Who is your favorite band and why?
i’ve decided to post of my music journal for music 338 - American pop, which i’m taking this term. it makes it slightly more worth doing the homework if i get to post it online. it’ll probably be about one a week. i doubt they’ll all be as long as their first one though……..it’s just what happens when i start talking about RXB:
Who is your favorite band and why?
Of course, that is the million dollar question. There are a lot of really amazing bands and to pick just one is extremely difficult when considering the range across everyone who has ever made music. How is it possible to say Mylo, a dance producer, is better than Saves the Day, an emo band? Why would Thursday, a hardcore band, have dominance over a hip hop group like Gym Class Heroes? It’s not about who is better since you can’t really compare bands that don’t share a similar style of music. Of course, there are general categories in which you could compare across genres such as originality, impact, musical prowess, etc, but to say that one is better or, even further, to say that one is better than all the rest would be quite a ridiculous statement to make: I proclaim strawberries are better than sun. While the previous statement is entirely true, it still fails to meet any of the requirements of general logic.
The other big problem with naming a favorite band is that you are (in)advertantly linking yourself to whateve style of music the band happens to play as well. It is, of course, possible that your favorite artist of all time is Nas, but you might hate all other forms of rap. Unfortunately for you, amazon will continue to recommend you also check out Young Jeezy’s new joint, The Recession, everytime you try to buy a textbook while your friends incessantly assert to you how much more dope JayZ is.
Eh, semantics……..my favorite band is RX Bandits.
RXB started out in the aftermath of the California Ska boom (No Doubt and Sublime being are the prime examples if you, like many, are unfamiliar with possibly the most underrated and underappreciated genre in the span of music history) as the Pharmaceutical Bandits. They were the default teenage band kids turned ska band at the time, which was why I initially started listening to them. As a 16 year old in Jersey, who was I to deny some sweet, sweet horn lines. They weren’t my favorite at the time, but they were definitely something sweet to listen to. After a couple lineup changes and a couple years, they released The Resignation which was almost a full departure from the third wave ska vibe they had been rocking since their inception. The ska roots were still there but the band was venturing into other genres such as progressive rock and reggae. 18 year-old Ryan was highly upset about the sparse brass usage. I quickly dismissed while riding home from best buy in my friend’s pickup truck. Apparently, when you live in jersey, you buy music from best buy and ride around in pickup trucks. In retrospect, I’ve changed a nice bit in the past 5 years.
It wasn’t until their latest album, …And the Battle Begun, came out in 2006 that I gave them another solid try and fell in love. Allow me to enumerate:
- Chris Tsagakis is the best drummer I’ve ever heard or seen. The man is a machine.
- They have fantastic dynamics in their music. Songs go from energetic and complex to soft and melodic with all kinds of awesome beats (see also #1). This is actually the same reason I like Beethoven. I feel like dynamics are lost on a lot of musicians. Metallica is loud and overcompressed while you probably couldn’t make out the piano on a Norah Jones record if you were the only one at Starbucks. Not that everyone is one or the other, but it seems very few are able to master a mix of the two. When you do, it makes the tunes that much more powerful.
- The lyrics aren’t cheesy. Well, I’ll say they got exponentially less cheesy with each album. I don’t think it’s possible to write a non-cheesy ska song if you are less than 20 years old. It just can’t happen. On their new albums, their lyrics are absolutely fantastic. None of them seem forced at all in the sense that when you hear the song, it’s as if the words were always there.
- Live Shows
- They actively support people getting into the music but they are equally against rowdy behavior in the form of pushing, slamming, surfing, or any other type of action that might impede a fellow concert patron’s ability to enjoy the show. I can dig that. Standing at a solid 77 inches, I’ve had my night end poorly more than once from a misplaced foot bashing me in the head.
- They don’t bullshit. It’s almost constant music. More often than not, they will play the majority of their set before saying anything at all, and when they do say something it’s usually something as simple as “We’re RX Bandits. Thanks for coming.” Awesome – let the music speak for you.
- They played one of my favorite shows ever. It was the 2007 Lehigh University spring concert. We crashed it. It was great.
- Everyone else in the band, besides C.Gak, is also fantastic at the instrument(s) they play.
- Most importantly, they aren’t sellouts.
That’s all.
