I finally came up with a term that perfectly describes punk rock and its derivatives: they’re musically sterile. Before you little spikey-haired bastards start going red in the face and throwing your Black Flag records at me, let me explain my reasoning first.

I’ll begin by explaining how punk rock is one of the most conservative forms of music out there, rivaled only by blues. By “conservative,” I don’t mean politically; I’m referring to the genre’s musical structure. Since punk’s inception over three decades ago, the song structure, chord changes, and even the lyrical styles are largely unchanged. Even punk’s primary offshoot, hardcore, hasn’t changed much in terms of musical structure. While that’s certainly to the genre’s credit, as they’ve stuck to their roots while every other genre has drastically changed over the years, it’s also kept punk treading water in a musical sense.

If the chords and structure are still the same, that means you’re not evolving, expanding the art form, or breaking any barriers. You don’t even have to be a progressive rock band to evolve musically; genres from jazz to heavy metal have all done it. Punk has not. Sure, there’s been a few changes since the 1970s, especially in terms of production quality. However, the basic structure is still the same old thing. It’s technically been an endless rehash ever since the beginning!

Even worse is the trap many punk bands (and fans) fall into when they try to break out of their boundaries. They’re either decried by the “old school” fans for not being “true” punk (which is utter nonsense), or they’re claiming to be another genre, when they’re still punk rock through and through. Let me examine both of these phenomena in a bit more detail.

“Old school” punk fans love to rail against groups like Blink 182 or Green Day, often making the preposterous claim that those bands aren’t real punk. This is certainly due to their incredible success in the pop sphere, and their detractors are simply wrong; those bands still qualify as punk rock. The musical structure is still the same. Opinions, styles, and attitude have absolutely nothing to do with placing music into genres. I don’t give a shit about the whole DIY scene, bands’ activism, or any of that nonsense; punk rock is music, a collection of sounds put to a rhythm, and that’s all we’re talking about here. Screw the scenester crap that’s been attached to much of it; if you use opinions, activism, image, and other bullshit as criteria for classifying music, you could logically throw any genre classification out the window, as you’re literally letting style override substance. We’re sticking with the facts, people.

Then we move on the various offshoots that claim to be something other than punk rock, but even a cursory examination of their musical structure proves otherwise. There’s no need to claim you’re a separate genre, when you clearly fit into another one. The latest example of this is metalcore, a genre I deconstructed last year. I made it quite clear in that post that metalcore is really just the latest front for popularizing punk rock, not a proper subgenre of heavy metal. It’s a perfect way for record companies to get impressionable punks into what they deem “metal,” and another lightning rod for longtime punk rockers to attack. Controversy equals interest, which translates to sales more often than not. (Metalcore is likely just a creation of marketing, much like deathcore, its Hot Topic-fueled sibling.) Just because you tune down your guitars and start screaming doesn’t mean you’re not a punk band anymore.

Fans (especially young ones) have loved punk rock for decades due to its simplicity, and record labels will continue to love it for the same reason: it takes little to no effort, talent, or skill to crank out a punk song, and the general public will snap it right up. But as someone with some knowledge of music theory, I need my music to evolve, not stay stuck far in the past with basic chord patterns a six-year-old could play. Punk rock fails the test on every level, and that’s why it’s musically sterile.