Subcultural Inside Job

Given that fact that I have been spending most of my stay in Croatia at my grandparents’ house where the Internet is awfully bad, the TV has 5 channels and any attempt at writing or studying is interrupted by various family members, pets and unbelievably frequent meals, I have taken to engaging into the typical summer activities such as spending a long time reading the papers, listening to the radio and watching reruns of old Croatian, British or American shows on the national TV. In all honesty, most of this has been more or less boring and my attempt to get some brain action by doing crosswords was equally dull but at least I have finally gotten to the point where I have some vague idea of what is happening not only Croatia but also the world. The newspapers that I have taken up are not all that interesting but every once in a while an article will seize my attention and such was the case with the news about the Russian feminist punk-rock activists Pussy Riot and their rather ridiculous court sentence. And while I did feel a little ashamed for never having heard of the collective in question, I found the commentary in one of the columns to be way more interesting than the poorly translated article giving the facts about the arrested band members and their trial. The columnist that drew my attention suggested that punk rock and similar movements has truly survived and can truly thrive only in places such as Putin’s Russia where the subversive element of the subculture is the most tangible and the most important part of it. He proceeded to argue that punk rock and rock in general have died off in Croatia in the late 90s when Croatia gained independence and there was no oppressive system that could be mocked or whose principal cultural elements could be used in a way contradictory to the system itself. Later that day, I randomly stumbled upon a TV documentary “Druga Strana Rock’n’Rolla” (The Other Side of Rock’n’Roll) that dealt with censorship of pop rock and punk rock bands in Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavian ministry of culture apparently had a practice of labeling records as “trash” depending on the quality of music and political correctness. The records that received the label were then taxed more heavily and therefore cost more than the ones that were considered to be art. The punk rock and similar records of the time were, naturally, often labeled as “trash” not so much because of the music but primarily because most of them had a lot to say about Yugoslavian communism. The examples that were listed were mostly all about lyrics that suggested that Yugoslavia was not communist heaven and that not everyone was as equal as the government wanted it to seem. A lot of the musicians that were interviewed, at the same time, said that they never really cared about the label in question and that their music just came naturally instead of being a conscious revolutionary act. One of the interviewees, interestingly enough, mentioned that Yugoslavia was the only communist country at the time (we’re talking late 70s and 80s) that actually had a vibrant, mildly subversive, punk rock scene. He followed this statement with wondering why there was never Russian punk at the time. Well, I guess there is now even though Russia has officially lost their original oppressive political regime.

Pussy Riot in Action

I guess all of that talk about subversive music and the accompanying subcultures made me wonder about the punk, rock and other similar genres of music. The columnist I mentioned above seemed to think that it is impossible to maintain honestly subversive music in a system such as capitalism since every label concerning genre or quality is nothing more than a pointer towards the social group that the product should be marketed at. I guess it’s the same old story that Dick Hebdige was writing about in his “Subculture, theMeaning of Style”, a great social science book about punk and subcultures in general. One of the main points that Hebdige makes is that subcultures come about and die out by the means of a very similar process. In particular, subcultures create their visual image and iconography by “taking over” cultural elements associated with the mainstream and therefore, implicitly, the dominant political system and incorporating them into a new context where their meaning becomes radically different. At the same time, the way a subculture dies out or gets incorporated in to the mainstream is very similar since all of these symbols are taken back and labeled as products with a specific, subcultural social value that makes them more desirable to a certain part of the population. My favorite example of this process are Dr Martens boots that used to be a strictly subcultural thing, from punks and metalheads to skinheads, and have now become a fashion staple. By buying a pair I basically paid to fit into a subculture better and it was their implied social value that was marketed to me and billion other heavy metal and other alternative music fans. Given that explanation of how subcultures are treated in capitalism the argument stating that subcultures cannot quite survive in modern, capitalistic states seems to be more than plausible. In fact, only a completely oppressive regime can be a place where subcultures truly thrive because then there exists a guarantee that their philosophy and all that represents it will never be commodified. I guess the Russian example from up above loosely fits this model since I cannot imagine Vladimir Putin allowing for anything that is openly against his politics to become marketable or desirable.

Classic Docs as featured on an alternative fashion Tumblr

At the same time, I wonder how beneficial the end of oppressive regimes was for all kinds of subcultures and vaguely subversive movements in most places. While the commodification of subcultural symbols implies that their meaning is being incorporated into the mainstream and to some extent loses its affectivity, it also means that they become available to a larger group of people and less stigmatized then they were while they were “truly” subversive. There are so many music records that, at this point, have cult value among the fans but were originally a call to a cultural revolution and an eye opener for many. Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” sold 50 million copies and is only topped by Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, “Led Zeppelin IV”, “Born In the USA”, “The Wall”, “Nevermind” all hit more than 30 million copies and so on. Of course, not everyone that bought these albums was a true fan or a true believer in the philosophies of rock, grunge and such but what seems important to me is that they were at least exposed to this kind of thinking. Can a subculture still be subversive if it is a part of the mainstream? The question seems to be ridiculous until you realize that you can walk into any music store and buy a copy of any album that was ever considered subversive and buy into its message. I like to say that the age of big cultural revolutions is over because the overall accessibility of information and personal freedoms have become so great that all we have to do is sit in front of our computers and click stuff but the truth of the matter is that this also allows us to have as many microrevolutions as we want and to constantly build on our own opinions against the system that, ironically, almost wants us to do this so that they can more easily classify our consumer needs.

To finish up I want to mention just one more thing that I recently stumbled upon. Even though I haven’t really been following all the GOP drama I did read an article in which Paul Ryan lists Rage Against the Machine as one of his favorite bands. A couple of days later, Tom Morello himself wrote a “response” in the Rolling Stone calling out Ryan for not understanding their music or at least acting exactly as the people that RATM’s music is a response to.

“But Rage's music affects people in different ways. Some tune out what the band stands for and concentrate on the moshing and throwing elbows in the pit. For others, Rage has changed their minds and their lives. Many activists around the world, including organizers of the global occupy movement, were radicalized by Rage Against the Machine and work tirelessly for a more humane and just planet. Perhaps Paul Ryan was moshing when he should have been listening.” Morello writes.

Even though you can buy any RATM album, t shirts and merchandise in a billion places and Google-ing any of that will add a couple of adds to your Facebook and similar sites that classify you as a fan of similar music and supposedly leftist things that still sounds pretty subversive to me.