Brokencyde Is The Future Of Music

Posted Friday, November 21, 2008 @ 05:30 in Music by Joshua Glazer

Everyone here at URB towers knows I'm prone to little journo crushes every now and again. And i am crushing HARD on this band from Albucrazy, NM.

I'm trying to come up with words to describe how I feel about Brokencyde. Just the name reminds me of all the fun i could have had in high school if only I wasn't too scared to get a neck tattoo in the 10th grade. It also doesn't help that I just went and got a 30 minute massage at the joint across the street and my fingers are slippery with lotion on the keyboard.

Before you read further, you should watch the first 30 second of so of this video, just to understand what i'm talking about. you'll probably want to hear the whole thing, so take you time and come back after.

Basically- this shit is really obvious. It's a couple couple of Suburban emokids from New Mexico doing crunk covers in a screamo vein. But to appreciate this, you really have to understand how hard it is to make it work. In college, I briefly got into the original emo-screamo-straight edge scene. This was like 1995, when things were still based in the hardcore scene of the '80s and super earnest and sincere. Sure, everyone shreiked like Cookie  Monster, but they were so damn sincere about it. All these dudes in Kalamazoo, MI, worshiping Minor Threat and eating nothing but Grape Nuts (which somehow still made them overweight) and playing with yo-yo's (seriously, like competition level yo-yo'ing). I still like a couple of these  bands. See Jihad for this music done right. But overall it was too serious to get out of the college town basements, and when I discovered techno a year later it seemed like a lot more fun.

On the other hand, you have crunk, which was mocked rather heavily, but sold a LOT of records for a while. I never really had the personal connection to crunk that  I did to hardcore emo. Too mainstream for my cooler than thou post-rave indie kid persona. But I do know that when Lil Jon tried to take it to the next level and turn crunk into actual rock music, the world collectively groaned. I gotta believe that Lil Jon would really dig Brokencyde. Or be insanely jealous. I'm not sure if I can say this in a post-Obama world, but only white teenages and scream like this. White teenagers from nice suburbs specifically. Which is why when I first heard "Freaxx"it felt like everything came together.

First, you have a 303 acid line, which as a decade plus ravers automatically perks my ears up. A nice solid beat holds it down and you can instantly tell these guys went from getting zero trim to all sorts of trim as soon as they decided to form a group. Then the screaming starts. You ever here the clip of David Lee Roth singing"Running With the Devil" acapella? It's just Diamond Dave howling, yelping and growing with zero music to help it all make sense. I listened to that MP3 about 400 times in the even days after it leaked. Hearing Brokencyde's gutteral screams over an otherwise typical hipster-electrotrack just broke me down. Completely, like in boot camp. But then it started to build me back up. Which is where i was when I found the next clip, a cover of a familiar song...

There's never been an actual riot in the URB offices, although this came close. At this  point I knew I had to put my feeling down in writing. And I'm sure I've not offered a compelling argument  for Brokencyde if you're not digging it. But then screw you. Great art can't always be debated. If you've ever found a slight appeal in the notion of a music festival in Bakersfield, CA with an average desert temperature of 98-degreesand a median age of 14.2 years old headlined by a electro-screamo-crunk act, then you totally get where I'm coming from. And if you don't see the appeal then you can go back to listening to Vampire Weekend.

Brokencyde is about to tour in England, where people seem to always "get it." They're playing more cities in the UK than the UK has cities.  Which is a joke. And I'll admit Brokencyde has given me a good laugh. But you know what, lots of people fall for other people because they're funny. And i'm smitten. At least for the next 72 hours.

Props to Maria Holland. Props to the Mish. Screw the Mish

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