I was thinking about how to sculpt my personal brand for 2K10, and I decided that easycore will be my fave kind of music for the new year because it is the subgenre that best captures what is in the hearts of teens who like 2 mosh. Since you all “have your finger on the pulse of youth culture” I am asking for ur help in finding the best new easycore bands so I can position myself as an expert on this important new youth movement/subgenre.
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What is EASYCORE??
Starting an easycore band is not that hard, all u have to do is write pop punk songs and put in some breadowns and maybe gang vocals on some of the most meaningful choruses. It’s pretty simple, just imagine if u played Blink-182 covers only at least once in every song you busted a Hatebreed mosh part (but in a major key). It’s like taking 2 things that are awesome on their own and putting them together so it is at least 2x as awesome!
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Back in the 90s, before we had autotune and Zumiez only had like 200 stores, it was a new idea to combine mosh and melody. We all thought that those two things could never go together, like strip clubs and bingo, but we were wrong. Gorilla Biscuits were probably the first band to sound like NOFX playing hardcore songs, and bands like Lifetime, H20 and Lifetime tribute band Saves The Day followed in their footsteps. They were rad bc sometimes hot girls would go to their shows, which was cool.
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However, most scholars agree that New Found Glory were the first band to truly perfect the formula for easycore, putting together melodies that ur little sis can get into with x breakdowns x that u could mosh to while she makes kissy faces at Jordan. They also coined the term “easycore” on some shirts they made for gas money while on tour. When they started, we all laughed at Chad for quitting the popular hardcore band Shai Hulud to join the unpopular pop punk band A New Found Glory, but the joke is on us bc nobody under 30 rmbrs Shai Hulud and NFG are still popular with teens who shop at Zumiez. I have been a big NFG fan since their first album and I still listen to them on the regular– if you haven’t yet, you should prob download some of their songs to your Zune right now!
Embarrassing levels of earnestness/optimism/enthusiasm 4 life
Easycore is not for ppl from broken homes, it is for kids who are good students, nice to their parents and help old ladies cross the street. A lot of their songs are about growing up and how they hope that they will be positive and happy when they grow up, or mb about how they are having the time of their lives “being in a touring band with their bros” and traveling across the country. They are so happy to be alive that it seems silly/immature/naive if u are like me and have had ur passion for life extinguished a long time ago and just want to “listen to Terror and feel sorry for yrself.”Oh, and I don’t think u HAVE to be straightedge to be easycore but I would say u prob should be, just to play it safe. You def can’t chug 40s, do coke in the bathroom, or anything else that would be in a Skarhead video.Witty song titlesThe kids in these bands are probably in honors English classes, which means two things: they are dorks and they like to flex their English skills as often as possible. I think that’s why easycore bands have long song titles with puns and stuff in them. For example, “My Other Car Is The Next Bus,” “Buzz Aldrin: The Poster Boy for Second Place,” or “Beatdown In The Key Of Happy.”Kind of annoying, huh?? Seems like they are trying too hard, like the “zany” kid in high school who watched too much Monty Python/British comedy and would sometimes blurt out “Monkeys! Cheese!” and u would be like “Dude pls stop being so zany nobody likes u or thinks ur funny.”
Mosh 4 Christ (optional but recommended)
A lot of easycore bands are into praising Christ. U don’t have to be a Christian to be easycore, but it can’t hurt. I would say that it’s prob best to just write lyrics that sound vaguely Christian but not ever use the word “God” or whatever, that way in case anybody gets mad u can always deny it but Christian kids will still buy your merch bc they will think ur Christian too. Also mb you should play Truth drums.
Some of my faves for 2K10
There are a lot of rly good easycore bands out right now so it’s a really good time to be getting into this exciting new subgenre. Here are some of the more popular artists who are “spearheading the easycore movement”; pls peep them and tell me what u think!Check out Easycore Is Sexy And Fun to download all of these songs for free and keep easycore DIY.
Former easycore band Fight Fair is prob more accurately categorized as PROGRESSIVE EASYCORE these days but u should still check them out! I think u will see big things from this band in 2K10. Vid by Ilene Powell.
SYG are kinda weird dudes but they know that the kids love pirates so they put them in their video. I dunno, I think it was just so that they would seem like “wacky/chill guys” not “uptight buttholes who hate fun” but what do I know.
Four Year Strong “Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die”
I saw this band a few months ago with Fireworks. The singer was real bummed when I heckled him for having a “One Life, One Chance” tattoo. But can you blame me? An H20 tattoo, srsly bro???
