How Could This Happen to ME?

When I was driving up to Syracuse two weekends ago with Andrei P in his mom's SCION (which is funny because Andrei is also his mom's scion), we listened to a bunch of radio. A few times I heard a song that really jarred my sensibilities. It had "punk"/emo vocals (of the whiny, auto-tuned variety) over SUPER-CHEEZY, TV MOVIE SOUNDTRACK pianos, strings and timpani swells.



I recently found out the song was "Untitled (How Could This Happen to Me?)" by Simple Plan. You might remember Simple Plan from hits like "Welcome to My Life" and "Perfect". The video for "Perfect" features the band performing on the roof of a suburban house. Check it out here. It's really funny when everyone jumps at the same time.



Try as I might to avoid HATERIZM, I find the recent crop of MTV Pop-Punk bands (Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, New Found Glory, etc.) VERY PROBLEMATIC . I don't want to say it but...THEY SUCK!! See? I'm no better than Christgau dissing BJ. OK, let me chill out for a second...

Look, I kind of like Blink-182 and Sum-41 and in middle school I was totally into a Fat Wreck Chords compilation but there's something really fucked up about this new Simple Plan song. Other pop-punk/emo bands will at least dress up their schlocky sentiments and melodies with a little bit of "edge". Simple Plan fans can't even pretend they're punk or edgy anymore. "Untitled" is basically a Barbara Streisand song.

Here, you listen to it:

Simple Plan -Untitled (How Could This Happen to Me?)

I find it helpful to think of this in terms of a Jon Spayde article I read for a class. The Spayde article is about authenticity aka "THE REAL". Spayde formulates a 4-stage progression from REAL to HYPERFAKE:

1. REAL (not bogus)

2. REAL FAKE (classically bogus)

3. FAKE (merely bogus)

4. HYPERFAKE (so bogus it threatens the idea of the real)



He gives a bunch of bad examples. The best one is probably "LATIN DANCE CRAZES":

1. REAL- SAMBA

2. REAL FAKE - CHA CHA

3. FAKE - LAMBADA

4. HYPERFAKE - MACARENA

Does this make sense to anyone? Let me try and place Simple Plan in this hierarchy. This will be sticky because defining PUNK can be very difficult and controversial. Rather than split hairs about what REAL PUNK is let's just talk about POP-PUNK which, in and of itself, is probably HYPERFAKE to some nerds.

1. REAL - The Ramones

2. REAL FAKE - Green Day

3. FAKE - Sum-41

4. HYPERFAKE - Simple Plan, especially "Untitled"

I'm not to attached to this, but I should probably try and defend it.:

The Ramones are OG punk. No one would deny this, right??? Well, Morrissey wrote a letter to NME as a teenager extolling the virtues of the New York Dolls and proclaiming "The Ramones are rubbish!" but we all know that dude is weird.



I picked Green Day as REAL FAKE because they came out of a legit punk scene but were still thought of as pop-punk KNOCKOFFS and thus not REAL. They are "classically bogus" in the sense that they were one of the first pop-punk bands to become mainstream and thus not punk. Therefore they are ORIGINAL FAKES.




Sum-41 clearly grew out of Green Day's success. They dress punky and play in a punk-style but are so far removed from the Ramones sphere that there's almost no debate as to whether or not they deserve any true punk props. They are "merely bogus"; a cutesy, silly caricature.




Now, Simple Plan is very similar to Sum-41 but boldy went where their peers hadn't gone. With "Untitled" they take Sum-41's FAKE into the HYPER REALM! They essentially turn pop-punk into the kind of CHEEZY MELODRAMATIC CRAP that the Ramones (and maybe even Green Day) stood in opposition to. I'm not defining "Untitled" as cheezy and melodramatic by my own standards (although it certainly is). It is cheezy and melodramatic in the context of any notion of "cool", "hip" or "edgy" from the past 40 years.

For Simple Plan to fly under the punk or pop-punk banner AT ALL threatens the entire notion of punk, pop-punk.

Why should I care that Simple Plan is wack? I can always listen to the Ramones or the Clash and feel like "I GET IT". Well, I'm just scared for the kids growing up listening to this. I feel like they're being bamboozled! They are being tricked and soon their entire worldview will collapse in on itself. This strikes me as perverse and subversive!!! OMG, SIMPLE PLAN IS PUNK!