Skittles

I just posted a song to my tumblr which brought up a topic I constantly think about and one which I watch with curious eyes.
You see, I grew up listening to punk rock music. Bands such as, NOFX, Propagandhi, Good Riddance, No Use For A Name and Lagwagon, just to name a few. When my mum first heard what I was listening to at the age of 13 she fucking hated it. I would make copies of CD's because she would constantly take them off me because she thought the songs were inappropriate for a young kid to be listening to.
As I got older and exposed myself to other kinds of music I started to notice that every band that was coming out was just copying what previous bands had done. I'm talking about the whole sing/scream repeat box, and a breakdown added just because kids are stoked on that shit and are guaranteed a fan.
I think Fat Mike (singer and bass player for NOFX) is a really smart dude. I think he actually went to Uni to study social behaviours or something like that, so obviously the dude knows what he's talking about.
I listen back to the song 'The Separation Of Church and Skate', a song by NOFX, and it's a song that speaks the truth. I agree with it 100%, and being a fan of a genre of music that isn't supposed to be listened to by the faint hearted, I can see why Mike is so pissed off.
Everything sounds like a million dollars now. No one really has to sing. They can be the worst singer in the world, but a little click of a button on a computer, they sound fucking perfect. The drums sound like they are being played by a robot, just flawless. Everything is disneyfied, and is just so skittles now. It's got to be perfect, no fuck ups allowed.
Music doesn't need to sound like a million dollars, it just needs soul. Music now seems 'soul-less'. Whenever I hear All Time Low's new stuff, I just can't stand it. It's so generic, it's so soul-less, it's overproduced. They had something really good going, but then they had a million fucking people get inside their heads and fucked it up. My mum was showing me her record collection one day, and she put on a Cure record. Recorded back in the 80's. It was raw and full of emotion. It sounded amazing. You can tell when something is pure. I'm only using All Time Low as an example, but you hear their songs and he is singing about spilling his beer and going to a party. Who gives a fuck dude. Sing about something real. Sing about something people can relate to. Who cares if the 8 year old kids don't like you singing about how you are struggling with an addiction or struggling with depression, whatever. Write something real.
That's why this NOFX song stires everything up inside me. The type of music I grew up with is so skittles. 8 year old kids are asking their parents to take them to a Pennywise show. I saw Millencolin and Pennywise a few months back and their were these kids there, they were probably about 10 and their parents were there. While you have Fletcher from Pennywise telling everyone that punk rock is music for the people that are pissed off, and hate the fucking world. Every second word was fuck. It pissed me off so bad.
I will finish now.
Punk Rock isn't supposed to safe and consumed by the masses. It's a confronting form of music. Kids beware.

May the force be with you