the Punk Ethos
15 Jun '09 18:466 editsi can almost remember the sex pistols, ( i have seen Johnny live since, was awesome) or at least, i can remember a friend letting me hear his big brothers, never mind the bollocks album along with a generation X album. the ideology started, as many do, as a reactionary force against the megalomaniacs of the music world, those self proclaimed icons apparently made of stardust, the Gods of Rock
how we embraced this new ethos, were they not also flesh and blood, how dare they proclaim semi divine status and elucidate and mediate on our behalf, we were all individuals and had a right of self expression, regardless!
then the pistols went to America, alas, the Americans were not ready, they were too star struck, still reeling from the hippy era, they realised only too soon, it was a con, a piece of business, the conceptual child of one Malcolm McLaren, never the less, the seeds had been sown and the ideology took root.
however what is curious with regard to America, is that it never really died the same way it did in Europe, and after its initial attempt, it simply reinvented itself in the form of grunge years later with Nirvana themselves astounding the entire music establishment, by the release and the unparalleled success of their attempt, in Cobains own words. 'to keep the punk ethos alive', the Album Nevermind, knocking Michael Jackson from the top of the charts, and we who were there to witness it, rejoiced!
Sadly, in his case, if it was not his wife who had killed him, anyone reading his alleged suicide note will realise that he had become everything that he stood against, a performing monkey on a hurdy-gurdy machine! the puppet of media moguls and corporate interests, he had betrayed himself and the cause, a hypocrite, he had to go.
yet it is with interest, that others consciences are not so finely honed as Kurt Cobains was, for Greenday release another album, have enjoyed immense success and thus the ethos feels comfortable with its corporate identity, and a new generation gets to feel the reverberations of that fateful time, in the early seventies, 'get up, get out, be what you are', stiff little fingers!
how we embraced this new ethos, were they not also flesh and blood, how dare they proclaim semi divine status and elucidate and mediate on our behalf, we were all individuals and had a right of self expression, regardless!
then the pistols went to America, alas, the Americans were not ready, they were too star struck, still reeling from the hippy era, they realised only too soon, it was a con, a piece of business, the conceptual child of one Malcolm McLaren, never the less, the seeds had been sown and the ideology took root.
however what is curious with regard to America, is that it never really died the same way it did in Europe, and after its initial attempt, it simply reinvented itself in the form of grunge years later with Nirvana themselves astounding the entire music establishment, by the release and the unparalleled success of their attempt, in Cobains own words. 'to keep the punk ethos alive', the Album Nevermind, knocking Michael Jackson from the top of the charts, and we who were there to witness it, rejoiced!
Sadly, in his case, if it was not his wife who had killed him, anyone reading his alleged suicide note will realise that he had become everything that he stood against, a performing monkey on a hurdy-gurdy machine! the puppet of media moguls and corporate interests, he had betrayed himself and the cause, a hypocrite, he had to go.
yet it is with interest, that others consciences are not so finely honed as Kurt Cobains was, for Greenday release another album, have enjoyed immense success and thus the ethos feels comfortable with its corporate identity, and a new generation gets to feel the reverberations of that fateful time, in the early seventies, 'get up, get out, be what you are', stiff little fingers!
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