Punk

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is a question for people who didn't experience punk firsthand (sorry o wise eldersaurs!)

How did the ideas/legacy/presence of punk affect your listening to and thinking about music?

(I didn't say it was a small question)

And do you still feel it as a presence within pop music and culture? Does it affect current music? Does it affect how you approach the music that came before it?

I'm interested in 'my' generation of listeners (30somethings) but also especially in 20somethings and younger - and in British people especially.

Comments

[sbp.livejournal.com]

its just another wave of teenage rebellion in the great history of teenage rebellion

It's just another wave of *orchestrated* teenage rebellion in the great history of *orchestrated* teenage rebellion set up to sell music - from Elvis to Malcolm McLaren to Busted and Avril.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

yes. and hurrah!

[perfectputsch.livejournal.com]

so what?

i dont really see how this invalidates it.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

the women thing is a very big deal i think, and something we were very aware of and exccited by at the time -- if there was one thing GROWN UPS didn't get it was how cool girls now were (ok that sounds silly BUT THAT'S HOW WE FELT)

i think the stuff abt bein anti-yes and whatever makes absolutely zero sense these days, and actually it makes my teeth grate whenever ancient punkers give themselves medals for it -- 50-yr-olds laying down the law abt how their taste when 18 must be eternally looked up to, their taste at 15 eternally mocked (obv both their tastes were utterly wrong as they were THREE YEARS OLDER THAN ME hence clowns)

[perfectputsch.livejournal.com]

i dont reckon ancient punkers shouldnt pat themselves on the back a bit. just not so much as to continue writing those awful "100 best albums ever!!!" lists.

i agree that they shouldnt be telling us what is and isnt 'classic' or important - especially since "they" in this case are all uniformly straight white men and thus not a competent and fair group of judges - but that doesnt mean we shouldnt look back at the music they loved and want to learn about why it was so important to them etc.

i like looking at what made teenagers feel excited and sexy and rebellious in the past. maybe i'm one of natures historians in that sense. i think the problem is that all the above mentioned 'best albums ever!!' lists turn the history of music into a big boring textbook, one which excludes any contribution to music that appeals to people who aren't male, straight, white and now 50. it takes the back-patting too far. thats a shame, because now instead of people who refuse to listen to anything from after 1979, we now have people who refuse to listen to anything from before 1989, and it seems to me that music should be good because its uhh...good.

i'm interested to know how female punks felt at the time. did it appeal to the imaginations of women for whom the more academic brands of feminism would have seemed boring or intellectually too challenging?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i agree abt "music they loved", i just think they shd be a bit less triumphalist abt "music they loved which has also coincidentally gone down as history's winnahs", since i know (from my own and everyone else's experiences) that they earlier loved all the things they later hated! so they shd tell us abt that too!

i'm not sure that academic feminism was an issue at all - this is 15-yr-olds we're talkin abt for starters, plus AF didn't get online as something to shy away from till the early 80s really

it was more that it was accessibly DIY feminism -- as in "haha TAMPAX!" type behaviour, which agreeably freaked everyone out plus having a (mild but clear) element of social-political energy to it... you didn't have to join consciousness-raising groups or be active in any way more tedious than how you looked and acted as you walked down the street

(i wz v.quiet and shy and watchful -- my punkiness wz all internal)

[perfectputsch.livejournal.com]

well i was reading up on feminism when i was 15 - largely prompted by Bikini Kill and Hole records (which i got off a 60 year old, weirdly lol). but its interesting because a lot of girls i know wouldnt want to read up on feminism particularly, or even actively distance themselves from it because they think it means being a lesbian or wearing buttons up to the collar, or it'll just put boys off or something. but when they're listening to a lot of music by girls right now, be it Shystie or Kathleen Hanna, they're getting real feminist ideas almost without knowing it, like its slipped in their soup and its still affecting the way they think and encouraging them to stand up for themselves.

i suppose girl punk, or girl rock or whatever, is a sort of feminism that said everything without having to write it down and persuade someone to read it - like you said be active in a way that wasnt tedious. i suppose the image of a girl onstage doing her thing and wearing something outrageous paints a thousand words and is maybe a better form of expression than some essay in a journal no one outside academia will read.

so i think musical expression is a good vehicle feminism for that reason - coz young girls (and boys) dont necessarily want to read books but will get all their cues from female bands and want all the records they can get their hands on. its a good way of communicating a message.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you not think that in the British media today, at least, the "I was wrong then" line is more common (on cultural & political subjects) than "I've been right for thirty years"? Everyone loves a bout of repenting, or maybe I'm thinking that because I flicked through the Observer yesterday, the paper for the "I used to be a leftie but I'm alright now" crowd.
mcarratala

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

never read the obs so maybe yr right :(

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The form is more:

i. Older writer pens regretful I-was-wrong piece which often turns out to be "the world has changed and so I have too".

ii. Younger writers write about how inspirational the old stuffz were.

There's no NEED for 50 yr olds to crow about their 18 year old tastes when 30 yr olds can vicariously crow about it for them.