| Description |
xvi, 388 pages ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-365) and index. |
| Contents |
Preface : From memory ... to history -- Prelude (1979-1980) : When punk broke ... and opened -- Teeny punks : Pioneer your own culture! (1980-1981) -- It can and will happen everywhere (1982-1983) -- It's 1984! (1984) -- Marching toward the "alternative" (1985-?) -- Epilogue : Punk breaks again... |
| Summary |
"Many remember the 1980s as the era of Ronald Reagan, a conservative decade populated by preppies and yuppies dancing to a soundtrack of electronic synth pop music. In some ways, it was the "MTV generation." However, the decade also produced some of the most creative works of punk culture, from the music of bands like the Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys to avant-garde visual arts, literature, poetry, and film. In We're Not Here to Entertain, Kevin Mattson documents what Kurt Cobain once called a "punk rock world" --the all-encompassing hardcore-indie culture that incubated his own talent. Mattson shows just how widespread the movement became--ranging across the nation, from D.C. through Ohio and Minnesota to LA--and how democratic it was due to its commitment to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) tactics. Throughout, Mattson puts the movement into a wider context, locating it in a culture war that pitted a blossoming punk scene against the new president. Reagan's talk about end days and nuclear warfare generated panic; his tax cuts for the rich and simultaneous slashing of school lunch program funding made punks, who saw themselves as underdogs, seethe at his meanness. The anger went deep, since punks saw Reagan as the country's entertainer-in-chief; his career, from radio to Hollywood and television, synched to the very world punks rejected. Through deep archival research, Mattson reignites the heated debates that punk's opposition generated in that era-about everything from "straight edge" ethics to anarchism to the art of dissent. By reconstructing the world of punk, Mattson demonstrates that it was more than just a style of purple hair and torn jeans. In so doing, he reminds readers of punk's importance and its challenge to simplistic assumptions about the 1980s as a one-dimensional, conservative epoch"--Publisher's website. |
| Subject |
Punk rock music -- United States -- 1981-1990 -- History and criticism.
|
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Rock music -- United States -- 1981-1990 -- History and criticism.
|
|
Reagan, Ronald.
|
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Punk rock music. (OCoLC)fst01084153
|
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Rock music. (OCoLC)fst01099204
|
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United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
|
| Chronological Term |
1981-1990
|
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc. (OCoLC)fst01411635
|
| Added Title |
We are not here to entertain |
| Other Form: |
Online version: Mattson, Kevin, 1966- We're not here to entertain New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. 9780190908256 (DLC) 2019044700 |
| ISBN |
9780190908232 hardcover |
|
0190908238 hardcover |
|
9780190908256 electronic publication |
|
