I am a long time reader of Rocksound Magazine, which is, for those of you who don't know, an English publication similar to the likes of Kerrang, The Rolling Stones, or Alternative Press.
This month's issue was a fantastic one, perhaps to make up for the controversy that would inevitably surround it. The cover band, were 5 Seconds of Summer, or 5SOS, as I will stylize them because I can't be bothered to type that out every time I refer to them.
In the issue, 5SOS discussed their adoration for bands such as Asking Alexandria and Blink-182, the fact that they are 'currently' confined to pop music, and how they believe that image will change over time. The writers at Rocksound, bless them, attempted to make it look like a good thing.
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When you first started listening to All Time Low, did you hear them namecheck Blink-182 and look them up? When you first stumbled across Avenged Sevenfold, did you have to see Guns and Roses for yourself to find out what all the fuss was about? 5 Seconds of Summer are about to do the very same thing, and turn a generation of kids currently familiar with nothing outside of the charts onto the likes of Mayday Parade, Yellowcard, All Time Low and countless others."
Whilst, at first, this might appeal to you. What's wrong with other people liking your bands? Absolutely nothing, that's what. (Unless you're a hipster, of course.) However, the people who are currently fans of 5SOS tend to be fans of One Direction, given that they toured together. One Direction are clearly a band that cannot be described as anything but pop.
With that in mind, let's think of what happened when 5SOS covered the originally beautiful songs, I Miss You by Blink-182. If you head to the original video on YouTube, the comments have now been littered with 5SOS fans saying things such as;
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5SoS is way better. This crap is scary and depressing. Stop bashing on my fav band like omg. They made this song way more popular than it was. If anything, this crappy band should cover it. Like omg."
No, that wasn't a joke. That was a legitimate comment that had been posted. There is also;
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This cover is good, but the original by 5SOS is still the best."
I can't deal with that. Blink-182 is one of my favourite bands, and everytime I go on that song, the comments infuriate me.
Props to the 5SOS boys, they seem reasonably intelligent, and they are aware that people don't like them. In fact, they've quite happily accepted it. However, their justifications in being 'the next big punk thing' are really lacking. One of those justifications being, for some inexplicable reason, that they must be punk because they've got a massive dedicated following.
Now, bands like Metallica and Pantera both have massive dedicated followings, and nobody in their right mind would ever label them pop, however the fans of bands like Metallica are not as dedicated in the same way.
For instance, major Metallica mega-fans might possibly buy all the merch and go to several gigs on the same tour, something like that. Perhaps even the most over-zealous of them would jump at Lars on the street, but that would be extremely softcore for the 5SOS Fam. (That's what their fanbase is called, I hear.)
Ashton (Irwin, drummer) goes on to explain that at a photo shoot, a picture was uploaded to Instagram featuring him sat in a chair shaped like an arse. Doesn't sound bad so far, does it? Not exactly 'top, top banter' as Rocksound describes it, but not bad at all.
Within thirty minutes, their fans had searched the web for every photo studio in Manchester that had the arse shaped chair and travelled there to spot 'the boys'.
Oh dear.
Bear in mind, their fans average from the ages of about 8-18, and this saga unfolded on a Thursday afternooon, so I imagine a lot skipped school do follow this exhilarating adventure only to discover that thirty minutes was far too long and the 5SOS guys had already left.
They also go on about the rock and roll lifestyle.
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There's no one telling us 'Don't do that!'. We're very real online, as well. I post pictures of Calum's arse. We're over 18 years old. Sure, I might get drunk every now and then, that's normal. Okay, maybe more than every now and then, but we just have fun. We're teenagers."
They then go on to briefly discuss the fact that they want to save rock and roll. I hate that. But I won't attack them for it, because a lot of bands do it, and I'm a major FOB fan, but I refuse to buy their fantastic Save Rock And Roll album purely because of the title. (And perhaps the price, but mostly the title.) So I think it's just a personal pet peeve. I don't know though, if it annoys you, leave a comment.
Rocksound, being the brilliant publication it is, (no sarcasm, they're literally awesome) don't hesitate to acknowledge One Direction's overtone on 5SOS. 5SOS go to say One Direction gave them a fantastically gigantic opportunity to tour the world, and it seems understandable to a point. They name-drop Dave Grohl, saying that they always wanted to play a stadium like the Foo Fighters do and they got an oppurtunity.
They, then, make a fatal mistake.
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All of a sudden, we're supporting in a stadium and looking out at 90,000 people. You'd be insane to go 'Oh, stuff this! I'm going to play to my crowd of 7000 people."
In that sentence alone, my suspicions are confirmed, and every hope 5SOS have ever held of being perceived as even vaguely punk shatters around them. They're sellouts. You'd 'stuff' playing that stadium because of principles. Society projects forth an image of the perfect person, and punk still is, and always has been about saying "Fuck that! I'll do whatever I want!" and
doing whatever you want. Punk was meant to be a war on mainstream, and once you tour with a band, you effectively connect yourself to them, and to connect yourself to perhaps the most mainstream band of the moment loses you any right whatsoever to call yourself punk.
That's my little rant. Please don't hate on me. Leave you're opinions though. If you disagree, I'll converse.
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