Punk music has evolved and expanded over the years. There are now hundreds of subgenres that all fit within the extended family of punk rock. Curious Spotify users can search these genres and the app will generate a playlist on the fly to explore. But the Spotify algorithm is not without its faults. In this era of AI-generated song descriptions and hashtag-obsessed classifications, we’ve witnessed the appearance of new subgenres at a rate that seems suspicious.
Spotify has always been obsessed with classifying and labeling music. Their algorithm is like that one friend who only listens to hardcore and has a qualifying reason that everything else is not “real” punk. Every song must be placed neatly into a genre, even if a new one has to be invented to make it happen.
These punk sub-genres represent the most egregious fabrications that Spotify pulled out of its AI ass this year to see if we were paying attention:
Cowpunk
What do the Dwarves, Tiger Army, and Social Distortion have in common? According to Spotify, they’re all “cowpunk” bands, whatever the hell that is. Is it maybe what you get when a punk band brings in a little blues/Americana sound? There’s really no way to know. Oh there’s some Face To Face in here too? This genre is clearly an inside joke that we just aren’t “in” enough to get. Good one Spotify.
Crunkcore
No, no, no. This is not a thing. Adding synth and drum loops does not make a new punk genre, no matter what Spotify tells us. Nobody who includes Hollywood Undead or 3OH!3 in a list of punk bands should be trusted. And considering that most of the songs in this playlist are from various “Punk Goes…” compilations, it’s clear that this is a genre invented for cover bands, if it even exists.
Minneapolis Punk
The Spotify algorithm clearly learned about Extreme Noise Records and assumed that something was exciting enough up in Minnesota to justify a new genre. While Minneapolis does have a thriving punk scene, we need to draw a line in the sand here. And on this side, we don’t assign new genres to every Midwestern city with a few hundred thousand residents. No thank you, next.
Goblincore
Hey, Spotify? This Pinterest-derived interior design style is definitely not a new punk genre. Just admit that you didn’t really get Days N Daze, and you got confused. They’re not quite crust punk, not quite folk punk, and that’s fine with the rest of us. We don’t need another made up music genre every time your algorithm hears a washboard. Can’t we please just listen to “Flurry Rush” without being harassed by your weird playlist suggestions?
Shibuya Punk
There is nothing that could defend the existence of this as a so-called music genre. The phrase “Shibuya Punk” exists only in niche corners of the internet where nerds discuss Japanese rollerblading games from Sega Dreamcast. And even then, they’re talking about the visual aesthetic, not the soundtrack. This was an algorithm fuckup, right Spotify? Because hey, it has “punk” in the name, just like the music!
Nintendocore
This is a vague label for any song with chiptunes mixed in. The singer from metalcore group Horse The Band used this word one time as a joke in an interview, and to this day they’re still trying to get their fans to stop using it to describe them. But Spotify wants us to believe this is something more than a regrettable joke, it’s a brand new punk sub-genre! Fuck off. That’s not how this works.
Anti-Folk
This is Spotify’s pretend genre for groups who for some reason won’t admit they make folk-punk music. Arguing that a particular band is folk-gone-punk instead of punk-gone-folk is like debating if blueish-green is different from greenish-blue. Who gives a shit? We’ve allowed this streaming giant’s frivolous misinformation to distract us from the very real conversation about how little they pay the artists on their platform.
Millennial Punk
C’mon Spotify. Don’t try to rebrand late-’90s/early-’00s pop punk and alternative rock radio like this. Nobody is falling for it. “Millennial Punk” just sounds like we’re all playing Taboo and we can’t use the word “pop” this round. “Oh yeah, I used to have such bad taste in high school. All I ever listened to was Millennial Punk, haha.” Please just respect pop punk’s wishes and call it by its preferred name. Unwanted nicknames like these aren’t cool, man.
Angry Workout
This is melodic hardcore and songs people listened to in order to get pumped when serving in Iraq 20 years ago. It’s the exact same playlist from start to finish. Here is another attempt by Spotify to take a very real punk sub-genre and call it whatever horseshit they felt like in the moment. Not everything needs an edgy reboot to stay relevant. Just let the classics be classics without rebranding, please. We’re begging you.
Obscure
Calling a punk band “obscure” is pointless and redundant. Everybody knows that once a punk band achieves mainstream success, they are no longer considered punks. They are sellouts or posers, depending who you ask. This invented genre of “Obscure Punk” is an offense to hard-working punks everywhere, and we wholeheartedly reject any claims of its existence. Sorry Spotify, science doesn’t care if you believe in it.
