DIEGO VALLE

Has anybody notice how every five years we get that catchy tune stuck on our head? The kind of tune that has heavy riffs worth the guitar shaking on stage but a chorus that almost anybody can sing along to?

Let’s move back in time. Was it around 1995 when the world heard “Basket case” as an anthem to the ignored kids in high-school? Billy Joe Armstrong is definitvely far from being an underground hero these days, but back then it inspired a whole revolt of radio-ready-pop-punk that gave the middle-taste crowd finally a chance to let them sing out loud.

1999 MTV Video Music Awards had a before-three-tour-buses Blink-182 performing their opening show with “What’s my age again”, the expected-to-be-naked trio nailed it and even played the main VMA’s show the next year on a theatrical and trademark performing of “All the small things”, I mean, anybody who listened to music back in 2000 can remember the little people all over the stage as easy as they remember the Madonna/Christina/Britney incident.

Want more opening shows? Ok, here’s another VMA trademark that half a decade later gave us yet another “little punk band that could”: Fall Out Boy. The underground hardcore scene of Chicago, Illinois brought us four 5′5″ poster boys that would culminate their undeground success in 2005 with their live performance of “Sugar, we’re going down”. A record inspired by pills and major label debut for Pete Wentz and company was only the tip of the iceberg. Personally, i rather recall them from the previous record, “Take this to your grave” which actually had anthems for the highschool has-beens and never-weres such as “Grand theft autumn” or “Dead on arrival” without missing the easy-to-sing-along “Saturday” or despiteful to the x’s perfect opening: ”Tell that mick he just made my list of things to do today”

Today is 2008. Last year’s Warped Tour was lead by a transition. The so-called “scene” thing (which is a laregly arguable definition, we might or might not discuss under other circumstances) seems to be moving out of the screams and solo’s environment towards again a harmonious pop-labelable sound. You need examples? Ok, who were claimed the most succesful bands during the Vans legendary road trip last year? Yes, Paramore, Boys Like Girls and Escape the Fate. I only see one screaming band there and even they have the catchy-tune feel in more than one of their verses, while in 2006 we knew it was all about Underoath, Emery, From First to Last and break-down-beated company.

So, who’s the next on the list of bands that close the cycle bringing our little sacred beloved personal and unstreamed bands to the mass media and selling out to become what we hate and force everything and everyone to star it all over again? All Time Low? Cartel (whom already have a reputation for rockstarism in all of the wrong manners)? Four Year Strong? Set Your Goals? It is often funny to relax, sit back, and just enjoy what goes around. I mean, after over seven years of stages and more than a decade of heart-strong built music appreciation you don’t take “the scene” (oops, again forbidden word said) so seriously and realize there is a way it works and a reason for it to work that way. Too bad for whoever sells out, but looking at the bright side, it will boom a load of bands to pursue either fame or roots or whatever it is that they believe in, they’ll find themselves pursuing what they want to be, their dreams, and god and i know and can tell you how happy one can be when one becomes who they want to be.