A while back the Pop Punk Message Board lit up over a troll-ish thread claiming that all the bands that have followed the Exploding Hearts glam/garage/pop/punk style (The Biters, Mother's Children, the entirety of the Dirtnap catalog et al) were tuneless dullards. As befits an internecine battle, fans of other variants of pop-punk ( i.e. the more Lookout -styled, Ramones-y style) piled on, while others defended this surprisingly resilient sub-genre.
One band who's aiming to bridge this tiniest of divides is Portland's Mean Jeans, a band who records for Dirtnap Records but also appear on the brand-new compilation, The Thing That At Lawrence Livermore, put together by the eponymous former Lookout Records mogul.
The new Mean Jeans album, On Mars, (stream here) tones down the Ramonesmania just a bit and ups the glam/swagger of their fellow Dirtanppers. Of course, with their sci-fi themes, fancied-up arrangements and layered hooks (see "Life on Mars" for further proof),the Mean Jeans just might birth their own soon-to-be-fought-over sub-sub-genre.
COMMENTERS - please weigh in on one of the following questions
Is this micro-rift amongst the pop-punk faithful of any importance?
Is Lookout pop-punk better than Dirtnap pop-punk?
How do you rate the Mean Jeans, On Mars album?MySpace
Dirtnap Records