The Living End’s seventh full-length studio effort, was the one with the longest/widest gap between album to album, and said stat didn’t do the band any favors in any way, as it likely was one of many catalysts in making the album lose this competitive medal ranking race via the non-honorable stinker #8 position. Still, ANY record from The Living End is a gift from the lord above, so we’re not that made about this one, and we’re glad that the band kept on running to a German sounding and tasting follow-up LP. If you had the chance to see the band on this album’s run through the United States, you are not only a rare breed, as TLE NEVER comes here, but you’re lucky as well… Few bands match The Living End’s musically dense power trio sweat-soaked live set!
Perhaps the fact that The Living End’s eighth and final full-length studio LP as of press time, was their lone album to be recorded in Europe, was the reason for its eponymous album title. It’s like that time we went to England and kept saying “the lift” every time we talked about an elevator. And we talk about elevators a lot, but regardless, this album was more of a sonic return to form after “Shift,” so we’ll take our Königsberger klopse with a generous helping of Labskaus and drop the needle on the vinyl one more time. Anyway, the band signed with notable metalcore and post-hardcore label Rise Records, and said partnership may not make sense on paper, but it sure does in our reverential Warped Tour hearts.
The first solid LP referenced here, The Living End’s sixth full-length LP is ranked sixth here, and had the unfortunate statistic of being the first follow-up to the perfect “White Noise.” While it sadly didn’t make much of a dent domestically, likely because few people here even knew that the band existed anymore, “The Ending Is Just The Beginning Repeating” did the polar opposite in Australia, and actually won the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards) Award for the Best Rock Album. Produced by Nick DiDia of Powderfinger, Dirty Honey, Nine Days, and GG Allin notoriety, and mixed by Brendan O’Brien of every band in the early-’90s fame, this album is one of the better-sounding releases from TLE and truly deserves your both attention and time in the morning and evening, but definitely NOT the afternoon, but that’s for another day.
One step behind? Maybe? Anyway, we here truly feel that The Living End’s fourth LP is their first one to have zero chance here in the United States of America/Benetton for many reasons and one being that the powers above are a bunch of meatballs, but the band certainly didn’t act as if they knew or were aware of any of that, as it rocks and rolls from Alabama to ambulances. In addition, said record not only is their second highest selling effort in Australia, but it debuted at the number one position on the aforementioned ARIA charts… NUMBER. ONE! Reborn. Still we don’t know what’s on your television, mobile phone screen, or, wait for it, radio, but we do know that several songs from “State of Emergency” are on Aussie devices and that makes their vegemite much, much, much spicier and chock full of taste.
The Living End’s sophomore LP was far from a slump musically, and less like a hyperactive version of The Stray Cats a la their debut album and more like a more straight-ahead version of the late-’70s British punk rock scene, in a truly good way. Also, not enough credence is given to drummer Travis Demsey for his work on “Roll On,” of whom this is his last record, but we want you, the uber-smart and savvy reader, to recognize such, as well as to bow down to his replacement, the beyond capable Andy Strachan, and pray to the heavens regarding the epically awesome mainstays of TLE, vocalist/guitarist Chris Cheney and upright bassist/vocalist Scott Owen. Fun fact that is funner than you think: This album is also the band’s first of many to feature the band on its cover. In closing, DON’T SHUT THE GATE!
Short notice? So what! One said to the other that while entries number four and three here may change on the day, the week, month, year, Jimmy, or the freaking decade, the more, uh, modern entry wins today over the smelly gymnastics mat entry, so “MODERN ARTillery” wins the bronze medal; in the end, that’s all that matters anyway. If you want to be a saucy little tomato, start your listen to “MODERN ARTillery” with its epic final track for the “play it again” highlighted song, “The Room,” and try not to marvel. Also, track four here, “End of the World,” has the distinction of being featured on the soundtrack for “Tony Hawk’s Underground 2,” which undoubtedly exposed the band to poser dorks like you worldwide. Yes, we are certainly putting you down, and no, we won’t hold or let up.
