It's Not Fair but We Don't Care-Punk's resurgence in the 90's

When Punk exploded onto the scene in the 1970's, it emerged as the voice of a disaffected and disgruntled youth full of rage, rebellion and incivility; alienated by a society that refused to acknowledge or value its contributions, ideas or listen to its problems, Punks of the 1970's were an angry and violent mob it seems. As Susan Hopkins (1997) states:

"Twenty years ago, the Sex Pistols released the punk anthem, 'Anarchy in the UK'. Against a backdrop of rising unemployment, street riots and political unrest the call to anarchy made its own peculiar chaotic sense.The Sex Pistols didn't so much write songs as give voice to anti-establishment anger and frustration."

And so it was that punk was born, its rage and uncivil behaviour, its chaos and contempt for a world that refused to deal with it directed against whatever manifestation of society it could get its hands on or around. And then as soon as it had come, it died out with the emergence of post-punk genres such as New Wave and Indie in the 80's.

In the 90's, bands such as Blink 182, Green Day, Rancid, Bad Religion, No Doubt and Pennywise stepped in to put Punk back on the map. But several things had changed. Punk was no longer about the problems and ills of a society that needed to be torn down, nor was it about the fight against a controlling impersonal state structure. Instead:

"Today the essence of punk remains misgovernment, as to be worthless is to be free from certain rules and conventions.Yet while the essence of punk remains, the focus of its erratic politics has shifted. It is no longer society in decline, but the self in decline, which has become punk's preoccupation."

This is not the only part of Punk's form and function that has shifted in kind with late/post-modernity, as Punk itself no longer operates on the social and musical margins, it is nowadays popular with the mainstream itself. This itself creates an odd paradox in Punk culture, something which Punks themselves have struggled with in the wake of the counter-culture's increasingly popular appeal, which has in turn been compounded by the popularity of original punk groups with newer audiences:

"To an extent unimaginable in the 70s, punk is now big business, anarchy is now commercial. For all their rhetoric of music industry revolt,even 70s punks have returned to ride the new wave of commercial punk. The figureheads of old-style punk, the Sex Pistols, reformed in 1996 and began their "Filthy Lucre" tour."

The return of the sound was not unaided by any means. Linking in with concurrent trends in Grunge Music, itself a reproduction of many facets of this newer form of Punk music, the return of a disaffected youth with Nirvana would ultimately inspire the revival of Punk in the 90's under a pall of identity crisis, uncertainty, self deprecation, distrust of the old and a seeming resignation to the circumstances in which young people found themselves. Punk it seems had grown tired, weary, even of itself and its ideology:

"The punk which emerged out of social decline and disarray in 70s London has been reborn in the US, injected with a 90s sense of introspection, irony and black humour."

What was once formed in rebellion to a society it sought to critique, tear down and remould, is now as much a victim of the controls of society it sought to rail against. Punk no longer exists to critique society, instead much of its content now deals with the critique of the self, the anarchy of identity and the violence and rage felt against the self, alienated from all and uncertain where to turn: "If there still is anarchy in punk, it's a kind of anarchy of identity. Now more than ever, critique of the postmodern personality is to be found within popular culture itself"



Hopkins, S. (1997), '20 Years of Punk', Youth Studies Australia, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 11-19