The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock

The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock is a critical compendium of ideas about the creative value of punk rock -- not only as a musical genre, but also as the genesis of all kinds of artistic innovation and social practices, including but not limited to DIY music labels, fashion, and media, not to mention and as a route to resistance to political oppression and capitalism. Written by scholars from a range of fields, including cultural and media studies, sociology, musicology, and art and design, this volume posits that punk rock was a truly significant artistic movement of the 20th century, and that its importance and ability to inspire people carries over to the present day.

No Future. Punk is Dead. That is what was sung and said. Yet as we approach 50 years of punk rock, it still endures, and sometime thrives. From ''White riot'' to Pussy Riot, Never Mind the Bollocks to Nevermind, DIY to never gonna die, punk rock has marked or stained-it marks or stains-our musical and cultural history and practice. Here key established writers as well as emerging scholars from around the world offer critical views on punk practice and legacy, in a timely re-evaluation of its significance as music, culture, politics, nostalgia, heritage. The handbook looks at pre- and proto-punk forms, the ''high years'' of c. 1976-84, the international spread of the music and style, punk media from films to fanzines, as well as a thread that may run through its entire history-the inspiring politics of DIY (Do It Yourself). Crossing and blurring disciplinary boundaries, it presents methodological innovations to offer new ways of understanding punk''s significance. The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock also identifies and explores some of punk''s core contradictions: its anti-war messages alongside its (often gendered) violence, its anti-racism alongside its dominant whiteness, its energy and attitudinality as a youth culture for an aging demographic, its intermittent but persistent flirtations with populism and nationalism.