Tynan's Anger

SONGS OF THE DECADE #28

[For more info, read the Ground Rules of The Song of The Decade List]


Fugazi - Cashout (2001)

For those wondering where the fuck Fugazi went after The Argument, they didn't go that far if you looked for them: Ian MacKaye recorded 2 albums with the Evens, which has been his primary band for the past 9 years with the mother of his child. Guy Picciotto has avoided his major label emo followers to support Vic Chestnutt, a hilarious parapalegic folk singer who regularly opens for Jonathan Richman. The perpetually underrated Joe Lally has done the most solo work and gotten the most talk on Pitchfork of his former bandmates. Brendan Canty has become a prolific indie session drummer and producer.
If you didn't look, you wouldn't know. Then again, if you didn't care about music from before 2002, you probably haven't heard about Fugazi (I know more indie fans like this than I'd like to believe). For the original bandmembers, anyway, they have stayed true to themselves, which I thought was the purpose of punk to begin with. That their last great song was called "Cashout" a quiet(ish) ode to the end of an era brought on by greed, gentrification, and generation-wide denial. If it wasn't their greatest song, so be it. But it's better spiritually, ethically, and musically than most of what I've heard since. That it came from a group of artists who had 20 years worth of life-changing music made it even better. If you wanted to hear all of that.

Labels: 2000s, cashout, fugazi, lists, pop music, songs of the decade