V/A Popcore breakdowns that go hard
This video proves that hardcore is not the only genre that can make u mosh!!
City Lights “Hang Out”
These bros are an upcoming easycore/powerpop band from Columbus. They are def more on the pop tip than many easycore bands but I am real into them and u prob should be too. Pls add them on MySpace and follow them on Twitter to enhance the value of their digital brand.
Can’t Bear This Party 2k10 promo
Bands like Can’t Bear This Party will be the “next generation of easycore” so if u want to be an opinion leader and tastemaker in youth culture u should prob tell ppl you like them!
Awesome post! Kind've crazy how this subgenre has remained authentic for so long, while others come and go. It's weird how it's divided into the young kids who grew up listening to easycore and the old ex-hardcore men who went mnstrm with their sound to reach a more diverse market. I do sincerely love the easycore sound though. My favorites are NFG, FYS and Fireworks. I sometimes wish Blink-182 had breakdowns so they could be considered easycore. Someone should make a mashup or something.
Set Your Goals has some songs about still managing to be posi w/out the aid of Christ, so I don't think you have to mosh for Christ to be easycore.
That Can't Bear This Party video is fucking sick. I'll definitely be looking out for them.
Yeah dude, I honestly love this shit a lot. It's a great style that I pretty much never get tired of, although the youthful naivety is pretty funny at times.
I was actually just thinking about how sick Blink 182 would be with breakdowns haha! My faves are NFG, ADTR and lately City Lights, and def looking forward to the Can't Bear This Party record. Oh, and FIGHT FAIR! But they're not really easycore.
When Something Awful posted their Warped Tour review and ripped into Set Your Goals, I was like 'I should check this shit out, how bad could it be' (note: this is also how I got into brokeNCYDE) and watched a video, and instantly bought their album… The really sad thing is when the spoken word breakdown on 'Mutiny!' kicks in, I almost always get so wound up I actually cry… no joke.
Either I'm way more pathetic than I thought or I need to start a posi/easycore band right now. Sadly I'm British and most of the easygoing, clean cut bros in this country start boring indie bands instead of wearing cargo shorts and being positive.
and 'My Friends Over You' was my favourite jam back in high school.
NFG FTW haha. No matter where my music tastes take me, I've always had a soft spot for Easycore. Some of the new breeds you mentioned on here are a joke, but with NFG still alive and Set Your Goals and Fireworks keeping it real the scene should survive with some dignity.
"They are so happy to be alive that it seems silly/immature/naive if u are like me and have had ur passion for life extinguished a long time ago and just want to "listen to Terror and feel sorry for yrself."
This made me lol.
Also read the Absolutepunk threadpost. Christ there are some po-faced Y SO SRS tossers on that message board. No wonder my 15 year old self at the time ran away from it and threw myself in with the Metalcore crowd. (21 nearly 22 now for reference).
Funny post as always though!
my fave genre….big ups to city lights and ilene powell!
also see weekend fm, with the punches, and maybe even the wonder years.
can't bear this party? more like cant wait for the album…
MOST FOR CHRIST: you hit the nail on the head with that one.. The vague god references are a must, unless of course you're Confide!
Also, I bow down to the fact that you were able to incorporate DFF into this post. That video is the shit. Baby in the bathroom, anyone?!
As you already know, I'm very impressed that you knew City Lights! Definitely a band to watch out for.
I'm curious as to how you think the easycore genre might affect more "mainstream" music trends. Like how Cobra Starship and 3OH!3 have sort of redefined Top 40, do you think easycore will permeate the barrier? Which band do you think has the best chance of bridging the gap?
I dunno how Cobra Starship or 3OH!3 have "redefined" top 40, but easycore has totally redefined & reshaped the type of rock music you're likely to see featured on the Warped Tour for close to a decade now (or at least since NFG broke). To the point that for a whole generation of kids, when they hear or think of the term "pop punk" they don't think of Blink 182 or Green Day or something you might have heard on Lookout records in the 90's, but instead something that's more accurately defined as "easycore" or something quite derivative of the easycore sound.
