Indie pop bands obsessed about the 'perfect tone'.
I don't give two shits if your guitar amp is made of pure gold. Nobody is thinking about your tone. They're on their phones because your songs are boring and four grand worth of pedals doesn't fix that.
Zines that only post positive reviews.
If every band you cover is 'incredible' and every gig was 'electric', your words mean fuck all. You're not a journalist. You're writing fan fiction about your mates and calling it a zine.
The concept of 'networking'.
You're at a punk show talking about industry scouts. We live in Australia. The industry is a 14-hour flight away and doesn't know your name. At best, you're gonna make a few hundred bucks playing dingy pubs. Punk rock isn't a career fair.
'Secret venues'.
Secret my ass. How on earth is the scene going to survive if the venues are so underground nobody can find them? Congratulations, you just invented not having an audience.
Bands with 500 followers and 4 people at their shows.
The Instagram to reality pipeline is broken and everyone knows it but nobody talks about it. Post another gig flyer that gets 3 likes though. Keep blaming the algorithm. It's definitely the algorithm.
"We're influenced by [mainstream American band]" as a personality.
Says you and literally everyone else. Tell me something that's not off your Spotify Wrapped. You don't come off as some intellectual artist. You come off as a glorified cover band.
Scene drama on Instagram and not in person.
If you wouldn't say it at a show don't post it from your bedroom. For fucks sake, nobody cares about your personal feud. Nobody's gonna remember it by next week and you are not important enough for drama.
Trying to 'make it' and not just making good music.
The industry is dead. Major labels aren't going to your house show. Make the music because it actually matters to you or don't bother.
People who treat venues like their personal self-destruction ceremony instead of watching the bands.
You're a plague on the scene and you know it. You are the reason venues get shut down. You are the reason promoters lose their deposit and stop putting on shows. Every space that closes because you couldn't handle yourself is one less room for the rest of us. Go choose life. Oh wait, yours is already broken.
Breakbone, circa 2025.
Safe content and polished garbage galore. Some guy cosplaying as a 'serious professional music journalist' instead of just being someone who likes loud, fast shit and has something to say. I killed that version myself and I don't miss it.
From the archive. Listicle · 17 February 2026 (write-date per catalogue correction; post-date unconfirmed) · carried verbatim.