The Blank Generation Part Three: From the Eighties to Now

With the passing of the "Golden Age of Music" in the sixties and seventies came the eighties, nineties, and the music of today. Sadly, when the seventies passed, the Clash passed with them, and, in my opinion, the only authentic punk music ever to be made. Punk still exists today, but we don't know it by the same name. Now it's alternative, or alt, thrash, emo, hardcore, and many other names. Punk in its purest form now is very rare, but we can still see it in such obscure bands as Fugazi.

In the eighties, though, a strange phenomenon emerged: gender mixing. We still see this today in such circles as goth, emo, punk, and so forth. Not many people can define a clear turning point for this phenomenon, but I posit that Ziggy Stardust prompted a generational fad in the form of blurring the gender line. That's right; David Bowie's alien band from Mars, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders, introduced the idea that people need not be strictly male or female. It would be perfectly acceptable for a man to wear women's clothing, or vice versa. It is possible that Bowie obtained this idea from a popular punk band of the seventies - the New York Dolls - who always dressed in drag onstage and on album covers. Bowie's Stardust character wore tight pants, and appeared quite androgenous to the audience. This enthralled the people in attendance, who then took this idea into their lifestyles. Although Bowie's music has been primarily classified under the "new wave" category, (where it rightly belongs) this idea of blurring the gender line diffused into the punk culture. The eighties also saw a rise in the general alternative movement with bands like Sonic Youth, REM, the Violent Femmes, and the Butthole Surfers.

The scene of the next music breakout phenomenon was in Seattle in the 90s. A new form of music, centered around a vague-sounding guitar and scratchy vocals, called grunge, was on the rise in 1991 after a band called Nirvana released their first album, entitled Nevermind. Soon after, bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers showed up on the scene with their own claims to fame. Record companies were confused about the popularity of these seemingly talentless bands, but were quick to sign them to their own labels before other companies got to them. Confused by their success, many grunge bands did not know what to do. They had to continue writing songs that they had no inspiration for, and had to pay record companies money that they didn't have. Well, it wasn't long before Nirvana's Kurt Cobain shot himself in the head with a shotgun, and soon after that, grunge fell off the scene almost entirely, giving birth to a newer, more palatable version of its ideals.

Today, we have garage rock. It may not sound like much, but record companies were scrambling to sign such bands as the Killers, the Strokes, the Hives, and the Hush Sound. This music is a blend of amateurish musicianship combined with genuine poetry, emulating a startup band practicing in a garage. This label has since been replaced with "alt-rock," and continues to thrive.

So, as we come to the sad end of my short series, we must conclude that the punk subculture, however small, still exists, and not only that, but exerted, and still exerts a major influence on the popular music of today. Such fields of music as grunge, rock itself, new wave, hardcore, emo, emocore, and garage rock all owe their roots to punk music and culture. And so, as the punk culture struggles to endure, ask yourself this: Ask not what your punk culture can do for you, ask why your punk culture would even consider that in the first place.

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