@DRR7
Let's take a little trip back in time, shall we? Say, about 10 years ago. Assuming you're not THAT old, you should probably remember what Top 40 looked like — fucking boy band (and girl band) central. I probably still have the ticket stubs from my floor seats at the Nsync concert at Jones Beach. But before I wax anymore nostalgic I'll get to my point. What I was saying about "redefining" the Top 40 was that, in my opinion, since the days of Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and O-Town, things have changed. We've steadily seen less of an influence of the "boy band" or "girl band" on the radio. With the rise of bands like 3OH!3 and Cobra Starship, the boy band has redefined itself in the new millenium. Band like those two and many others would NEVER, in my opinion, have gotten airtime on the radio a decade ago — ever. But now kids are eating that shit up, right?
I couldn't tell if you were just stating your observations or trying to be confrontational — the quotation around my use of "redefined" aided in the ambiguity.. But do you see what I'm saying? I definitely agree with your point that it's awesome how the definition of pop punk is considerably more accurate than it's ever been thanks to the easycore wave that's creeeping into mainstream. My question was just if, and how, easycore could really break through into Top 40 and have an identifiable presence.
DDR7, well said- totally agree. I'm not upset about it, though, because most of that old Lookout stuff (with the exception of Squirtgun and a few other bands) is complete shit haha. Obviously NFG were/are an MTV/TRL staple, but beyond them no easycore bands have gotten THAT big I don't think? A Day To Remember are approaching gold sales for "Homesick" I believe (don't have Soundscan though).
Give it another year or two. If Green Day, Blink, Sum 41 and Taking Back Sunday can get huge there's no reason why, say ADTR or Fight Fair can't.
Holy hell, how is this stuff still popular a decade after I was listening to it in college. Everyone use to laugh at me and "say this shit music is just a flash in the pan this crap wont last". Even I didn't believe it would stick around and I love this stuff.
Fuck next your going your going to tell me sca is still hang on. I'll come by SYWH and there will be posting about Real Big Fish, fuck I hope that shit is dead and gone forever.
For real, this shit is BLOWING UP!! It's HUGE out here, we call it Kid-Dynamite-Core.
Also, fuck yeah NFG! We screamed at Chad at the Warped Tour in '02 until he played the riff for Firestorm. And NOTHING gets a 19 year old edge dude more stoaked than hearing that "dun dun, dun dun, dun dun, dun dun, dundundundundundundundun"
HAHA, Firestorm should be played whenever anyone talks about SxE.
I never really got into the easycore. I saw a lot of the bands when they would open for HC bands. NFG got booed in Pitt at a Snapcase show. 3 weeks later they were on TRL. shows what HC kids know. After that show I got into an argument with two kids wearing NFG shirts. I don't remember what the argument was about… I probably told them NFG sucks and is for pussies and assholes. They probably said something about Snapcase being irrelevant and SxE. Although I remember them know most of the lyrics too Progression through unlearning. I probably just told them the fat mexican bassist was fat and gay.
I just don't know too much about easycore I guess. Maybe I listened to it, and didn't know. Is kid Dynamite considered easycore? charlie brown gets a valentine?
Also, fuck yeah NFG! We screamed at Chad at the Warped Tour in '02 until he played the riff for Firestorm.
Haha, love it!
As for Kid Dynamite, wouldn't they fall under the heading of amazingcore??
@yeahyouknowit
I think I just took your use of the term "Top 40", (which is still run by Hiphop/Black Pop) a little too literally. But as for the quite radical metamorphosis of the modern boy band since the days of N'sync I definitely agree. Though I think that's due to the changes in music/culture, specifically the Hot Topicization(lol) cum Disneyization of punk/emo/hardcore/scene/etc that has been happening since the decade began. And of which I view groups like the ones mentioned as products of the changed/expanded tastes rather than agents. I'm open to more enlightenment tho.
@Sergeant D
LOL, I actually dug quite a bit of that Lookout stuff in highschool (well Green Day/Op Ivy anyway) but I could never get into Squirtgun! They were just soo relentlessly HAPPY. I was looking for teen angst & catchy riffs & Squirtgun was too much blasting down a chocolate river on Jet Skis powered by rainbows & high fives. I could take the most abrasive, obnoxious extreme metal but Squirtgun was too much. Maybe I should check them out again.
i thought kid dynamite was orgcore. bands like bane & stretch arm strong are amazingcore.
http://www.dobi.nu/yourscenesucks/orgcore/index.htm
BAAAAAAAAANNNEEE! and stretcharmstrong? I know this blog is filled with jokes and satire, so I hope that is why you mentioned those two bands. I'm not saying they are bad, but I wouldn't use the term amazingcore. unless the nofunclub recently petitioned the dictionary to change the definition of amazing to mediocre. haha, Bane and stretcharmstrong are mediocore. lolz.
