{"id":9166,"date":"2011-09-21T15:50:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T19:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=9166"},"modified":"2011-09-21T21:13:04","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T01:13:04","slug":"%e2%80%9cpost-punk%e2%80%9d-arbitrary-genre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/%e2%80%9cpost-punk%e2%80%9d-arbitrary-genre\/","title":{"rendered":"CON: \u201cPost-Punk,\u201d Rock\u2019s Most Arbitrary Genre?"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TAOAkVfqMAA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>I like some bands that get lumped under the &#8220;post-punk&#8221; banner, including at least three in particular that I object to frequently falling under that banner: <strong>Gang of Four<\/strong>, <strong>Public Image Ltd<\/strong>, and <strong>Joy Division<\/strong>. There&#8217;s a good chance that what I&#8217;m about to say is a case of me talking out my ass, at least in terms of the chronology of the term <em>post-punk<\/em>. I honestly don&#8217;t remember it being thrown around when I was a teenager getting into punk rock in the late-&#8217;70s\/early-&#8217;80s. Do you? Do you actually remember that term carrying any weight in 1981, or is this a term that was, as I suspect and feel the blood rushing to my temples whenever I think about it, introduced years after the fact?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it was already in use in the then-legendary and completely annoying British music press at that time, but in the small world of US underground music fans, I don&#8217;t recall the term being applied to second-wave and lesser punk bands at the time. There were &#8220;No Wave&#8221; bands and other subgenres, but I remember them all being considered part of the broader <em>punk<\/em> (and New Wave) spectrum.<\/p>\n<p>Life was simple then. There were fewer critical ghettos to annoy me.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3JRyk1DFkrw?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>To be clear, although I many I find many bands categorized these days as post-punk boring, subpar, and even dispicable, what really gets my goat is not the musical genre, if it even exists as anything distinct from the often second-rate danceable punk it often was in its time, is what I feel is the term&#8217;s function over the last 15 to 20 years as an excuse for a lot of bands that can&#8217;t (and in most cases, I suspect, it&#8217;s not a matter of &#8220;don&#8217;t&#8221;) play that well or do anything that original. The term often seems to be pulled out to point to a band&#8217;s &#8220;experimental&#8221; tendencies when it could be argued the band&#8217;s poor musicianship and awkward songwriting style makes them a modern-day version of the &#8220;charming&#8221;\u00a0<strong>Shaggs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Even <em>more<\/em> annoying, if you can imagine me getting any more deeply annoyed, is my feeling that the genre term is used as a catch-all for people who want to be different but don&#8217;t really know where they&#8217;re headed with their allegiance to that genre name. I wonder if people who use this term feel like they missed the boat on punk rock in its time and are trying to draw a new dividing line, so they can feel they were there first.<\/p>\n<p>How does post-punk not fit into the punk rock ethos? Punk was a movement defined by an ethos more than a sound. It was meant to accommodate what would follow 2 years after its appearance, wasn&#8217;t it? I don&#8217;t recall original punk rock bullies roaming the streets, threatening to kick the shit out of the so-called post-punk bands.\u00a0I feel what&#8217;s called &#8220;post-punk&#8221; comfortably falls within punk and New Wave, but that would mean an entire generation was a little late to the party. To feel better about themselves, I suspect third-generation punks from the late-&#8217;80s, when I remember this term gaining traction, came up with some artificial &#8220;new&#8221; genre and drove their flag in it. This is what most annoys me about the term. There are too many rinky-dink empires in the world, not just in music.<\/p>\n<p>Can anyone actually define the qualities of &#8220;post-punk&#8221; versus &#8220;punk&#8221; rock? Can anyone explain why anyone felt the need to apply this term, possibly retroactively, to bands that flowed directly out of the punk era? Does this &#8220;post-punk&#8221; genre serve any purposes I haven&#8217;t touched on?<\/p>\n<p><em>I look forward to some education, including <\/em><em><a href=\"http:\/\/wp.me\/p17p1Q-2qc\" target=\"_blank\">this companion post from <\/a><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/wp.me\/p17p1Q-2qc\" target=\"_blank\">Townswoman ladymisskirroyale<\/a><\/strong><\/em><em>, who embraces the genre and maybe even the use of the term that is used to characterize it.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I like some bands that get lumped under the &#8220;post-punk&#8221; banner, including at least three in particular that I object to frequently falling under that banner: Gang of Four, Public Image Ltd, and Joy Division. There&#8217;s a good chance that what I&#8217;m about to say is a case of me talking out my ass, at <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/%e2%80%9cpost-punk%e2%80%9d-arbitrary-genre\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[332,7,421,245,73,513],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9166"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}