Wanted for crimes against music: a boy band disguised as a punk band — 5 Seconds of Summer are a bad bad thing. (Photo courtesy Capitol Records)
Oh man, we’ve come to this. Boy Band Pop Punk: its name is 5 Seconds of Summer. And their hit song “She Looks So Perfect” is stinking up the Top 40.
“You look so perfect standing there in my American Apparel underwear” is the start of this song’s chorus.
We’ve come so far! Now it’s the era of punk product placement!
When it exploded in the late 1970s, punk rock music actually meant something. It had something in common with the Biblical prophets in the Old Testament. Punks were apolitical agitators who angrily spoke out about social injustice — and the strong desire to be yourself in an increasingly consumerist society.
Punk always had sub-genres. It wasn’t all about storming the barricades. Some of the sub-genres included political punk, pop punk, and then later post-punk and hardcore punk. As time went on, there were revivals of each genres and some mixing and blending.
From going underground to going mainstream
But at its core was an ideology that often criticized mainstream culture, mainstream music conventions, and mainstream politics. Now, 5 Seconds of Summer embraces the very mainstream sexist and consumerist ideology that punk originally rebelled against.
So how did we get from The Ramones and The Clash to this disaster called 5 Seconds of Summer?
What’s required of a young girl in the world of 5 Seconds of Summer? Show us your underwear, as demonstrated in the music video for “She’s So Perfect.” (Photo courtesy Capitol Records)
Although Green Day later went on to be a legitimate and meaningful punk band — consistently from the album Warning on — they may have created a monster: bratty punk rock. The Ramones always had a cartoonish quality to them. And despite the chorus of their song “Pinhead,” they never were a dumb band. But some early Green Day songs crossed the line into becoming too adolescent and bratty — in a bad way.
Their influence may have produced Boy Band Punk.
Who needs emotion? We have consumerist fetishes
In “She Looks So Perfect,” the singer digs a girl we don’t know too much about. We don’t know anything about her or her attitude. We just know what she wears and how she makes Dude feel.
Like Miley Cyrus, 5 Seconds to Summer subverts rebellion to package it in a pro-corporate agenda. The band co-opts punk images and musical styles, but represents everything punk stood for. (Photo courtesy Capitol Records)
We know Dude likes her underwear and her ripped up skinny jeans lying on the floor. And he digs her enough to get a tattoo with her name on it. And there’s something about making her a mixtape — uh, do these guys really have the equipment to do that? There’s a bit about wanting to get a diamond and get on a plane and run away. But along with the line “this deadbeat town’s only here to keep us down,” it all sounds like a cliché.
The music video is sexist and exploitative. There’s a lot of booty shaking and then some yes, stripping. It’s the ultimate act of rebellion: taking off your clothes in public! Two overweight diner customers, a group of prisoners, teens in a classroom, sexy women in a supermarket all shed their clothes. This looks like a bad music video from a 1980s hair metal band. And it’s light years away from what The Clash did —whose song “White Man in Hammersmith Palais” is still prophetic about bands like 5 Seconds of Summer:
“The new groups are not concerned with what there is to be learned…They think it’s funny turning rebellion into money.”
But 5 Seconds of Summer isn’t real rebellion. It’s a corporate version of what punk is: hedonism, self-absorption, and bratty sexuality. This music video might as well be an underwear commercial.
I really really hate this song. I hate the way these young dudes are such posers. And I hate how 5 Seconds of Summer reduces punk to something marketing people can easily package: sell the masses bratty teens.
This band needs to go away. Quickly.
Here’s the music video for “She Looks So Perfect”:
I don’t mean to be rude, but you honestly know nothing about this band. I appreciate that you have your own opinion, but it would be really lovely if you did some sort of other research rather than simply listening to the song and labeling them as ‘sexist’ and ‘try-hard’s’. Firstly, this was not ‘ad placement’ – American Apparel didn’t recognize the band for their reference until 7 months after they had released the song. I, personally, do not find this video sexist – both genders are stripping down to their underwear, not only women or men, so I really don’t understand where that comment came from. If you had done your proper research, 5 Seconds of Summer are not in this for the money. They recently launched a competition to fly fans from all over the world to LA to see them perform and to meet them, with all costs covered by them. The total cost to send ONE of these winners to LA is over $40,000 dollars, and they are sending over 30. They also have most of their shares owned by other companies, and therefore take little of their earnings. This is not only extremely offensive, but also false. Although their music might not come under the punk genre, it’s technically labeled as pop-punk and as much as you might disagree with it, that’s the way it is and you’re going to have to deal with it.
5 Seconds of Summer isn’t going away any time soon – expect to hear a lot more of them and I definitely look forward to your next article of pure criticism.
Getting butthurt?
Not really. You can search 5sos and the results will just come up. What have you done with your life though?
This article is just beautiful.
I like this song, and pretty much no one hates it. It’s the best song of 2014!