Fall Out Boy released their first album in five years back in May, and they gave the rather audacious title of Save Rock & Roll. My inner smartass thinks that this was because Stay Relevant For Another Two Years Or So was a bit on the nose, but you can understand the logic behind the title. Fall Out Boy seems like one of those "of its time" bands, and they are desperate to prove that they can hang around for the long haul, so they've semi-ironically proclaimed themselves saviors of rock music. What makes this funny is that saving rock and roll is brought up so much that I'm not sure what it refers to anymore.
When The Strokes released Is This It 12 years ago, they were hailed as rock and roll saviors by both mainstream and indie critics. What I'm not entirely sure of was from whom were they saving rock and roll? Was it the hilariously exaggerated macho insecurity of Limp Bizkit? The whiny voices of Tom DeLonge and Deryck Whibley? The flat-out-horribleness of bands like Mest and Blessid Union of Souls? Maybe it was all of the above. Mostly it was just a way of saying "Hey, here's a band that doesn't suck."
As the 2000s rolled around, several other bands were proclaimed as rock saviors. When The Hold Steady released their second album, Separation Sunday, in 2005 critics heaped praise on the group for their successful blending of influences like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and The Clash. You got the feeling that there was consensus of "You don't really hear music like this anymore," and perhaps those people were just then realizing how much they missed it.
A similar thing happened when The Gaslight Anthem emerged in 2007. The band's audience skewed more towards the punk crowd than Pitchfork readers who embraced The Hold Steady, but the idea was similar. This was the sort of old-fashioned, straight up rock that hadn't been played on mainstream rock radio since the mid '80s.
An even better example of this came when Canada's Japandroids emerged with their sophomore release, Celebration Rock, a year ago. On a persona level, this was the one album where I completely bought into the "rock and roll savior" notion. The opening riff of "The Nights of Wine and Roses" alone was enough to make me say "Yes! This is the kind of shit I've been missing." So, by virtue of my love for that album, I understand what the people searching for a rock and roll savior are getting at.
But I still don't get who we're saving rock and roll from? Is it the bland, post-grunge stalwarts that have dominated rock radio for well over a decade? Is it decidedly un-heavy indie bands like Vampire Weekend and Phoenix? Is it the gentle menace of mainstream Gods like Coldplay and Mumford & Sons? No one really knows. Every has a different idea of what the biggest threat to rock and roll is.
But what I've begun to notice is that rock and roll doesn't need saving. They're will always be a place for old-school blistering guitar rock. Bands like Japandroids and The Hold Steady will never go out of style, and more importantly, they'll never go out of existence. Even if the #1 Mainstream Rock song in the country is the 16,789,534th iteration of "How You Remind Me," there will still be bands turning the guitars up, regaling us with tales of classic cars and first loves, and because of that, rock and roll shall be eternally safe.
