Pitchfork Rebuttal No. 2: Challenger's 'Give the People What They Want In Lethal Doses'

Famous for missing the point, Pitchfork Media yet again demonstrated an inability to submit a substantial argument in a review of Challenger's 2004 record, Give the People What They Want In Lethal Doses, which they gave a 5.6 out of 10 rating.

The review, written by Amanda Petrusich in 2004, bears the following intro:

It's always been kinda impossible to isolate the defining ethos of punk rock, but over the course of the last twenty-five years, the genre has been kicked over, dismantled and reinvented so many times that the term itself has devolved into little more than a hip euphemism for "obnoxious." In 2004, dubbing a band "punk" and walking away is, essentially, a completely meaningless exercise.

And thanks for a completely meaningless intro. If it's useless to argue the meaning of punk in that countless bands have stretched the genre's supposed foundations to a blur, why try? And why base the rest of the argument on Challenger's use of "hammering drums, loud guitars, [and] shouting," as signifiers of punk "ethos"? Can there even be a particular punk ethos? Did the Ramones roll out a mission statement? Was Johnny Ramone not a progressive right winger? Does every punk band use the same formula? C'mon. You can't argue the ethos of a genre; only of its bands. Plus, I thought "hammering drums, loud guitars, [and] shouting" were just standards of rock'n'roll.

Anyway, she goes onto say that Challenger has set out to break away from today's fruitless, so-called punk music with a nod to the heavies of the '80s punk underground, such as the Minutemen and Black Flag, but in the process, they end up sounding just as lifeless as the "quasi-authentic nu-punk" of the moment. To drive it in, she says it's not that they aren't full of life and energy, "...[but] that their entire founding principle seems so painfully, tediously borrowed; in sticking to that ever-nebulous true-punk formula, they've abandoned their only shot at capturing an original, non-nostalgia laced sound."

"True-punk." She sounds like an outsider, here. A heavy reader of Spin Magazine. A writer for Pitchfork Media. A person who--oh hey!

So basically, Challenger's crime is that they wanted to write a heavy, naked, bullshit-free album out of an obvious love for generations of good music carrying the punk tag--rather than create "original" work.

The author proceeds to cop out: "Most of Give People What They Want," she says, "is fairly textbook."

Textbook. So over-used. So meaningless.

But let's finish 'er out:

Not too many of these tracks are especially discernable from each other. Which is fine, when you're just thrashing around your apartment in big boots-- but it's not so promising when you sit down to weigh the respective heft of Challenger's own brand of punk rock.

"Big boots." The reviewer is a bonafide outsider.

Challenger may punch up their songs with some exhilarating vocal harmonies and unexpected structural shifts, but in the end, they never really transcend their own love/appreciation for their legendary influences-- a choice which prevents them from making a sizable dent in the ever-flexing history of punk.

Taking into account the respective pasts of Challenger's core members--they left the excelling basics of Hellbender and Griver for the chance to do something a little different/"original" in Milemarker and a number of other non-traditional projects--how can one not understand that this "punk" band was an intentional step away from innovation, for the pure and respectable goal of just having fun playing the type of music they enjoy? Nostalgia can be a sincere drive. It can produce a meaningful effort. It can create great music for people who understand that.

Otherwise we'll just have to eviscerate cover bands for being "unoriginal."