Recently, YouTube music critic Anthony Fantano, also known as the internet's busiest music nerd, recently uploaded a video to his channel The Needle Drop. He titled the video Punk Isn't Coming Back (Just Cuz the President Sucks). You can watch it here, and I highly encourage you do.
Anthony Fantano brings up various valid reasons why Punk will likely not emerge again to the scale that it did before. However, I wish to expand upon some of what he states. Though the point that social media exist to get messages across better than a rowdy and distorted album of angst and disagreement provides enough of a reason that Punk will not return, I want to focus solely on the essence of what Punk is for why it will likely not return. Being a Punk music nerd, this question has also popped into my mind and it was flushed out quickly as I found myself asking an looming question:
Could a inheritable anti-establishment music genre be initiated by the popularity of what seems to be pro-establishment ideals?
I find it interesting to see the transition from most of Punk rock's anarcho-influences over the youth of the 1970s to today's youth which seem to want a bigger, more involved government. Trump enjoys to push that his ideas are against the status-quo and outside of the system, so would the opposition be to keep the status-quo and the system? Punk is all about liberating one's self from the system, to rage against the machine; not to rage against the machine that is trying to rage against the other machine.
Even if we were to look at "anti-establishment" as being against what is established, the Punk rock movement was against all forms of establishment; not just one. The Punk movement's politics were... anti-politics. Now we see that the youth population anguished over Trump's presidency being highly political. Whether either candidate got office it still leads to the same thing, the government is going to control us. The Punk movement could not stand this, as it was a product of governmental and systematic control over people during and after the Vietnam War. Now, the youth of America seems interested in getting their form of establishment into office and people agreeing with them, so they couldn't truly be Punk.
It is also important to remember that not all of Punk music is political. Most of Punk's founders such as The Motor City 5 and The Stooges were more interested in having a true, non-fake expression of music and emotion. Punk comes about as a response to music becoming big, flashy arena shows. It is to go against what society conforms to, on both sides of the spectrum.
So will Punk come back as big as it did? Probably not. If it does though, it will be because of the music and the sound opposed to people not caring for the president.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments section!
