By Abby Do
Staff Writer

Sellout, poser and candy punk—labels that apply to a frighteningly large number of bands playing today.

1995 brought the advent of Good Charlotte, yet another band that tries to be punk but fails miserably. Granted, the group does have the “punk” image, but its lyrics are *NSYNC-worthy material. Good Charlotte is, in other words, candy punk. With mousse-saturated “punk” hair comes a “punk-like” pursuit of individuality, which is completely hopeless. This ploy for uniqueness, manifested in a music video in the form of elderly people acting like high school students, backfires and scars viewers for life.

Simple Plan is another not-so-punk band that tries to be different, but somehow ends up sounding, looking and acting in the same manner as the other bands that want to be punk. The band’s lyrics are simplistic and so generic that they could belong to almost any candy punk band. Each music video shares a common theme of people jumping around, destroying other people’s property, and playing music while things, like rain or bits of the ceiling, fall down.

With the debut of Avril Lavigne’s first CD, “Let Go,” the seemingly endless repetitions of the same 3-song selection from her 13-song CD have plagued radio stations. Since then, Lavigne has not done much. With the release of her latest album, she has managed to come up with two new songs, a handful of single-song CDs featuring songs from “Let Go,” and a remix of an old song, “Complicated,” which, incidentally, does not seem to differ from the original. As with Good Charlotte and Simple Plan, the lyrics of Lavigne’s songs are far from deep. They lack personality and have a tendency to repeat themselves.

Groups like Good Charlotte and Simple Plan think that becoming a “punk” band is only a matter of wearing baggy shorts and using half a can of hairspray every day. In being caught up with the superficial, bands forget about the content of their songs. As the amount of musical groups whose shallow lyrics and lack of innovation swamp radio stations and store shelves increases, quantity has definitely outpaced quality.