\u201cPunk rock changed our lives,\u201d is the opening line of 40oz. to Freedom<\/em>. Right off the bat, it gives you an idea about how deeply the band\u2019s influences affected its music. The message is true: punk plays perhaps the greatest role of any genre on Sublime’s 23-track walk through punk, hip-hop and a variety of subsets of Jamaican music, among others. If a person was tasked with assigning a single genre to Sublime, cross-listings like ska-punk disallowed, punk would be the best choice. On top of that, a tuned-in Sublime fan will notice that the voice speak-singing the album\u2019s first line is not lead singer Bradley Nowell\u2019s. It is a sample of the punk band Minutemen\u2019s \u201cHistory Lesson Part 2,\u201d off of their 1984 classic, Double Nickels on the Dime<\/i>. So not only is Sublime telling us how important the punk they listen to is to them, and thus their music, but an actual piece of this punk makes its way into their own, original music. This is not a one-time occurrence. The songs on the album have an average of three to five samples each (source: Whosampled). Every time a sample is used, a member of Sublime is taking something he enjoyed, or multiple members enjoyed, and literally making it a part of their own creation.<\/p>\n The closing track on 40oz. to Freedom<\/em>, \u201cThanx,\u201d is less a track and more a list of everyone the band wants to express their gratitude towards. The list includes club owners, drug dealers, their families, friends and a dog. But most of all, it includes bands and artists who they appreciate, or in their words, who gave them \u201c\u2018nuff inspiration, \u2018nuff respect.\u201d A few of the over 50 artists mentioned are Bad Religion, Bob Marley, Butthole Surfers, Imagining Yellow Suns and KRS-One (source: Genius). None of the artists Nowell pays tribute to made the same kind of music he did. Bad Religion makes fairly typical punk music: short, loud, fast-paced and anti-establishment. Marley, of course, is the defining sound of reggae. Butthole Surfers is more experimental and psychedelic, while their punk roots are always evident. Imagining Yellow Suns has such a drugged-out sound that it\u2019s easy to see why their work didn\u2019t catch on outside of the Long Beach community from which Sublime hails. KRS-One is a Bronx rapper known for his genre-blending techniques as well as politically-minded lyrics. After having heard the first 22 tracks of 40 Oz. To Freedom, a listener might feel some misgivings about saying Sublime\u2019s music stems from the work of the artists mentioned, because its music is so distinct from any of them. To say Sublime is punk, reggae, hip-hop, experimental or psychedelic rock so woefully neglects the other musical styles present in their music that it would seem to be entirely inaccurate. But listen to \u201cNew Thrash,\u201d a minute and a half of yelling about rejecting what people always tell them, backed by a fast-paced, crushingly loud pair of guitars and drums, and say it wouldn\u2019t fit perfectly on a Bad Religion album. Listen to how the guitar is played in the first ten seconds of the title track, and it\u2019ll remind you of Bob Marley, the embodiment of reggae music. And right after hearing \u201c54-46 That\u2019s My Number\/Ball and Chain,\u201d half a cover of a rocksteady classic and half a punk protest of the marriage institution, listen to \u201cBadfish,\u201d and be taken on a peaceful, metaphorical exploration that only someone deep into drugs can produce. In sound and in purpose, \u201cBadfish\u201d is more like the Butthole Surfer\u2019s cover of \u201cHurdy Gurdy Man,\u201d or a trippy Imagine Yellow Suns track than anything punk. And then Nowell raps on \u201cLive at E\u2019s,\u201d and while you hear a white guy trying with limited success to spit a few bars, you can see he\u2019s taking a few of his cues, such as dub beats, from KRS-One, who he later dedicates an entire song to. So, Sublime is not any one of the artists on \u201cThanx,\u201d it is every one of them, at different times and in different places, and sometimes, at the same time and in the same place. The best way to gain an understanding about Sublime\u2019s music without actually listening to it is not through description, but through familiarizing yourself with its member\u2019s favorite artists. The term ska-punk, the critics\u2019 favorite for classifying Sublime, is rather meaningless until you\u2019ve actually heard it played, and it leaves out many elements of Sublime\u2019s style, including hip-hop. The singers and bands that are given credit on \u201cThanx\u201d contain, in sum, nearly every influence that goes into 40 Oz. To Freedom, and as such, give an accurate representation of the type of music the album consists of.<\/p>\n Sublime\u2019s very specific, though diverse, taste in music shows that its members are not the passive consumers of culture that Theodor Adorno labels the masses, but are in fact actively modifying their tastes as a reflection of their interests. To put it in the terms of Dr. Jim Taylor, professor at the University of San Francisco, Sublime is a consumer of \u201cauthentic culture,\u201d rather than \u201csynth culture\u201d (Taylor, para. 4). Synth culture is created by corporations and \u201cdriven by the profit motive,\u201d akin to the products of the culture industry (Taylor, para. 4). Authentic culture, on the other hand, is made \u201cof the people, by the people and for the people\u201d (Taylor, para. 10). It\u2019s culture that people find and consume because they genuinely enjoy it. Of the artists mentioned on \u201cThanx,\u201d there are a very high proportion of underground, Southern California punk rock groups. These groups, including Kenneth Ramsey, Rhino \u201859, Big Drill Car and the Ziggens, have something in common besides their music and homes: you\u2019ve never heard of them. The fact that these groups are so clearly not part of popular culture shows that the culture industry that Adorno and Taylor describe has no power to dictate their consumption. Sublime went out and searched for these punk groups through entirely natural means: word of mouth, attending concerts and actually meeting and performing with them. This can be verified because without advertisement, there were no alternatives for how they would have come across these bands.