‘What about a future?’ Punk as history and document
‘What about a future?’ Punk as history and document
This chapter is about punk music, or rather, one of its many meanings. Indeed, if there can ever be one certainty about punk, amidst the myriad arguments about what it is or is not, it is that punk is certainly versatile. In its time, it has served as agitprop, business model, youth movement, protest, means of promoting politics from a wide spectrum of beliefs, and even entertainment. It is a movement that has been both commercialized and has subverted commercialization. Indeed, part of the reason why punk remains a topic of discussion is precisely this multiplicity of purpose, a tendency towards both fragmentation and reinvention. However, the chapter will focus in particular on whether punk can serve as a means of understanding history, as a kind of document of its times and if so, how. In so doing, the question that will be asked is not if punk can serve as a kind of formal historical document – which, of course, was never its intention to begin with – but instead whether it can serve as a form of folk history, a subjective reflection of its times that captures the emotional responses of a particular moment in history.
punk, history, journalism, thatcherism, Social History, 1980s, the exploited, chaos uk, music, Cultural Studies
45-59
Hay, Alexander
ff494524-3d12-4389-ad51-3fa88c56437b
19 February 2020
Hay, Alexander
ff494524-3d12-4389-ad51-3fa88c56437b
Hay, Alexander
(2020)
‘What about a future?’ Punk as history and document.
In,
Grimes, Matt and Dines, Mike
(eds.)
Punk Now!!: Contemporary Perspectives on Punk.
1 ed.
Bristol, UK.
.
(doi:10.5281/zenodo.3906968).
Record type:
Book Section
Abstract
This chapter is about punk music, or rather, one of its many meanings. Indeed, if there can ever be one certainty about punk, amidst the myriad arguments about what it is or is not, it is that punk is certainly versatile. In its time, it has served as agitprop, business model, youth movement, protest, means of promoting politics from a wide spectrum of beliefs, and even entertainment. It is a movement that has been both commercialized and has subverted commercialization. Indeed, part of the reason why punk remains a topic of discussion is precisely this multiplicity of purpose, a tendency towards both fragmentation and reinvention. However, the chapter will focus in particular on whether punk can serve as a means of understanding history, as a kind of document of its times and if so, how. In so doing, the question that will be asked is not if punk can serve as a kind of formal historical document – which, of course, was never its intention to begin with – but instead whether it can serve as a form of folk history, a subjective reflection of its times that captures the emotional responses of a particular moment in history.
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What About A Future
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Published date: 19 February 2020
Keywords:
punk, history, journalism, thatcherism, Social History, 1980s, the exploited, chaos uk, music, Cultural Studies
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Local EPrints ID: 444356
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/444356
PURE UUID: df63dcae-e54c-4ac1-980a-791411939aa5
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Date deposited: 14 Oct 2020 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 09:36
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Author:
Alexander Hay
Editor:
Matt Grimes
Editor:
Mike Dines
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