ALL VERY NICE, my straw men, but it is more complicated than that. There are as many people racing for pole position in the attempt to define the arc of punk rocks history as there are cultural historians trying to grind the lens through which well view developments in the market economy over the past decade. Whats to gain here? Lots: either punk rock is the most important development in rock and roll since the fifties, when the immediate youthful appeal of a music emanating from Tennessee and Chicago and the Mississippi delta directly spurred reexamination of racist ideologies inherent in the American experiment, or its a marketing ploy couched in progressive terms whose grandest expression was its explosion into suburban mainstream consciousness around 1991. Either it was real, or it was a cunning mirage. Either it was born dead, or it has always been with us. The evidence as its been presented to us -- by Rolling Stone, by Spin, by Entertainment freaking Weekly -- suggests the same old story with spiky hair: that punk, ultimately, was a grassroots style which in its maturity found a broader market and historical legitimacy. |