punk isn’t just skinny. punk isn’t just perfect mohawks or aesthetically pleasing jackets. punk isn’t only listening to dead kennedys or black flag. punk is being an individual, having no respect for our fascist authority, sticking up for the little guy even if you are the little guy. punk isn’t just a look or a music scene.
i literally made this because nazis and the alt right can’t be punk
Stop bringing politics into music genres lmao
stop bringing politics…….. into punk????
Here’s Green Day, one of the most popular and well known punk bands.
Wait, but there’s MORE!
Wait, in case you weren’t convinced that the punk scene is political and is all about standing up against fascism and bullshit and racism that America is facing:
shut up. Punk is not just a fucking music genre.
Ok I’m reblogging this again bc when I went to see green day, before they properly started playing they made us make a pledge, at the gig there is to be ‘No racism, no sexism, no homophobia, no donald trump’
Punk has been political long before Green Day existed. The political history of the Punk scene(s) cannot be divorced from the music scene(s) that arose out of them. It is not just about music. It is not just about fashion. The stylistic choices made have meaning and are situated in a social/political context.
That being said, it’s really important to acknowledge that Neo-Nazis didn’t infiltrate the Punk subculture for no reason. Absolutely, make it clear that Neo-Nazis are not welcome in The Punk Scene. However, part of doing that means confronting how they got there.
Punk music isn’t all about one political stance, though it’s commonly anti-authoritarian. Anyone can utilize the genre to promote their own ideologies, even if a popular intention of the genre is to be anti-authoritarian. Green Day is just one of many bands who use Punk music to spread their ideology.
It’s not just punk. Music has been used as a form of rebellion against oppression for a hell of a long time. Fuck, centuries even. The people who don’t get this have most likely never been oppressed in their life.
A few protest/”political” songs, and some about specific tragedies, from recent history, that aren’t just punk:
Zombie, The Cranberries
I Know A Place, MUNA
99 Luftballons, Nena
Beds Are Burning, Midnight Oil
Khe Sahn, Cold Chisel
I Was Only Nineteen, Redgum
The Greatest, Sia
Fuck Tha Police , N.W.A
Eve of Destruction, Barry McGuire
We Are The World, USA for Africa
Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud), James Brown
Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell (or more recently, Counting Crows)
Born in the USA, Bruce Springsteen
Know Your Rights, The Clash
Holiday in Cambodia, Dead Kennedys
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil Scott Heron
We’ve been doing this shit forever, it’s not new. War, racism, fascism, homophobia… if it’s harmed people, it’s been put into music. It’s an incredibly powerful medium that has changed the world before, and to say that politics, hatred, and tragedy shouldn’t be featured is, honestly, simply ignorant.
I cannot deal with the sheer level of numbskull-ery in a statement like “Don’t bring politics into music” as if this is some Silly Tumblr Fad and not something that’s been a thing for over a hundred years
bard is a combat class
bard is a combat class
Killing in the Name – Rage Against the Machine
That song came out in like 1991 and I believe it was commentary about the state of the LAND.
Rage Against the Machine’s fucking band name is political commentary.
What gets me is, “as if this is some Silly Tumblr Fad and not something that’s been a thing for over a hundred years”. Try literally all of human history. Music has ALWAYS been a mode of art that has been used for protest. In pre-Christian Ireland, a bard could topple a bad king with one song, if it was the right song – bards had an immense amount of power. As far back as we have records of songs, there have been political songs. Songs both for and against the establishment.
No, not all music is ever political. But yes, there has always been politics in music.
Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now,
Your houses they pull down, stand up now.
Your houses they pull down to fright poor men in town, But the gentry must come down and the poor shall wear the crown.
Stand up now, Diggers all.
–
17th c. English Digger Ballad, composed in around 1649
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