War in Iran
The headlines are built on long histories and debates.
Posted on in Hot Topic
PUNK
8 reviews on the music and culture of rebels with a cause.
Posted on November 21, 2024 in Hot Topic
Bolton, Andrew. Punk: chaos to couture, by Andrew Bolton with Richard Hell, John Lydon, and Jon Savage. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2013. 239p ISBN 9780300191851, $45.00.
Reviewed in CHOICE March 2013
This catalogue accompanied the compelling exhibition Punk: Chaos to Couture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Organized by the Met’s Costume Institute, the exhibition examined the influence of the punk aesthetic on fashion. The do-it-yourself philosophy of punk offered a subversive alternative to the precision of haute couture. Yet fashion was quick to embrace the new aesthetic and incorporate punk’s visual and symbolic aspects. Punk led the way for fashion designers to experiment with accepted standards of self-presentation, originality, and individuality. The designer Vivian Westwood was especially influential in translating the punk ethos into clothing. Curator Bolton’s catalogue features four essays, including two by musicians Richard Hell and John Lydon that reveal how their personal style and life experiences came to define punk. Writer/filmmaker Jon Savage presents an essay on punk fashion and its connection to the London and New York music scenes. The second half of the book is a visual essay with candid images from the late 1970s and early 1980s, paired with images from runway fashion shows. The juxtaposition of the two types of images makes clear the extensive influence punk continues to have on fashion. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. —C. B. Cannon, Savannah College of Art and Design
Mattern, Mark. Anarchism and art: democracy in the cracks and on the margins. SUNY Press, 2016. 187p bibl index afp ISBN 9781438459196, $85.00; ISBN 9781438459219 ebook, contact publisher for price.
Reviewed in CHOICE September 2016
Mattern (political science, Baldwin Wallace Univ.) extends analyses of strategies challenging liberal-capitalist political order in the US into the popular arts, especially do-it-yourself punk music, poetry slams, graffiti/street art, and flash mobs. Each of these forms “prefigure deeper forms of democracy” as envisioned in theories of anarchism and of participatory democracy. The author explores practices of these arts on the dimensions of social organization, political action, power, equality, and freedom; together, they become integral parts of larger social movements for progressive change. Ironically, the contagious success of these arts often depends on the use of large-scale capitalist internet and social media corporations and the panoply of state structures supporting them. Absent from, but shadowing, Mattern’s analysis is the long US tradition of religiously inspired communities and countercultural communes that instantiated many of these democratic dreams. Equally important are the many practices of direct democracy and “commoning,” legal and illegal, which upheld common rights to resources, explored in Dana D. Nelson’s Commons Democracy: Reading the Politics of Participation in the Early United States (CH, Jun’16, 53-4594). A philosophically and historically nuanced critique of instrumental theories of art in US history is Joli Jensen’s Is Art Good for Us? (2002). Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. —E. J. Eisenach, University of Tulsa
Patton, Raymond A. Punk crisis: the global punk rock revolution. Oxford, 2018. 218p bibl discography videography index ISBN 9780190872359, $99.00; ISBN 9780190872366 pbk, $27.95; ISBN 9780190872397 ebook, contact publisher for price.
Reviewed in CHOICE May 2019
Punk Crisis examines punk as a global phenomenon. Covering primarily the years between 1977 and 1987, Patton (education, John Jay College, CUNY) demonstrates how punk media, fashion, and events came together to influence similar movements across the world. Patton argues that the influence of reggae music and fashion since the 1960s, especially in the UK, must be considered along with punk because these subcultures offered a powerful response to the power structures threatening human wellness and survival: structural bias, unemployment, nuclear weapons, environmental degradation, proxy wars, and famine, just to name a few. More insidious than these agents of destruction were increasing collaboration and coordination between world powers. Punk music, clothes, periodicals, and performance offered ways for youth and other unrepresented communities to react to the experience of living under dehumanizing conditions. Patton brilliantly argues that creating a space for reaction unified punks throughout the world. Punk was not affiliated with single ideologies or movements. Rather, by providing outlets for disruption, punk reinforced communities vulnerable to systematic social and economic violence. This book makes a substantial contribution to scholarship on punk and other forms of music and popular expression within the larger contours of history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. —J. G. Matthews, Washington State University
Post-punk and philosophy, ed. by Joshua Heter and Richard Greene. ALA Neal-Schuman, 2024. 304p bibl index ISBN 9781637700570, $24.95.
Reviewed in CHOICE November 2024
Volume XIII in “Open Universe’s Pop Culture and Philosophy” series, this book is an essential contribution to scholarship examining connections between post-punk and philosophy. As with similar collections covering music and culture, the definition of the topic remains flexible, but a consensus about what post-punk is does emerge and references music mostly created during punk’s heyday in the late 70s–80s, with exceptions. Contributions range widely across diverse inquiries into post-punk and philosophical research. While most essays deal with British bands and Western philosophy—ancient as well as modern—a few explore connections between post-punk and Eastern thought, Indigenous traditions, and post-modern criticism, while others address the psychological, aesthetic, and political dimensions of post-punk. Though organized into seven thematic sections, the theme of authenticity runs throughout, as does the work and career of John Lydon (Sex Pistols, Public Image Ltd.). Among philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche is widely cited. The book concludes with author biographies, which include lists of favorite post-punk bands and records; though mentioned several times in this section, the Violent Femmes do not receive comment in any contribution. Summing Up: Essential. Undergraduates through faculty. —J. G. Matthews, Washington State University
Punk identities, punk utopias: global punk and media, ed. by Russ Bestley et al. Intellect, 2021. 260p bibl index ISBN 9781789384123 pbk, $39.50; ISBN 9781789384147 ebook, $30.00.
