The highwater of post-punk (as Reynolds admits) was 1979, with albums including Metal Box, Fear of Music, Unknown Pleasures and many more. But the end started as early as winter 1980 when New Romanticism started to get noticed. It's often forgotten now, but bands like Duran Duran started out with what looked like solid post-punk credentials - influenced by David Bowie and Roxie Music? Check! Heavy use of synths? Check! Band name taken from cult classic? Check! These days, "Planet Earth" sounds like a parody of a Post-Punk song, but at the time it wasn't so obvious.
But, from the very start, the New Romantics jettisoned the revolutionary aspects that had helped make post-punk so distinctive. They took the "modernity" of post-punk (one of its most appealing features) and forced it into the service of rampant chart success. This put Post-Punk into a similar position to the Conservative Party in the mid-nineties when New Labour "re-invented" all their most popular policies: it could only stand by, open-mouthed at the audacity of what was happening.
With half its raison d'etre sucked out of it, PP staggered on for another year or so until The Smiths came along and delivered the death blow. Here, I think, we come to the crucial distinction between Post-Punk and Indie (which The Smiths, more than any other band, helped define): Post-Punk sought to provide an alternative to mainstream pop; Indie, on the other hand, looked (looks) to provide an alternative version of mainstream pop - one shorn of its schmaltz and insincere, treacly tendencies.
With hindsight, it's obvious how reactionary The Smiths' music was: no synths, nothing jarring or alienating. From now on "indie" was to be characterised by jangling guitars, sensitive haircuts and (hopefully) mordantly witty lyrics. But at the time it just seemed refreshing to anyone (ie, me) who'd spent the last four years listening to anal, angular stuff like "Closer" and "Duty Now for the Future".
So by 1982 Post-Punk was already dead in the water. However, it died from the inside-out, leaving bands like "The Birthday Party", "The B52s" and the whole US hardcore scene to stagger on as a kind of post-death flinch.
Jesus, this has turned into a rant. I'll stop now.
Ah, but "Rockism" - I haven't said anything about Rockism, which, I think, was a far more important concept than Reynolds recognised. Most of the bands in the second half of "Rip it Up" were "Rockist" in one way or another and so deviated from the heart of PP. Fuck it, that's for another time.Statistics: Posted by Captain Howdy — Tue Jan 09, 2007 3:27 am
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