American Values and American Hardcore Punk in The Crisis of the 1970s
Résumé
After the unprecedented political, social, and cultural turmoil of the sixties and the economic (and political) crisis of the early seventies, American society witnessed the prevailing disillusionment and the weakened sense of historical continuity and collective memory. The resulting new form of radical individualism—further at odds with the tenets and values of traditional puritanism—sought to focus on needs and desires that could be met “right now”, both physically and psychically. This paper explores the musical and cultural expressions of the early American hardcore punk—which emerged then as a rebellion against this new form of hedonism and conformism, and at the same time due to disillusionment with the “idealistic” counterculture of the sixties—focusing on a dialectic that can be deduced from two different observations: first, the very propensities of mainstream culture described above were in fact embodied by hardcore punk, paradoxically, but in a more specific fashion (we call it “urgency” and “nihilism”). On the other hand, it tended to rely on some of the tenets of puritanism, i.e. work ethic, “self-made man”, self-discipline, sobriety, and deferred gratification, as is the case for some seminal bands: Black Flag from Southern California and Minor Threat from Washington DC.
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