I will admit that I once loved Green Day, back when their lyrics were more about teenage existential angst and boredom, which I related to at one time.
But there’s this thing called personal and professional evolution that many pop-punk icons, once they reach a certain level of fame and wealth, never engage in. Regurgitating unreality-based tropes with an unearned sense of pseudo-political enlightenment becomes their schtick, and they milk that cow until its udders run dry.
Via Daily Mail (emphasis added):
The frontman of rock band Green Day, Billie Joe Armstrong, is in hot water after holding up a Donald Trump mask at his Washington DC concert just weeks after the former president nearly died from an assassination attempt.
The 52-year-old rock star was performing at Nationals Park in the nation's capital on Monday when Armstrong pulled out a Trump mask with the word 'idiot' written in black across the forehead, photos circulating social media show.
He angrily clutched the mask above his head - reminiscent of the time Kathy Lee Griffin posted a video of herself holding a 'severed head' of Trump that was covered in blood in 2017.
The singer also allegedly changed the lyrics in American Idiot to: 'I'm not a part of a MAGA agenda' - a move he also did during ABC's New Year's Rockin' Eve - moments before pulling out the mask.
Unlike Griffin, who apologized for the poor joke, Armstrong has not made a public statement about his brazen act at his concert.
Nothing good comes of idolizing 50-something adolescents who have not changed in any observable way for thirty years, who flex their virtues by bandwagoning on whatever cause du jour they can to try to maintain their relevance and keep the cash coming in and the MTV Music Awards from their corporate master flowing.
Via Vulture (emphasis added):
Billie Joe Armstrong is, in his own way, still fighting the punk fight. Most recently, he pissed off Trumpers for switching the lyrics to 2004’s “American Idiot” from “I’m not part of a redneck agenda” to the more relevant “MAGA agenda.” You can sneer at a rich, middle-aged Rock & Roll Hall of Famer trying to be political on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, but it’s impressive Armstrong still has the power to upset people by changing a single word. Of course, the 51-year-old singer is just doing what he knows best: staying true to his longtime band’s interpretation of punk ideals and writing songs that have taught Gen-Xers, millennials, and now zoomers the art* of accessible political rock music.
Calling what Green Day currently does “art” is stretching the term to its breaking point, even if it’s technically accurate.
NOFX, a punk band infinitely more talented and insightful than Green Day, even if their political views are similarly misguided and I don’t relate to many of them anymore, put it best regarding the poor state of dissident music in their song, “The Desperation’s Gone”:
Turn, tune the knob k-go
Some alternal radio
Strategic marketing hype, media, stereotype
Has our music been castrated? Yes
To you it may sound good
To me it sounds all wrong
The notes and chords sound similar
The same forbidden beat, but
The desperation's gone (the song's the same)
But the desperation's gone
