The Philosophy of Streetlight Manifesto [PATREON PREVIEW]
If you do decide to subscribe to my Patreon to read this in its entirety, please go into it knowing that I put this together with little-to-no actual philosophical rigor; it’s more of a personal essay about the intersection of absurdism and what Streetlight Manifesto means to me, so I hope you take that in the spirit in which it was intended. Thank you.
“Nothing is funnier than unhappiness… It’s the most comical thing in the world.”
-Nell, Endgame
At some point this past year— partially because the pandemic has worn down the defenses of many, partially because longtime fans were sick of being shamed, partially because the sheer amount of good new shit coming out was too much to ignore, and maybe even just because of Jeff Rosenstock— ska experienced a rush of attention and acclaim, particularly third-wave ska/ska-punk and modern stuff that is directly indebted to it. You all remember! Here’s a really good AV Club piece that came out at the height of this resurgence.
Now, I love ska. I have for a long time. At some point I had this really stupid bit about how I hated ska— and anime, for that matter— and maybe due to spending too much time around comedians in my formative years, I committed too hard to the bit and actually started to believe it for real. (I have since seen the error of my ways and recanted.) But I remember how much you all hated it too! The jokes never stopped coming! That Brooklyn Nine Nine gif never lost traction!
But aside from Bomb the Music Industry!, who I think everyone rightly regards as unimpeachable, one of the few ska bands that I never saw slagged— particularly impressive since they, like BTMI!, didn’t form until after the late-90s third-wave boom had already crested— is Streetlight Manifesto. They were one of the most universally-liked bands, especially in the AbsolutePunk/Punknews sphere (which definitely tracks for me because they were basically, like, the most Orgcore ska band? Does that make sense?), which, in the mid-late 00s, totally was the online DIY world.
(Side note, I’m torn between whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, and if I’d truly wanna take the AbsolutePunk forums over Twitter or vice versa. Is it “You kids today have no idea how good you have it” or is it “You kids today have no idea how good it was way back when”? Who fuckin’ knows.)
What made Streetlight Manifesto so anomalous is that, much like Bomb the Music Industry!, they were voracious when it came to their influences— everything from jazz to mariachi to metallic hardcore to occasional tinges of grunge and alt-rock seemed to find a place within their music at one point or another, and it certainly helped that vocalist/guitarist/bandleader/composer Tomas Kalnoky (or Toh Kay, as he is known by his slavishly devoted fanbase) has always studiously made sure to recruit downright virtuosic musicians into his ranks. It’s actually sometimes a little amusing listening to them and hearing Kalnoky’s raspy, untrained yelp of a voice speeding its way over such intricately arranged and performed material, but hey, that’s also part of Streetlight’s charm.
But lately, I’ve been seeing some dastardly takes about Streetlight. I’ve been seeing some people… talking shit. Less so about the music, which I think people have by and large recognized has had an absurd amount of time and effort put into composing and performing, but more so about Kalnoky’s lyrics, which I’ve seen people write off as /r/im14andthisisdeep material or otherwise low quality.
To me, this simply doesn’t make sense. I’ve always been one of those people who doesn’t hold lyrics in this high esteem of making or breaking my experience with music; if anything, bad music can ruin good lyrics way more than bad lyrics can ruin good music. But with Streetlight Manifesto, the lyrics are the whole other half of the story. Streetlight’s sonic identity is a furious postmodern melange of (primarily) two-tone, jazz, and hardcore, but lyrically, each of their three “main” albums is actually trying to express a pointed philosophical concern amidst Kalnoky’s extremely intimate— sometimes painfully so— lyricism. Since their formation in 2002, Streetlight Manifesto have been the biggest musical proponents of the philosophy of The Absurd.
If you’d like to read more of this personal essay about the intersection between Streetlight Manifesto and Albert Camus, please consider contributing to my Patreon, or hit up my Venmo at xyoudontneedmapsx if you’d prefer to show your support with a one-time donation! If you’re interested in a band bio or some freelance writing, email me at xyoudontneedmapsx@gmail.com to hash out the details. If you’d just like to read dumb jokes, follow me on Twitter.
-xoxo, Ellie