Canon in Miniature #190

Discharge Why?

1981; Clay

This is not a particularly good EP. I’m just saying that right off the bat because it’s the only impression I really get out of listening to it; not anything deeper or more discussion-worthy, just the feeling that I just listened to a pretty shitty album. I understand exactly why Why is held in such high esteem, I know that it’s an important album in the UK punk scene and that some people are really into the whole aesthetic that Discharge work with here, but for me there’s really nothing that justifies it. Why is just kinda bad, and not in particularly interesting ways.

Actually, I think the best adjective to describe the contents here is ‘amateurish’ as opposed to shitty. The songs aren’t so much written as thrown against the wall, a collection of quickly played riffs that work OK together but don’t seem to have much thought behind them. The recording quality could be charmingly lo-fi, but the fact that there are times when all I can hear is a barrage of cymbal crashes makes it difficult to enjoy in that way. The fact that the bass seems to be put on equal footing with the guitar is nice enough, but the bassist isn’t doing anything terribly focus-worthy with his time. The vocal style could be an acquired taste, but its unintelligible word-vomit/screaming thing doesn’t work for me at all. I hate reviews that devolve into simply bashing every facet of a band’s delivery but when the album doesn’t give you anything else to work with – and Why really doesn’t, at least for me – what else are you going to do?

I mean, I could tie it all back to the fact that 77-style punk is one of my least favorite musical styles, because the general feeling I get from Why is that Discharge wish it was 1977 all over again and that The Clash hadn’t sold out and the Pistols were still a thing. The whole punk scene is an important one, not denying that, but for it only got interesting when the bands started to branch out into less simplistic realms. Straight ahead three chord punk, no matter how fast it’s played or how fiery its delivery just misses the mark for me; I know that puts me I the minority but it’s the truth. So my litany against Discharge isn’t so much meant to question their popularity in this scene but as a side effect of my own total lack of engagement with said scene. If Why works for you, more power to ya buddy. For me it’s little more than a distillation of things that I can’t understand the appeal of in punk rock. [4.3]