Here” does go back to that though. Some chick walks in and is apparently hot and said her name was Trouble (how not cliché) but apparently she has good taste and complemented his Kurt Cobain shirt so she can’t be that bad and now the vocalist is wondering how he could have landed a girl like her because she’s a ten and he’s a six and he’s insecure but she isn’t. Still just feels like another love song designed to sell records and after seeing all four of these boys, not one of them is a six.

“Long Way Home”  why am I not surprised this is another love song about a girl who he may have grown up with or went to school with back home which can make it more specific, which again, is nice. But I also feel that being nine songs in and it’s all songs about a girl makes me want something else. The only redeeming quality about this song is that they were listening to Green Day in the car when they were kissing at a stop light.

“Heartbreak Girl” just looking at the title, I know what it’s going to be about. A girl who broke his heart. How is this not getting old? I am at the point where I want to punch something or someone in their face because it is literally all blending together and are all about girls, but then again, how can I blame them when that is what sells? But I guess this one is a little different because it’s about how he’s friendzoned. At least it’s something different than being in love with a girl while you’re young or upset because it’s over, but also feels too cliché when it comes to being in the friendzone. The girl’s boyfriends a dick and he wants her but she loves the douche canoe she is with so she doesn’t realize the guy she put in the friendzone is the one. Literally like a romance movie or that old Hannah Montana song “If We Were a Movie” (I know this because I had to babysit a girl who was literally obsessed with this song). He wants her, she doesn’t know that she wants him until she finally realizes her dick of a boyfriend is a dick. Was this a storyline on Degrassi or One Tree Hill because it feels that familiar.

“English Love Affair” okay, there is now a really specific thing about the girl. She is from England! But why would they write that? Oh, they opened up for One Direction, a crappy yet extremely famous boyband from England, so they probably have a lot of fans from there, they have narrowed it down from every single girl on earth  to only girls from England, specific I guess, especially something about her being pale and it raining, two things that could be English/British. People are extremely white in England and apparently it rains a lot. This girl could exist though, but still unlikely. It could just be a marketing thing, write a song about an English/British/ whatever the fuck people who live there want to go by and sell a bunch of albums or singles or whatever there. It’s not a bad idea.

“Amnesia” another song about a girl. Do I even want to listen? Just from the title I am guessing he misses her a lot and wishes he could forget her and going into it, I am right and extremely bored and want to listen to something not about a break up. Maybe a good political punk song, I feel like listening to Rise Against’s new album. Maybe some Otep. Anything that doesn’t involve heartbreak would be good at this point.

Apparently according to Wikipedia there are so many bonus track versions in different countries that I just want to cry from exhaustion looking at them so instead I am going to relax and listen to some Rise Against for a while.

Besides that, listening to this, it feels like there is no way this is at all pop punk. It is pop with a tiny edge. It was music written purely to sell to teenage girls who will fall in love with the band members and stalk them on the internet. As the beautiful and talented Taylor Momsen said about this generation’s music industry, “it’s all product, it’s not music anymore.” and that is what this album is, it is a product meant to be sold to teenage girls and gay teenage boys.

Many pop bands didn’t just release love songs or breakup songs or friendzone songs. When Hey Monday was out, they of course had love songs and breakup songs, “How You Love Me Now” being about a cheating boyfriend so “baby tell me how/ how you love me now” and “Candles” was about getting over the douche canoe that likely was the one that cheated on Cassadee in the first place making her write “How You Love Me Now” because she is about to “blow the candles out/looks like a solo tonight/I’m beginning to see the light.” Even with those being the two most popular songs the band has released, they didn’t just write about that. She have “Set Off,” and “Hurricane Streets.” Not about relationships but I guess one can argue that “Set Off” is about a relationship because “you and me/they wanna break us/ let’s shake it up/cause they will never take us” but it makes more sense as being about the band as a whole because “all their fears/watch em’ all come true/ all their words/ a world of hurt/can’t tell us what to do” and “Hurricane Streets” is the same. “the storm is rushing on me/ here’s the blinded flash/ I feel so locked and loaded/ let me out, let me out” turns into “I wake up in a wasteland/ where the trees are crashing fast/make or break or the road explodes/get out, get out of this town.” Not all the songs on their debut album were about relationships or lack of which was very nice.

Crystalyne does the same and if you haven’t heard of them, it is likely you are like me, an American. They are Canadian and appear to based out of Toronto. I heard their songs “Wolves” on the Stars in Stereo station on Pandora and it is not about a romantic relationship, but since it is about human interaction, it could be inferred as one but it would be one person’s interpretation, it isn’t about being in love “I needed you to surround the whole of me/ foolishly waiting for hours and now it’s nearly morning/ the wolves are wearing me down, I’d love to change the fact that/ I need you now, I’m not shutting you out.” It could be, but also be interpreted as a toxic friendship or relationship with a family member, the wolves symbolizing them while they are “watching me, all they want is to cut my breathing/ they’re the cause of my first collapse, this is the aftermath.” Their EP Navigate does have a majority of songs about a relationship, being “Deceiver” “Just Fine,” Never Gonna Look Back” and  “Weapon” but also includes “Wolves” and “Navigate” which is about life and getting out of that hometown.  They had other things besides relationship songs on the EP, which is what any band needs. You need variety.