<\/p>\n Sublime was so into California punk that they became part of it. In his article \u201cForty Years On, What Does Punk Rock Mean?\u201d Christopher D. Shea of the New York Times defines punk music as \u201cloud, fast and rebellious\u201d (Shea, para. 1). For much of 40oz. to Freedom<\/em>, Sublime was just that. From Nowell\u2019s declaration that he will not be returning from the liquor store on the title track, behind a heavy guitar and drums combo, to the message that \u201cWe\u2019re only gonna die for our own arrogance, that\u2019s why we might as well take our time,\u201d on their cover of Bad Religion\u2019s anti-imperialistic \u201cWe\u2019re Only Gonna Die,\u201d to Nowell\u2019s idea that \u201cMarriage doesn\u2019t work in the world today,\u201d on \u201cNew Thrash,\u201d all of which are sung quickly and at a very high volume, 40oz. to Freedom<\/em> is very much, though not entirely, punk. But Sublime didn\u2019t just make punk music, they were punks, and to be a punks, you have to do much more. A few of the experts quoted in Shea\u2019s article stress the importance of a D.I.Y. attitude in punk, which 40oz. to Freedom<\/em> embraces with entirely in-house production and a record label started by Nowell (Shea, para. 4, 6). Danny Fields, former manager of the Ramones, adds youth and originality to the mix (Shea, para. 7). Sublime had plenty of both, with its unique blend of musical styles and with all its members being under 25 at the time of 40oz<\/em>.\u2019s release. They also rocked a punk style with a California twist, sporting buzz cuts, tattoos, sunglasses and often, no shirts.<\/p>\n It could be said that none of the points raised thus far are surprising or significant: no one would deny Sublime\u2019s eclectic influences, or the fact that they are California punks. But in proving the extent to which these facts are true, and how they are true, it\u2019s revealed that the members of Sublime mirror the slash fandom that Constance Penley describes in \u201cFeminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture.\u201d The artists Sublime listened to forged the opportunity for the creation of Sublime\u2019s music, just as reading slash publications inspired and allowed fans to create their own zine artwork. Like many slash fanatics, the members of Sublime are clearly both fans and creative in their own right. But what really strengthens the tie between 40oz. to Freedom<\/em> and Penley\u2019s arguments is that the members of Sublime are part of the California punk subculture, just as Penley and the group she describes are part of the slash fandom. Those in the slash fandom didn\u2019t enjoy the occasional slash zine; they consumed hundreds of them, eagerly anticipating new releases of their favorite varieties. Likewise, members of Sublime didn\u2019t listen to California punk when it happened to come on the radio (it never did); they jammed out to it everyday. They dressed punk, they followed punk, they made punk, they were punks. Also, like slash zines, the underground punk Sublime listened to went unadvertised. In fact, both were hidden–slash zines behind the counter in comic book stores and punk performances in little known punk clubs–due to their perceived crassness. As such, consumers of both were free from the manipulation of the culture industry. Both represent forms of authentic culture.<\/p>\n With the similarities between Sublime and slash fans in mind, 40oz. to Freedom<\/i> provides further evidence for the attacks that Penley makes on the Adornian argument of the function of culture. Both 40oz. to Freedom<\/i> and the creations of slash fans show that culture serves a purpose outside of \u201cinfecting everything with sameness.\u201d Culture, especially authentic culture, can serve as a template for the artwork of its fans. In fact, the influences of 40oz. to<\/i> Freedom<\/i> are removed once more from \u201cinfecting everything with sameness,\u201d as Sublime took the works of their favorite artists and made their own particular blend of music, while slash fans simply made more slash zines. Perhaps the best way to show how inseparable Sublime\u2019s role as a fan of culture is to their role as a creator of culture is by imagining that all the artists that Sublime cherishes were wiped off the face of the earth; that is to say, none of them ever picked up a guitar or sung a note. If this occurred, 40oz. to Freedom<\/i> would also cease to exist.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited \u201cThanx.” Genius, https:\/\/genius.com\/Sublime-thanx-lyrics. Accessed 15 Nov. 2017.<\/p>\n Taylor, Jim. “Popular Culture: We Are What We Consume.” Psychology Today, 8 Dec. 2009, www.psychologytoday.com\/blog\/the-power-prime\/200912\/popular-culture-we-are-what-we-consume. Accessed 15 Nov. 2017.<\/p>\n Shea, Christopher D. “Forty Years On, What Does Punk Rock Mean?” New York Times, 14 Aug. 2016, www.nytimes.com\/2016\/08\/15\/arts\/music\/punk-rock-defined-buzzcocks-henry-rollins.html. Accessed 15 Nov. 2017.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Edited by Isaac<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many great artists are also great fans of art. 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\n“40oz. to Freedom (1992).” Whosampled, “40oz. to Freedom (1992).” Whosampled, www.whosampled.com\/album\/Sublime\/40Oz.-To-Freedom\/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2017 .<\/p>\n