Elliott Rubin – Murphy Brown
Genre: Skate Punk, Punk
Passion can be a dangerous thing, sure. But the fact that it has been nearly eradicated from our modern world should give us cause for concern also. Just take a look at the folks making incursions in the pop charts nowadays. Most of them stand for nothing and don’t seem very miffed with any of the things that they are singing about. They’ve been doing it for so long that most of us have learned to accept it as a fact.
Elliott Rubin means what he’s singing about. It’s so important for the punk singer to know this that overemphasising sentiments will be one of the tools of the trade. Still, if this makes you feel awkward, it may just be that you’ve grown desensitized. If no slogan reaches you, it’s maybe just because words have been used against you far too often.
Elliott Rubin’s “Murphy Brown” is well-intentioned pop-punk music made by someone who, above anything, doesn’t ever want to be accused of phoning it in or not caring. Sure, it purposely has an anthemic quality built into it, and yes, the vocal grit jumps off the recording at times. That’s just what you get with people that mean it. There are few of these as it is, and a veritable rarity in the music world today.
Bayline – Elephant
Similar artists: AFI, Alkaline Trio, The Offspring, Tusky
Genre: Punk, Pop Punk
What if all the people making music were honest about who they were, where they were coming from and how they were feeling? Would music as a whole really be improved? Well, it would certainly help make it more interesting. It would be easier to follow it. And it would be easier to care about artists. Bayline are trying to lead by example.
Still, being entirely honest while writing songs that, potentially, millions will hear is not easy. For one thing, few people are comfortable exposing themselves in this way. Secondly, there’s a real incentive to act like you’re someone else. For the most part, the chart-toppers aren’t built on honesty but on well-crafted, hard-to-believe stories.
Say what you will about Bayline, but on their single “Elephant”, they sound like a band collectively caught in the midst of a terrible crisis. Such feelings could easily be wasted, but their emo-punk sound allows the group to mine them for all that they’re worth. And, while the words themselves may be vague, they are loaded with enough broken-hearted spirit to make you also stomp your feet and chant the refrain, “Hey, don’t walk away!”