Now, there is one thing stopping me from hating these guys forever. It is the fact that they have potential. They have a lot of potential. My one friend that is actually a fan of the band has a good theory about them. They are putting out this album, and then going to do some more writing and their next album will be better and maybe more towards the pop punk genre and just needed to use this album to get out there. This would be a good theory, not to mention it showed up on my Tumblr dashboard that they are writing their new album. (I follow user Alltime-fallout-atsix who is a band blog and he sometimes reblogs their stuff so it will show up on my dashboard)

I have heard that the band loves All Time Low and on their channel they covered a few All Time Low songs including Jasey Rae (one of my personal favorites) and A Day To Remember along with Blink 182’s I Miss You (again, an amazing song) and even Teenage Dirtbag but also One Direction and the two artist I hate most in the world besides  Iggy Azalea (or as Azaila Banks called her, Igloo Australia), Justin Bieber (the Canadian pansy who just needs to move back and get out of America) and human scumbag, Chris Brown. But other than that, these four have stated they are inspired by All Time Low along with Mayday Parade (a good band, but a lot of their stuff sounds the same and the only song I know is Miserable At Best) and Boys Like Girls. When it comes to Boys Like Girls, I was a huge fan. A couple years ago I found their album Love Drunk for four bucks at half price books and fell in love. I instantly went online and purchased their first album and damn, “Hero/Heroine” along with “Thunder” are some of my favorite songs (yes, love songs, maybe I am a hypocrite, but that’s not the only songs I like by them) I could really relate to the song “Go.” I went through a horrible time in my life and this song just inspires me to never go back to that dark time. I also love “Broken Man,” “The Great Escape” “Stuck In The Middle” and “Be Your Everything.” Going back to the subject and away from my rambling, if they are inspired by them, All Time Low, Mayday Parade and listen to Nirvana (if you don’t, then don’t wear the shirt, I am from Seattle, we take our Nirvana VERY seriously) along with Green Day and Blink 182, then maybe they will attempt to sound more like them and write songs about life, not just relationships and girls and they could be very successful. They don’t need to act like Taylor Swift and talk nonstop about relationships (at least since they aren’t very specific, they don’t sound like a crazy bitch who is immature enough to literally tell the whole world what happened in her relationship with the specific person they dated and how they screwed her over). These guys went to high school, there is enough shit that happens during those years you could write a whole series of albums.

Besides just being inspired by these bands, they can get their fans into them. I have never been to one of their concerts (and never would, the last thing I want to do is be surrounded by twelve year old girls who think they are going to marry a member and have his babies.) but I hear they covered “American Idiot.” If you know me, not only do I love that song, but that is my favorite album in the entire world. Besides it just being Green Day to me, it is an album that defines a time in the United States. It tells the story of post-9/11 America and the musical does a great job of showing the different perspectives of three guys in that time. This song along with “Holiday” is a big “fuck you” to George W. Bush, the man I hate along with his administration for invading the wrong country which lead to deaths of soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians. (He didn’t have WMD’s, Dubya just wanted to finish what his daddy started in the Gulf War.) I don't feel that these four boys from Australia can really understand the "Redneck Agenda" let alone the "subliminal mind-fuck America" or the propaganda that is Fox News and i know they fully can't understand the age or paranoia that hit America right after that and due to that paranoia we invaded the wrong country. I will not go onto a huge rant on my hatred of Bush and how if Jeb Bush is elected next, I will stop threatening to move to Canada and will just head to Iceland where not only has there been one murder in the past few years, but is a country less than the size of Seattle and is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The point is, they perform “American Idiot.”

A way they can “save” pop punk is somewhat simple. A kid my age (18) who listens to Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus and One Direction could go to a concert and hear “American Idiot.” They could think “hey, this is a pretty good song” and maybe go home and listen to the song online and then maybe listen to the album. They could love the album, (probably not as much as me, but it is hard to love it as much as me) and start listening to Green Day, maybe it’s their older stuff like Dookie and Nimrod or maybe just 21^st Century Breakdown. After that, they could get into other bands in the rock genre or punk genre, maybe they will hear their cover of “I Miss You” and start listening to Blink 182 and get into Blink (although there is currently something going on with them and I still have no idea what the fuck is going on, they could still get into them and their old stuff). They could go from Blink to one of my personal favorites, Sum 41, hear Fat Lip and next thing they know, they are singing it at random times because it’s stuck in their head. They could get into Good Charlotte and there, what do you know, this band who opened for One Direction can help get people back in the genre and maybe (unlikely but maybe) bring the genre back into main stream and instead of listening to Kanye, a kid will want to listen to Green Day.

Well, at least that’s what some people are thinking about.

As much as I hate bands that sing nothing but love songs or break up songs and not songs that have actual meanings (like Weightless, I mean it’s not as deep as the stuff Rise Against writes but at least it’s not about a girl or breakup, it has a nice meaning) I have to say that this band has the potential to do great things. They actually play instruments so they aren’t some new boy band craze and actually play them very well so they have the talent. So maybe they can “save” the genre. Maybe they are doing what my friend said and releasing this album and after getting the solid fan base they will start writing songs with deeper meaning (it may not be Rise Against’s People Live Here but hey, no one really writes about the Israel/Palestine issue) and could end up becoming a band that will help bring attention back to the genre. They could actually help save pop punk and pop punk and punk rock and anything that has to do with rock is something I love, so if this band can help bring it back to the mainstream, then I will be forever thankful.