It’s quite fitting that “White Noise,” The Living End’s fifth full-length studio album, came out almost exactly ten years after the band’s self-titled debut was released, AND that it’s easily their second best… NUMBER FIVE IS NUMBER TWO! Sadly, “Wunderbar” came out ten years after this LP and it isn’t in the bronze slot in this piece or anywhere else, so we hope that TLE puts out another full-length in 2028 to counter Germany. Like pretty much every album after #1, there were crickets domestically for The Living End, but “White Noise” would have pleased American fans of Green Day, Jack White and Led Zeppelin, so open up your ears, jackasses! FYI: There are no “skip it” tracks for this record and the gold medal winner below. If you disagree, take it up with the other Karens in your life and check your ego at the end of the world.
What more could be said about one of the more underrated/sufficiently aggressive rock debuts of the 90s? Well, like we stated so epically in the last section, there are no “skip it” songs on this LP or on the silver medal-winner, so if that monumental chosen statistic by yours truly doesn’t get you to log into your bloody sister Mary’s Tidal account and stream a track, thus donating a more than whopping .0004 cents to The Living End’s former record label, our second solution indicates that we don’t know what will, and that makes us feel trapped and torn down in a bloody riot. Still, we’ll be here next Saturday regardless, with American assault rifles and our heads down low. The ending of this piece is closing in on us all, so if you only have an hour left to live, listen to “The Living End”.
It was clear by the early ’90s that Slimer was the star of “The Real Ghostbusters,” but the likeliness of him feeling the crushing weight of carrying the show (and haunting Michael’s house for some reason) wouldn’t lead to any significant substance abuse, on account that he is already dead.
We could’ve sworn ALF was a puppet, but I guess his agent busted the execs at CBS’s balls to be in on this thing. Regardless of him being retconned as a cartoon for the purposes of drug abstinence, it’s hard to imagine him tripping balls unless eating cats gives you some kind of natural high we’re not aware of.
Well he’s a lasagna addict that’s for damn sure, but aren’t we all? Now let’s keep in mind this production was from a time when Garfield was actually funny and needed to bring his A-game and be “on” all the time, a little pick me up every now and then might be necessary. Perhaps all those naps were combination food/barbiturates comas?
It’s hard to believe that there isn’t a single mushroom-shaped Smurf dwelling that doesn’t have hallucinogenic properties. Our money is on Brainy Smurf, on account it’s always the ones you least suspect. Who the hell knows what he’s cooking in that lab of his?
The gruesome, and sometimes self-inflicted, injuries Daffy has endured over the years make him a prime candidate for relying on oxycodone just to get through a day of filming. He’s old-school Hollywood, after all.
You can only take so many wrong turns at Albuquerque before people suspect you’re burrowing under the influence. It also doesn’t help his case that he makes his appearance in this special as a cop, so there’s a pretty good likelihood he’s helping himself to the goods in evidence storage, if you catch our drift.
You cannot convince us that Tigger isn’t a meth addict. I mean just look at him! And the fact he makes his appearance special by bounding out of the bushes unannounced doesn’t help his case either.
The jury is still out on Pooh though. He’s much too chill to become a junkie, but it wouldn’t be shocking to find out he “accidentally” ingests Himalayan mad honey on a regular basis.
Truth be told, the future was never looking bright for Mikey. He can lambast others about drug-induced poor decision-making, but fact is that an incalculable amount of drugs are flushed into the sewers every year, and given his predilection for partying that makes him a textbook high-risk teen(age mutant ninja turtle). Not long until he’s stealing Donatello’s Adderall to fund his crippling ketamine dependency.
The one thing the Muppet Babies had going for them was their unparalleled gift of imagination, but that can only get you so far. Don’t be shocked if all those unsupervised shenanigans in the nursery turned into rampant LSD use to expand their minds.
There’s lots of evidence that many artists’ best work came to be while under copious amounts of drugs, so it’s entirely within the realm of possibility that the Chipmunks would attempt to leave cover songs behind and write their own material fueled by enough blow to kill a capybara. Coupled with a grueling touring schedule and strict stage dad, the brothers were a sure bet to end up booted from their record label and in rehab by 1996.
Don’t let their leading “There’s a Million Ways to Say No” fool you, these are trust fund kids and they are always going to do trust fund kid crap. They’re just one globe-trotting adventure away from smoking PCP at an illegal rave in Thailand before burning through their inheritance on a crippling heroin addiction. Life is like a hurricane, indeed.
Granted he and Barbara technically only were in the intro for 30 seconds, but you mean to tell us that he didn’t once try crack before the CIA used it to destroy black communities? We’re not buying it. Just look at his kid and you’ll see the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
