I’m sure anybody who has eyeballs could see it coming, but we’re headed for a major cultural shift.
The best music may be timeless and transcend space and time and even language and culture, but all music initially exists in a social context, in a dialogue with listeners and other artists who may be producing at the time. Relevance is an important factor in this relation. People want to hear music that represents their dreams and struggles and aspirations. Punk was one such movement which resonated with many people at a specific time in the 20th century. Older folks didn’t understand it, as it didn’t speak to their situation. Conversely, younger punk fans rejected their parents’ mainstream rock music for the same reasons.
The irony is that although young and old seem to reject the other’s chosen idioms, they are both subscribing to cultures and identities that are artificially created by media companies and a culture machine that was tightly controlled (at least at the time). The fledgling punk bands of the late 70’s in New York and the U.K. were not aware that they were simultaneously inventing a genre. To create the sense that a new mentality was forming required a lot of print ink and television time, all to paint a (not always accurate) picture of an awakening punk consciousness that rejected the patriarchal, hierarchical, commercial structures of the mainstream “stadium rock” which had swindled their parents. Soon enough, many new young people had hopped on board, but not before the clever media manipulation of the major record labels and their associated properties.
The INTERNET changed this in some very fundamental ways. First, it upended the tightly controlled structure of record labels and music media. They also made redundant many of the support roles for musicians, like booking and management. Suddenly there was no gatekeeper, no barriers between artists and listeners. If you wanted to hear something, you were now empowered to find it, and even the most explorative artist might find their niche in the endless sea of listeners. New genres began to pop up nearly every day.
Nobody is going to want to admit it because of personal pride or nostalgia, but punk is going to suffer the same decline and gradual fading into nothingness as the fatuous bloated rock bands they railed against. Though it tried to serve other ends, it still relied on a version of the same machine. And so much of that machinery either doesn’t or CAN’T exist now.
What would punk be without shows? Without touring? Without bars and small DIY spaces? Can it exist in a socially isolated digital bubble, or will it have to morph into something else in order to be relevant to listeners?
I think we’re still processing the ramifications of how much the world has changed. Many of the dilettantes and part-timers are realizing this is going to be much more difficult and dangerous than its worth, and those that choose to trudge on are going to have to find new ways to even EXIST in the new reality.
