The Punk of Today

The Punk of Today Punk was a fiery dagger that pierced into the social boundaries of the 1970s; it ripped an opening for a new wave of non-conformity and social anarchism, catalysing an already rebellious youth into a new age of political dissent and defiance. People would take to the streets scrawling lyrics from The Clash’s I Fought the Law or verses of Sex Pistols’ Anarchy over any spare wall they could find to write a clear and visceral counter-cultural signal to tell those in power they weren’t doing enough. It was one of the forerunners in a long catalogue of genres that pushed the boundaries of music and of society whether it was hippies or punk rock or grunge. The paradigm of punk was truly saturated into the fibre of everyday life and into the attitude of popular music. So, where did it go? If political disarray was the catalyst for a movement of musical rebellion, then where is punk’s renaissance? The 21st century’s political minefield of mishaps and injustices is rife. Still, our popular music culture is yet to truly reignite its rebellious flame. You could blame the aesthetic groupies. The ones that nicked their dad’s old, tattered leather jackets and dress up like a protester of the past; black eyed and built rather like a punk rocker. Yet, they succeed in only producing a fine punk effigy, an imitation that simply adorns a social media feed, an outfit for Instagram likes instead of one for the ethos of social anarchy. Personally, I think music has over-diversified in style and has become so complex that it would be virtually impossible to unite the youth of today to a single political cause like genres of the past did. Hippies came straight into the limelight of society off the back of The Beatles’ later works and the sounds of Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic Strat. When The Clash released London Calling, rock and roll had a monopoly on popular music. Yes, there were heavier (Black Sabbath) and softer (Fleetwood Mac) strands of it but it was all essentially encapsulated within this wider field we called rock and roll. So, when punk rock was born it came straight into the world from the off that was the popular music culture. It therefore obtained more listeners, and more heads turned to see what was coming than could possibly be achieved in the broken-up stomping ground of popular music. I don’t think the punk ethic is gone or missing. It may not have the same cultural impact it would’ve had in decades past, but it is there. Rap has become such a new platform for grassroots rage and the musical voice for so many who are financially deprived. It stems back from the 90s and the era of N.W.A shouting “Fuck the Police”, breeding and weaving a level of civil disobedience that correlates to the ideals of punk into this genre. In the current scene, there are many artists with that ‘punk ethos’. Jpegmafia does a good job at this. Or just watch Slowthai’s performance at the Mercury’s this year, romping around the stage kicking a decapitated likeness to our dearest daft-haired Prime Minister like he was playing a six a side down the local astro. The anarchism that holds is punk if nothing else. Rap can really hold the grit and the bleakness of reality of this time, in the same way that it used to come from the mouth of someone like Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain. Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly is such an honest and dark portrayal of some of the harshest But these morsels aren’t having the impact that they perhaps should be having. I think our youth of this generation can’t be mobilised stylistically in the ways young people were in the past. For music and the punk ethos to fully follow through into this political era there need to be some cross-genre resistance to authority. There need to be figure heads from every genre promoting the same values, the same messages, but in music that is creatively diverse and original and fresh, not a rehash of the rebellious music of the past. As far as rock and roll goes, the punk rockers feel a lot like style over substance nowadays. There’s a lot of imitations of what has been, the knock off Gallaghers and the wannabe Johnny Rottens are leaving a big void in music that is new and original; something that takes the feral nightmare that is politics today and makes it into an inspiring piece of musical protest. The closest thing that rock has to offer at the moment is probably Idles. The Bristol group themselves promote such progressive messages through and any comparisons to punky predecessors seem to not only be grating on the band themselves but very superficial too. They sound like punk, but the anarchism isn’t quite there.