Commercials will always be incredibly fake and pandering. Since there are plenty of people who like punk music, it’s no surprise for that to be considered a demographic they consider. Because punk likes to pride itself on being true and anti-establishment, it just makes it all the more hilariously cringe at the result. This isn’t to cry about these commercials “aren’t real punk, man” but rather to look and laugh at how bad these attempts can be.
Mr. Tire aka Mr. Gets-Us-To-The Big-Gigs
Let’s first look at this band up close. Upon freeze-framing the band’s name is Shifting Gears with the most Microsoft Word font and Clip Art stock image logo they could possibly find. The man with the fauxhawk then tells us that he refers to his auto service company as “Mr. Gets-Us-To- The-Big-Gigs” as any really cool person does. You then find out that the band is performing at a retirement home where we get a glimpse of a rockin’ granny. Now that’s a twist worthy of a Geico commercial.
Taco Bell’s Anarchy Revolution
Everywhere this GrubHub guy goes people are going berserk for tacos. At one point he delivers right to the table of a thrashing family instead of just dropping it on their doorstep like a normal human. The ad ends perfectly with all the punks marching through the alley waving flags that say “tacos” using the anarchy symbol as the A. Got to love this rebellious singer saying “nothing can stop us now” to the news of getting Taco Bell delivered as if anyone was trying to stop him from giving himself diarrhea.
Pioneer Stereo Brings Peace
Oh no! Punks and suits are facing off on the street corner! Then what’s this, the punks and suits getting along? What crazy topsy-turvy world is this? Only with the power of a Pioneer brand stereo can they understand each other and their strange attires. If they had used a Sony brand stereo it would’ve ended with bodies bleeding out in the gutter.
Bratz Pretty ‘N’ Punk Dolls
Whoever designed these are very much in the mindset that a British flag means punk. Maybe punks are into England the same way Anime fans are into Japan. From now on I’m referring to all punks as British Weeaboos. All the Bratz dolls come with a dog which is very accurate to the average squatter punk.
Lou Reed Takes A Honda Scooter To The Wild Side
It’s a special level of dad humor using “Take A Walk On The Wild Side” and then cutting to the line about how walking is not as good as riding a scooter. Lou Reed really should’ve leaned harder into this lame joke and changed the lyrics to something about riding a scooter on the wild side. I’d like to think that the montage of all the people in New York before Reed shows up is the commercial’s way of telling you that if you do walk instead of riding a Honda Scooter, you may be forced to talk to these weirdos. For a better television use of Lou Reed I suggest his amazing anti-crack PSA.
Bubble Yum Is For Ruffling Some Feathers
Yes, the duck is a great puppet. I’m not dissing the fun design of this duck. Still, this is by the end of the day something slapped together by a group of middle-aged marketing people showing their bubble gum is not your daddy’s bubble gum because this is a duck with piercings and shakes his butt. Why a duck though? Birds don’t have teeth to chew gum. Or can they? It appears ducks technically have teeth, go ahead and look up those photos. Were the marketing suits fascinated by duck teeth? The commercial shows that the gum is the official product of the most punk thing imaginable, Major League Baseball.
Burger King’s Got One Nation Under Chicken Fries
Burger King creates some sort of Misfits knock-off band that is obsessed with chicken fries. Despite the Misfits sound, the band also wears Slipknot chicken masks and are named Coq Roq because coming up with clever band names is hard. Notice the lack of dipping sauces. Nothing like eating unflavored chicken fries handed to you by a stranger at a sweaty concert.
John Lydon The Butter Spokesman
There are very few celebrity choices that are as hilariously cringe as John Lydon. The man spent so many years calling others fuckin corporate puppet wankers that to see him shill butter is something else. His haters will say he started his career shilling clothes and his defenders will say he used the money for a new PiL album, but either way you look at it, it’s funny to watch him praise dairy products.
Punk CD
The giant wigs here are used to hide the identity of these struggling actors. The CD has all the classic punk hits like My Sharona, a song so rebellious that the Dead Kennedys covered it with My Payola. The compilation is for sale at the cheap price of $26.99! With inflation that would be about $63 today for what is pretty much a best-of album. The CD itself is simply titled Punk because that will definitely make it easy to find in a record store. This CD could be for New Wave fans who are too embarrassed by their music selection that need to hide it as punk the same way you hide your Garfields inside a Murakami book when on the bus. If that’s the case then be proud, there’s nothing wrong with liking Erasure.
