![]() ![]() The song has a very interesting rhyming scheme that is hard to explain and it’s pretty much a straight up pop punk song. “How Do I Get To You?” Really works as the creepy entitled love song written from a criminal in jail. The song also reminds me a lot of the Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian”.ģ. Musically, the song sounds like a heavier Ramones and with a chorus goes into a classic pop melody with Brian Wilson inspired harmonies. In the context of the album, Blue sings about a lady that he only sees from the outside, but outside of the album the song can be seen different and could even be seen as romantic. It also has some cutesy lines that are pretty poetic like “In a world of nightmares you’re my sweet sweet dream” and “In a lifelong wintertime you’re my first day of spring” describing the purpose of meeting this special person. The song is full of prison imagery and love clichés. Blue sees a relationship as a prison, but he doesn’t mind being locked in that kind of prison for life. The prison/criminal imagery serves here mostly as a metaphor. “25 to Life”: Is maybe the song that works most as keeping the gimmick separated from the song itself. Does this intro have the required features needed to introduce a band that dress up in masks and plays the roles of criminals? Is there noisy music? Check! Is there an obligatory police siren? Check! Is the bands named spelled out? CHECK! M.A.S.K.E.D. “Masked Intruder”: The first track is just a short intro. A strong strength of the band is their musicianship and their production, which might be one of the reasons they have more success than a lot of similar sounding bands: that, and the songwriting of course.ġ. This article is about the first album though. This is however maybe when they come to a point where the gimmick will wear off and sadly the songs and their songwriting will too, but hopefully not. Their second album M.I somehow fell short to this one, but gets better and better and does have a couple of good tunes. The album was released on Red scare in 2012 and re-released on Fat wreck Chords in 2013. They also bring a police officer, Officer Bradford, on tour, who’s with them on stage. This article will be mainly on the band Masked intruder, and who’s behind the masks of Intruder blue (singer and guitarist), Intruder Green (guitar and vocals), Intruder Red (Bass and Vocals and Intruder Yellow (drums) is irrelevant. There’s something universal and relatable in their lyrics that works outside of, and even in spite of, their gimmick something that is inside the human consciousness (and not only some kind of institutionalized sexism), but something that makes the songs work on their own without the gimmick or the criminal imagery. The thing is I don’t think the band would have been as great as they are and have the following and diverse fan base they have if they were just dependent on having a gimmick and singing creepy sexist songs about being criminals and breaking into ladies’ houses. The band does undoubtedly have a gimmick, and the gimmick is sort of silly. ![]() It’s also dangerous to blame shitty cultural things that are ingrained in society on a band. Is any band truly original though? Can’t we just enjoy the music? Finally a band plays pop punk! And are any of those Gainesville or NFG-core bands that original? Same as a lot of homophobic and misogynist hip hop artists, MI operate under fictional characters and it gets harder to accuse the band of being sexist. I can’t really argue that the band is not generic except for Blue’s vocals, they don’t really bring anything new to the table. The most common critiques of the band would be that they don’t bring anything new to the table, that they base all their music on old ideas and that they are simply generic, that they have a gimmick that won’t last in the long-term, or at all, and that they are contributing to a sexist male-dominated culture, which overflows with entitlement and objectifies females. There are of course good bands in both these genres of punk, but to me Masked Intruder’s blend of Ramones-core and oldies-core with Intruder Blue’s vocals that are absolutely beautiful is something else. Pop punk has been a distant genre the last few years, especially in the traditional version and what we’ve grown to know Pop punk as, has been either whiskey-drinking hipsters from Florida with beards, singing gruff songs about how much life sucks, or whiny metalcore bands with boy band vocals that sounds like they have a huge longing to be on TRL, even if that shit doesn’t exist anymore. ![]() This is the most recent pop punk pick so far! Masked intruder’s self-titled debut album! Four masked gentlemen in ski masks with different colors singing creepy songs about breaking into a girl’s house and winning her love and sad unrequited love songs. ![]()
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