Who Put the Pop in Gen Z’s Pop Punk?
Although beloved by millions, Gen Z’s pop punk may also be punk’s most hated form, yet its roots are deep in “pure punk” soil.
Iain Ellis
Born in Manchester and raised east of London, Iain Ellis spent his formative years playing, performing, and consuming a heavy (if not healthy) diet of punk rock music and football. Little has changed since. In 1986, the young man went west to find his dreams in Bowling Green, Ohio. Instead, he picked up a PhD in American Culture Studies, writing his dissertation on 1980s American Punk Culture. In 2000, he traveled further west, settling in Lawrence, Kansas, where he currently teaches English and Youth Culture Studies at the University of Kansas. An avowed arrested adolescent, Iain continues to follow music and sports with a passion, performing and recording periodically with his Ohio-based Britpop band, piss artists, and playing weekly with his Lawrence football team, The Sweepers. When he grows up, Dr. Ellis hopes to head further west. You may also enjoy his book, Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists.
Punk Literature 101: Recommended Readings
Stimulated by, then stimulating, certain writings, punk has been a change agent of literature, injecting energy and disruption into multiple genres.
Punk Wouldn’t Have Spread So Far Without the Sh*t Media
Simultaneously inside and outside by either choice or circumstance, punk has always had paradoxical – sometimes hostile – relations with TV, radio, and the internet.
Punk in the Classroom: Question Everything
Punk’s “question everything” attitude has always been suited to education, despite the forces that seek to contain its rabble-rousing trouble-making from the classroom.
The Art of the Pose: Punk and Performance
London School of Ballet prodigy Michael Clark saw beauty in the moves he witnessed when attending punk gigs as a kid in the late 1970s.
Subversive Threads: How Punk Inspired the Craftivist Movement
Craftivism’s core values of autonomy, subversion, political consciousness, and subcultural community make it yet another example of punk’s enduring influence.
What Happens When Punk Rockers and Sports Jocks Meet in the Middle?
When punk rockers and sports jocks meet their clash creates a fusion that causes a different kind of explosion.
Runway Punk: A Story of Celebration and Co-option
Haute couture designers tap into the socio-political commentary of punk’s confrontational attire to reflect upon societal decay–and to satirize high fashion.
Punk Rap: The Early Years
When the rebel subcultures punk and rap crossed paths in ’70s NYC, a hybrid was born that endures and reconfigures to this day.
Folk Punk: Three Chords and the Truth
When coupled with punk in the late 1970s to create folk punk, folk music’s most enduring and endearing traits—DIY, inclusivity, and proud amateurism—shined bright.
Cowpunk: A Brief Y’alternative History
Cowpunk is a reaction against conventional country music, yet embodies some of its distant and deepest traits. Likewise, it's also a reaction against punk, yet manifests as one of its purest expressions.
Psychobilly: Qu’est-ce Que C’est?
Many punk hybrids have come and gone since their heydays, but the punk-rockabilly one, psychobilly, has endured and is still thriving around the world today.