Tim Armstrong may be worth 13 million dollars, have two Grammys, and have decades of sobriety behind him, but none of that stopped him from looking like a drunk pirate around the time this late-period slab of sneering punk dropped. Lars also started dressing like a skinhead but went a bit too hard on the sweater vests and ended up looking more like a biker who found Christianity in jail. Their fashion choices aside, the hooks are catchy but there are few tunes that can go toe-to-toe with their best material.
I once shook Tim Armstrong’s hand. I was 20 years old and seeing Madness perform at Coachella. He had played the same weekend in the backing band for reggae legend Jimmy Cliff. At some point between a bunch of two-tone ska classics, Tim and his entourage cut in front of me. I blurted out “Yo, Tim. Nice set!” and extended my cherubic hand. He firmly grasped it, looked me dead in the eyes and softly said “It’s good to see you.” This experience was more memorable than most of the songs on this record, though it’s definitely their second-best album with an ellipsis in the title!
The debut albums from most punk bands feature incoherent songwriting and dumpster-quality production. Rancid on the other hand featured two members who’d already released a punk classic before they barely had hair on their chest in Operation Ivy’s Energy. Released as a lean Lars-less power trio, the album features the sticky hooks that would become the band’s trademark, but many of them are sung by bassist Matt Freeman, a man who sounds more like a lawn mower than a human being.
Though this is a record you may see at the bottom of a lot of fans’ lists, it’s fair to say it’s become underrated with time. The hooky “East Bay Night” may be the strongest opener of their career, and the Jamaican-influenced songs rival their best from older albums. “I Ain’t Worried” is a spooky ska moonstomper featuring a squealing organ, and “That’s Just The Way It Is Now” is some of the best punky whiteboy reggae you’ll hear this side of The Clash. There’s a country song, a psychobilly song, and though not all of the experiments work, they’re a lot of fun. It does lose points for the lyric “She’s my honky tonk girl,” though.
I’ll say it. “Let’s Go” is overrated. Sure “Radio” and “Salvation” are two of their best songs, but at 23 tracks and lacking some of the genre experiments that would add variety to later albums, this thing is a bit of a slog to get all of the way through. Despite the bloat, it’s packed with memorable melodies and features the debut of guitarist/vocalist/face-tattoo-pioneer Lars Fredricksen. His tuneful rasp compliments Tim’s quasi-British marble-mouthed ramblings beautifully, introducing the vocal one-two-punch we know today.
Apparently nobody was more angry about the ’90s coming to a close than Rancid. They were seemingly so angry they couldn’t even bother to come up with a title for this record. Of its 22 songs, only five of them break the two-minute barrier. Not only are the ska songs gone, but their trademark choruses are also largely replaced by incessant screaming. And you know what? It’s kind of awesome. If there’s an alternate universe where Tim and Matt started a hardcore band after Operation Ivy and exclusively played in German squats, it would sound like this.
Much like their idols The Clash did with “Sandinista,” the Rancid lads went global on their fourth album. However, unlike “Sandinista,” “Life Won’t Wait” is enjoyable to listen to all the way through. Fans who are more put off by Rancid’s Caribbean leanings are probably going to hate this thing, but if you love some ska and reggae with your punk you can’t do much better than cameos from Buju Banton, The Specials, The Slackers, The Bosstones, and more. Despite its hour-long runtime, it never stops being interesting. It may not have a hit single but it does have songs with harmonica, steel drums, and glockenspiel.
Hell hath no fury like a recently divorced Tim Armstrong. Turns out the guy can write the shit out of a song when he’s heartbroken. He also got weirdly jacked. Considered by some punker-than-thou fans to be their sellout album (they got major label distribution for it), this album catapulted the gang back into the spotlight on the back of uber-poppy single “Fall Back Down” and its music video featuring Kelly Osbourne and the Good Charlotte twin that married Cameron Fuckin’ Diaz. The LP features their strangest song, “Arrested in Shanghai.” Is it hip-hop? Post-punk? New wave? Who knows!? The record also features a charming cameo from Skinhead Rob, a man who’s probably really sick of explaining his nickname by this point.
Seriously, what else was going to be number one? You might be pissed off that “Let’s Go” is so low, and while I can be a bit of a contrarian, I also have functioning ears. This album is an indisputable classic. If the album just abruptly ended after the bass solo in “Maxwell Murder” it would still probably crack the top five. If I could make one pedantic complaint, it’s that it maybe loses a little bit of steam after “Old Friend” but that’s more a testament to how absolutely incredible every song is up to that point. I just listened to it three times in a row and booked a spiderweb scalp tattoo. The power of those Tim Armstrong choruses, man.