Bane, Have Heart, Champion definitely fall under the "amazingcore" label.
Instead of adding breakdowns to pop, the amazingcore formula is one part 3rd rate Ten Yard Fight rip-off + pop-punk melodies + sincere and heart felt lyrics that cause every 16-20 year old with within earshot to two-step with tears in their eyes thinking about that one time that girl Jenny in Algebra II totally ditched them for the 1st string Quarterback on prom night but it's really her loss since you know deep down inside you're a better person than that stupid Chad Taylor.
Also just a heads up Title Fight will be the biggest easycore band within a year or two.
Ryan, genius comment!!! A++++, love it!
PS Champion are my BFFs, have known some of those dudes since like 92 and lived with Todd for a while in the late 90s. Can't say I'm a fan of their music though haha.
two-step with tears in their eyes
Also, can't stop LOLing at this!!!!!
Synchronized jumps are also a must for this genre, no?
I thought this genre was termed popcore? Is popcore simply another name for this music or another genre all together. Perhaps for bands like The Wonder Years?
Nice to see that there are plenty of glockenspiels in easycore's future.
Fuck everything about this genre except for NFG and FYS. 99% of the kids that listen to these bands do it to be trendy.
P.S. City Lights is a joke.
P.P.S. listen to Lifetime/Kid Dynamite.
lol I listened to Lifetime in 1993 bro
Fuck yeah! this genre is amazing. so much fun.
all these breakdowns sound the same?!
Where does Reggie and the Full Effect (full FUCKING effect) fit into the pantheon of easycore?
You should definitely check out this band if you like easycore and the Can't bear this party video!
http://www.myspace.com/chunknocaptainchunk
FRENCH HEAVY POP PUNK! get stoked!
awesome post! but i don't think u have 2 be christian to play easycore… it's just bout bein happy and havin fun. i also think that nfg is for easycore like blink is for pop-punk – idols, role models. u should check out close your eyes, they are good (and christian -.-), kinda like adtr. i still hope that easycore won't become so scene like hardcore already is. it sucks.
This genre would be better if they all sounded exactly like Gorilla Biscuits' "Start Today", too bad they don't. All this post-Blink 182 style pop punk just bores me.
They are kings of easycore:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWZGj99Alh8&feature=player_embedded
Yellowcard Wall of Death
Hey guys! Check out the new Pop-punk band SUCKERPUNCH from San Antonio, TX!
http://www.myspace.com/suckerpunchsa
Show some love!
personally i fucking hate the name easycore, it just makes it sound like it's for those who cant handle metalcore/deathcore when really people who are into this might simply just be over heavy music but still get's into the hardcore buzz
Pop Punk Hardcore has always defined it for me and is one of my fave styles withing the metal/hardcore umbrella
haha I like the name easycore! well it’s aight. haha. I say easycore cuz the other name popcore makes me think of Lady Gaga and all that other popular crap that’s out right now. I think easycore is a cool name cuz it’s more chill and the songs are like all about friendship and hanging out and so on. but my interests evolved a little differently than yours probably. I started off in punk (pop punk i guess haha) and from there found easycore, now I’m branching into more modern hardcore with screams and stuff which easycore got me acquainted with.
Hey guys check out armed with crayons they're pretty sick, the song UPS can suck it has ska in it too haha!
Great post dude! It gives some reference to those that are new to Easycore, or as i'd rather call it: Popcore :)
Thanks alot!
heartsounds?
this genre always struck me as summer music, love it.
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Awesome subgenre. I freaking love the breakdowns and when everyone yells and stuff haha.
i didn’t read all comments so these may have been mentioned
Chunk! No Captain Chunk! (french. interesting vocals)
Me vs Hero
In Her Own Words
Underline the Sky (female vocals)
Call the Shots
Four Year Strong
Operation Nothing
:)
It’s cool to see that easycore and music resembling it are going global, and that bands playing it arise from countries you wouldn’t expect them to. Like Founding Neverland from Finland, where most people listen to straight up metal.
Links for everyone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dxZABm9C9Y
http://www.facebook.com/foundingneverland
i am glad you finally brought up Saves the Day. although they music they played was far from easy imo. they def paved the way for a shit load of easy core bands to follow in their footsteps and jock the living shit out of their bass lines riffs and general vocal style.