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Donald Trump is going to make punk rock great again.
Were all going to crawl down staircases into basements and speakeasies and make amazing satirically political art.
Amanda Palmer, of the Dresden Dolls, speakinga month after Trumps election.
President Trumps gonna make punk rock great again?
Ryan Walsh, of Hallelujah the Hills, speaking inan interview earlier this month.
When I first heard it, I cringed.
The idea that good art would be the countrys salvation was bizarre.
One year in to Trumps presidency and we have indeed been flooded with resistance anthems.
For the most part they have all been complete trash.
And what a wide variety of trash!
Some have come from the well-intentioned old guard.
Never one to be out-earnest-ed, Macklemore gave us Wednesday Morning, a reaction to election night.
When she wakes up, will the world be the same?
Will my girl be afraid in the home of the brave?
Toward the end of the year Eminem parachuted in with quite possibly the worst offender.
It was a BET freestyle called The Storm and it was four and a half minutes of impotency.
Everyone seemed to love it.
The words demolish and shredded and ethered were thrown around a lot.
The problem is the pedantry.
Everything here is unblinkingly correct and on message.
These are direct responses to a massive social upheaval that carry all the fury of a college program essay.
In the 60s, then-ascendant, now-iconic acts flooded the streets with righteous yearning.
At their best the songs echoed true populism, and felt universal because of it.
(At their worst they, too, were predictable and pedantic.)
It was a strange, interesting time bands were actually naming themselves things like Reagan Youth!
But most of that rapid response material hasnt lasted, and with good reason.
Thats about as overused and easy and silly as Lets make love tonight, baby.
I mean, yeah, Reagan sucks so?
The songs of the Trump era that have worked have been more sly and less concerned with propriety.
Theres no indignation; theres no gasping about national values.
Its honest and simple and direct.
Winkingly,they chantedWe got a choppa in the trunk / for Donald Trump.
Thats Downtown Boys from Providence, Rhode Island.
And that song is A Wall.
We hear a rolling bass line, some smashed downstroke guitar, and a rising saxophone.
Then, the powerhouse vocalist Victoria Ruiz punches in for work: Howmuchis enough?!!
And whomakesthat call?!!!
The call and response vocals kick in: Fuck yeah!
The guitar goes squirrelly and sideways.
But it all comes back up for the big shouts.
From the broad side to the hidden side a wall is a wall a wall is just a wall.
Its a response to an infamous campaign promise.
Its defiant classically, punkishly defiant.
You cant ball the fuck on us I wont let that go!
But its also resigned and nihilistic.
And so its truer to our times.
Downtown Boys are big Bruce Springsteen fans.
I interviewed Ruiz once about her love of Bruce.
The song,she said, is all about desiring darkness to feel free in.
That reclaiming of the word dark I think it really works for Downtown Boys.
Political music is handicapped by its ambitions.
Theres a place and a time to talk policy and its not in song lyrics.
And most of the time, thats true.
A Wall is not pedantic, its not proper, and its not about Trump.
Its about what it feels like, right now, to be alive.
