Sublime is one of those bands that whose music is OK, and whose fans make me nuts to the point where it affects my liking of the music. Maybe it’s because I’m neither a skateboarder nor a stoner, but the band has always been just alright. Yet the people whom I’ve met who like Sublime don’t just like them, they worship at the band’s altar. I like the band’s singles as much as mainstream radio appears to, but frankly, very little else of the band’s catalog sticks. It’s bouncy, fun party music, but there’s not much depth beyond that for me. Bradley Nowell is interesting as a poet, and certainly his way of blending rap, reggae and alternative into one cohesive unit is unique and worthy of remembrance, but the band itself does little more than act as a sounding board for Nowell’s rhymes. I’m almost certain I’m missing some point that my entourage of troll commenters will point out (in much the same way they eviscerated me for my review of Royksopp’s album), but that’s just my take on it.
I’m very curious as to how Sublime’s music would fare if it were to come out today. I feel like it would create a bit of a crapstorm, sort of in the same way Eminem made trouble for making rap music and its controversial themes accessible to suburbia. I think the band would be accused of trying to brainwash America’s youth into becoming pot-smoking skaters en masse. Granted, that’s more or less what happened in the mid-90s when they came out to some degree, but today I think it’d be on a much larger scale with significantly more backlash.
Sublime – What I Got [iTunes] (YSI)
==TJ==
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Album A Day, Sublime
I’m interested to hear why you think there’d be more backlash against such concepts today?
It’s been my feeling that in the last few years society has had a negative reaction to recreational drug use in rock music. For the same reason people like Marilyn Manson and Eminem get flak for bringing controversial ideas to suburban neighborhoods, I feel like rock music that encourages otherwise upstanding teens to get high would get vilified. Looking at how the media responded to the Michael Phelps bong fiasco and Heath Ledger’s death, I feel like Sublime would have a harder time finding an audience now.
At the risk of entering dangerous territory, I think the above statements only apply to rock and alternative music. Unfortunately rap music has those drug themes so engrained in its culture right now that it’s less jarring to hear rappers openly discuss getting high.