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If u want to feel really old, consider this: BROKENCYDE has been a band for almost 8 years, and their ‘breakthru single’ “Freaxxx” came out 6 years ago. And while it’s kind of a bummer that they are still a band in 2014, looking back I think they were actually pretty sweet. Say what you want, but aside from possibly ATTACK ATTACK, I don’t think there’s a band this generation that changed the game more than BC13 did.
Let’s take a look back at the rise and fall of this important band:
Most of us became aware of BROKENCYDE when their ‘breakout single’ “Freaxxx” came out and provoked a wave of internet butthurt that I still don’t think I’ve seen the equal of. In order to understand the magnitude of the asspain epidemic, I think it’s worth stepping into the Wayback Machine and remembering that 2008 was a simpler time.
Things moved at a slower pace: you had to carefully read Myspace bulletins to find out about new releases, then go through the trouble of downloading them from some weird Russian Blogspot. So the pace of musical innovation was slower, and we thought people only said things like “crunk/screamo/trance” for a joke in the “genre” field of their MySpace. But then BROKENCYDE actually made a whole album of exactly that combination and the internet exploded. Everybody from Absolute Punk to Vice to Kerrang were so offended by the very existence of this song that you’d think someone raped their mothers.
At first I was as baffled as everybody else by these kids: I mean back then, the idea of kids with crazy scene hair screaming stuff like “make it clap for me” was just too much to process. And looking back, “bree bree, nigga” is probably the most advanced line that has ever been recorded– if you think about it, I’m still not sure anybody has topped that one! And IDK about you, but I think the songs on this record (“BC13 EP”) are actually pretty fucking good.
This song is catchy as fuck, and I spent a LOT of nights in 2008-2010 listening to this and the first HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD album and getting wasted/high with random girls. Not the proudest time of my life but I definitely got any kind of “letting the alien out” impulses out of my system and BC13 was the soundtrack for it.
One of the most common criticisms of the band was that they were “rich white kids from the suburbs,” which I assure you they are not. They are scrappy Mexican kids who grew up poor as shit and do not give a fuck. Which is why I loved this extremely advanced skit from their first full-length: last I checked, rich white kids from the suburbs didn’t say “carnál” for a joke, and I guarantee you this track went over the heads of 99.999% of their audience.
I was hoping that BC13 might be “the next big thing,” and I still think they had potentially to be a semi-mainstream crossover band. They had the image, the hype, and their early songs had a lot of potential. But sadly it was not meant to be. I’m not sure what changed on their end as far as production goes, but after the EP their songs just were not good (for example this one, which was their first big “single” after the BC13 EP). Image and hype can only take a band so far. At some point, if your music is awful you’re going to hit a wall. Ask MILLIONAIRES about that one, who also could have been a big deal if they didn’t have such fucking wack songs after “Alcohol” and “Stay The Night.”
There is one notable exception: “Teach Me How To Scream” is imo a legit banger. I was hoping this would be a sign that they were back on track, but sadly it was just a blip on the radar and the rest of their releases have been mediocre, generic stuff with none of the hooks, energy and genuinely funny/catchy moments from their older songs.
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Bafflingly, it looks like they are still a band– or at least, their Facebook is still updated occasionally and they haven’t announced a breakup or whatever. I kinda genuinely feel bad for them, because from the few times I met/interviewed them, they seem like nice kids (except Se7en), and it’s not like they have anything to fall back on. So they’re still out there grinding it out because what the fuck else are they gonna do with their lives??
The real bummer is that I think they’re going to be one of those bands that never gets anointed as tr00/pioneers/Real Music. As we all know, the way it works is that after 10-12 years, almost all bands change from being “gay shit for posers” to “seminal legendary pioneers” who are taken seriously. But there are always a few bands who slip through the cracks and never get their due, and it looks like that’s where BROKENCYDE is headed. They really were way WAY ahead of the curve in terms of combining electronic music, hip hop and screaming/heavy music, but sadly I think they’ll probably get stuck in whatever sad, lonely corner of the internet that LEN, STEREO SKYLINE, and DEMOLISHER live in.
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