VGRC

Earlier today, I had the displeasure of listening to a band called "Brokencyde." A band who bills themselves as "The Originatorz of Crunkcore," (more on that atrocity later) they are, picture if you will, a combination of Linkin Park, Soulja Boy, Slipknot and Lil' Jon. Now take that, loop it through Auto-Tune several thousand times, and you have Brokencyde.

However, Brokencyde deserves more than that as an explanation of their work, as they are, in fact, a startling textbook definition of everything that is currently sickening about American culture as we know it. Brokencyde isn't one of those bands that are popular despite being absolutely terrible. Rather, they are more of a lens into the current state of society. And when you look through that lens, you begin to lose all faith you might have had in humanity. So to begin this diatribe, lets all start with the video for "40oz" as a reference point.



These guys are coming straight at you from Albuquerque, New Mexico, the city of whose only relevance to pop culture was a sweet Weird Al Yankovic song about sauerkraut. Unable to leave well enough alone, four enterprising young lads decided it was time to bring the spotlight back to Albuquerque. And with the approval of the city, who has not taken objection to being referred to as "Albucrazy" and "Albucrunky," Brokencyde was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world.

Or perhaps "unsuspecting" is the wrong term, because Brokencyde is really just a culmination of a culture that has been brewing the past couple decades. In part of a phenomenon that I refer to as "Peak America," this is when elements of our society reach their maximum level of efficiency.

To get an understanding of what I mean, you need to understand the paths that led to this, starting with this abomination of "genre fusion" that is dubbed "Crunkcore." Crunk is a branch of hip-hop, characterized by its celebration of alcohol and whoreish behavior, laden with a large degree of unwarranted self-importance. In fact, take this one verse from "40oz:"

"Now take your panties off girl, and take your sweater off too,
I'm about to show you what your boyfriend can't do.
I'm a celebrity baby, Brokencyde is my crew,
And there ain't nuttin' you can do so FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"

Lack of any musical talent aside, this attempt at lyricism accurately portrays the entire "crunk" genre, and is hardly exclusive to just Brokencyde, where life is simply a matter of tagging whores (who may or may not be in a relationship, who gives a fuck amirite?) and partying. It's not like this is an isolated scene, this is a rough picture of college campuses across the country, where spoiled rich kids live off their parent's money and accomplish absolutely nothing. However, enough of them graduate to successful crunk musical acts that flash around enough money, whores and "good times" that it entices the situation to get worse. It's not a promotion of a morally bankrupt society, but rather the result of a morally bankrupt one. And when you look at it that way, it is absolutely frightening.

This is combined with screamo, another vapid "hardcore" pop-punk derivative genre for equally vapid people. For those who missed the memo, punk rock is dead. It died and was buried a long time ago, and the legions of pop-punk teenagers have stolen the banner and ran with it. The terms "punk" and "hardcore" are thrown around like monkeys throwing feces at each other, being nothing more than to designate more generic pop garbage as something edgy. Take a teenager's inherent urge to "rebel" and combine that with something edgy, and you have the formula needed to create any successful hardcore punk bandwagon. If Henry Rollins was dead right now, you can be sure that he'd be spinning in his grave.

Even on a purely musical level, it's absolutely an abomination. Picture Chester Bennington at 15 years old and surrounded by drunken dorm-dwelling frat house assholes following along with his annoying screaming, spaced between white-boy rapping that makes Fred Durst sound talented. And all I can think of to describe the rage it induces is it "makes me wanna punch babies," but only because that is an actual Brokencyde lyric, which infuriates me even further. And while I try to search for words to describe this rage, all I can picture are people jumping around with 40oz bottles and biting into fluorescent light bulbs while carelessly passing around STD's to the women they treat as objects. In fact, by the time they try to act serious, such as condemning an ex for "lying" to them in Freaxxx, it's absolutely laughable, as in a "good, you fucking deserve every horrible thing that happens to you" kind of way.

And don't get me wrong, I don't hate bands on the basis of being morally bankrupt. In fact, I happen to have a soft spot for the glam rockers of the 80's, such as Motley Crue and Poison. They never had anything intelligent to say, but damn they could rock. It's the fact that they have absolutely zero redeeming values whatsoever. (Plus, glam metal gave rise to opposition bands like Soundgarden and Mudhoney, legitimizing the existence of glam as something to piss people off enough to create some truly amazing musical works.)

Somebody on last.fm was chewing out the "Brokencyde haters" because "they only hate because Brokencyde is different." No. I hate because I see what Brokencyde stands for, and I see the culture they rose from, and I am absolutely frightened because I know things are just going to get worse from here.

Sadly, we haven't reached Peak America just yet.