Reviewed in CHOICE September 2022
Though most essays in this collection focus on punk in a particular place—e.g., Northern Ireland, the Philippines, San Diego, and Turkey—the subtitle indicates that some contributions consider punk through media such as cinema, zines, audio formats, and web pages. An exception to the collection’s general geographic orientation is “Trans-Punk: DIY Identities and New Modes of Subjectivity,” in which Gareth Schott explores the self as a place where people can disrupt normative and hegemonic discourses. The breadth of critical approaches contributors employ, including sociological, feminist, and mass media inquiry, reinforces the differences and commonalities of punk scenes and subcultures across the globe. Considered together, these essays underscore punk as a social, cultural, and political space or opportunity in which identities can be radically negotiated. Several essays utilize interviews as primary sources, demonstrating how to conduct punk research, a complex prospect in light of the boundaries punk communities often enforce according to notions of authenticity. As part of the “Global Punk” series, published in collaboration with the Punk Scholars Network, this book is a credible scholarly resource that pushes the parameters of punk studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. —J. G. Matthews, Washington State University
The Punk reader: research transmissions from the local and the global, [ed.] by Russ Bestley et al. Intellect, 2019. 324p bibl index ISBN 9781789381290 pbk, $33.00; ISBN 9781789381306 ebook, $26.00.
Reviewed in CHOICE May 2020
Arranged in 13 chapters, this edited volume collects essays thematically tied to punk’s global influence outside the US and UK, which argue against the notion that global punk continues to model itself after Western definitions of punk. At its heart, the text explores seemingly disparate and international punk scenes to discuss concepts of authenticity, identity, and production, highlighting “the emergence of punk rock in both a contemporary and global sense” (p. 18). Content includes discussing punk scenes in countries not previously or extensively studied, such as Iran, Portugal, and Malaysia. Each chapter begins with the author’s abstract, keywords, and a brief biography. While a general audience can be included in its readership, the consistent use of scholarly terms makes this volume most favorable for graduate research or a professional audience in the areas of ethnomusicology and musicology. Of note are the detailed references provided at the end of each chapter, the copious footnotes, and the extensive index at the end of the book. Altogether, this scholarly collection effectively presents a cohesive look at a post-2000s global punk culture. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. —J. Jocson-Singh, Leonard Lief Library, Lehman College CUNY
Worley, Matthew. No future: punk, politics and British youth culture, 1976–1984. Cambridge, 2017. 404p bibl index ISBN 9781107176898, $69.99; ISBN 9781316625606 pbk, $22.99; ISBN 9781316779569 ebook, contact publisher for price.
Reviewed in CHOICE June 2018
British punk sought to shock and disturb. The Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, the Slits, the Nips, Fatal Microbes, and scores of other bands combined a do-it-yourself ethos of amateur musical artistry with outrageous lyrics that excoriated the sacred traditions of conventional society. Historian Worley (Univ. of Reading, UK) has written a scholarly book that places this cultural phenomenon within its historical context. He explains the emergence of punk within the faltering British economy of the 1970s. He also details the complex relationship of this music with the politics of the era, including its appropriation by elements of both the Left and the Right. Punk luxuriated in its transgressions but struggled against its inevitable incorporation by a musical industry long accustomed to catering to youthful fashions. British punk’s often desperate nonconformity imposed its own curiously restrictive expectations on alienated insurgents who, like other cultural rebels before them, eventually succumbed to yet another musical trend. Worley writes well, and his sober analysis becomes enlivened by sentences that include such phrases as “McLaren’s situationist roots revealed themselves through Bow Wow Wow.” Over 100 pages of footnotes and bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. —D. L. LeMahieu, Lake Forest College
Worley, Matthew. Zerox machine: punk, post-punk and fanzines in Britain, 1976–88. Reaktion Books, 2024. 360p bibl index ISBN 9781789148596 pbk, $35.00; ISBN 9781789149074 ebook, contact publisher for price.
Reviewed in CHOICE December 2024
While there exists a formidable body of research devoted to the history and influence of fanzines, Zerox Machine contributes new and illuminating insights to the subject. Worley (Univ. of Reading, England) primarily examines British punk fanzines produced between 1976 and 1988, but he also reveals the connections between these publications and antecedent, contemporary, and succeeding productions arising from areas of interest (e.g., sci-fi, prog rock, poetry) that alternately bumped against, overlapped, stood in opposition to, and sometimes collaborated with punk communities and sensibilities. Worley’s considerable knowledge of and fluency with the history of British punk fanzines imbue his account with authority and completeness. In addition, he deftly applies social criticism to reinforce the connections he makes between primary resources, both fanzines and their creators, and his claims and arguments about their evolving significance to social history, media studies, and communications. Worley is particularly convincing when he discusses how fanzines were and continue to be platforms for expressing contradictions and ironies rather than codifying rigid social, artistic, or political pieties, and demonstrates the ongoing influence that early fanzine design and distribution continues to have on layout and publication transmission. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. —J. G. Matthews, Washington State University