In respose to your question, Chelsea

Let's begin by introducing the dialogue at hand. My friend Chelsea made the observation that every guy says that only the early Saves the Day and AFI albums are any good. I replied with "I've said all that shit because it is true," to which she posed the question "why?"

First of all, I don't think all males say that. I can easily imagine many-a-dude who like Pantera in metal forums posting something along the lines of "Saves the Day and AFI R 4 fggtz."

But the reason why I have a higher regard for the early works of these bands rather than their later efforts is pretty simple: they stopped doing what they did well.

Saves the Day's first two albums, Can't Slow Down and Through Being Cool, are excellent pieces of pop-punk/melodic hardcore: fast, fun and full of energy. Thir third album that found them success, Stay Where You Are, was more along the lines of that 3rd wave of emo a la Jimmy Eat World; it wasn't bad. In fact, it was quite enjoyable. But it did show the band beginning to lose that energy which made their first two albums so great. Everything after this third album...snoozefest. They started to pull that "we're respectable artists" card. Maybe Pitchfork or some other snooty zine ate that shit up. Sorry, I'm not buying it. Saves the Day were a pop-punk band. Their first tour was with Bane. And then suddenly they're the fucking Beatles? They done forgot their roots.

AFI is a similar case. Great punk/hardcore band that always had a slightly darker edge, one that came out fully on Sing the Sorrow - a rad album, despite what the haters say. But when that "Miss Murder" single dropped, they had traded their punk/hardcore energy for shitty goth makeup and haircuts. Look, I like The Cure as much as the next misunderstood teenager. But the only guy who gets to look like Robert Smith is Robert Smith. Oh, the music? Yes/no. Watered-down and generic. It sounds like they spent more time putting on eyeliner than writing songs.

I can see someone saying "Dave is just selfish and immature. He doesn't like it when bands to grow artistically." To that I say, slow your roll. Growth is fine. Growth can be great. But it's best when artists evolve within themselves. Not when they go off the deep end, because that rarely works. Think of it this way: can you imagine what would have happened if John Steinbeck had written a fantasy novel? Orcs and wizards and unicorns: the whole nine yards. Tolkien would have kicked down his front door and beaten him within inches of his life with a first edition of The Hobbit yelling, "Are you trying to fuck with this?" And that's merely in addition to Steinbeck's fantasy novel sucking really hard.

MORAL: Do what you do well. Do it to the best of your ability. You don't have to do the same thing for five albums. But don't trip out. Stay rooted (to some degree) in what you came up in. Otherwise, start a new band. Because you're tricking old fans into attending your shows with the naive hope that your setlist might contain some classic material, about which you now act as if it had never existed in the first place.

And above all else, do not try to sound like The Beatles. We get it. They kind of changed music. Now let's move on. Because surely you aren't changing it by aping them. Rather, you become - to quote Wayne's World - The Shitty Beatles.

What the hell was wrong with this? Absolutely nothing.