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  2. What Is Post-Punk?: Genre and Identity in Avant-Garde Popular Music, 1977-82

What Is Post-Punk?: Genre and Identity in Avant-Garde Popular Music, 1977-82

Mimi Haddon 2020
Popular music in the US and UK during the late 1970s and early 1980s was wildly eclectic and experimental. "Post-punk," as it was retroactively labeled, could include electro-pop melodies, distorted guitars, avant-garde industrial sounds, and reggae beats, and thus is not an easily definable musical category.

What Is Post-Punk? combines a close reading of the late-1970s music press discourse with musical analyses and theories of identity to unpack post-punk's status as a genre. Mimi Haddon traces the discursive foundations of post-punk across publications such as Sounds, ZigZag, Melody Maker, the Village Voice, and the NME, and presents case studies of bands including Wire, PiL, Joy Division, the Raincoats, and Pere Ubu. By positioning post-punk in relation to genres such as punk, new wave, dub, and disco, Haddon explores the boundaries of post-punk, and reveals it as a community of tastes and predilections rather than a stylistically unified whole. Haddon diversifies the discourse around post-punk, exploring both its gender and racial dynamics and its proto-industrial aesthetics to restore the historical complexity surrounding the genre's terms and origins.

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ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-472-13182-2 (hardcover)
  • 978-0-472-12655-2 (ebook)
Subject
  • Music
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  • Table of Contents

  • Resources

  • Stats

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • 1. Dividing the New Wave
  • 2. Dub Is the New Black and the Post-Colonial Politics of Sonic Space
  • 3. Post-Punk or Death Disco?
  • 4. Post-Punk Women and the Discourse of Punk Amateurism
  • 5. Between Flesh and Machines
  • Epilogue
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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Figure 1. The image shows four lists taken from the 1979 readers’ poll of ZigZag magazine. The lists shown here are: Fave Person, Hated Person, Sexist Person, and a category called Excess. There is also a photograph of Siouxsie and the Banshees.

1979 ZigZag Reader’s Poll!

From Chapter 1

Figure 1. The 1979 ZigZag Readers’ Poll listing the most hated people and the sexiest people. ZigZag, July 19, 1979, 22.

Example 1. One measure of music in bass clef

Practice Makes Perfect

From Chapter 1

Example 1. The opening bass guitar riff for Wire’s song “Practice Makes Perfect”

Example 2. Eights measures of music in treble clef with the words synthesizer and melodica at the top

In A Lonely Place

From Chapter 2

Example 2. The melodic hook in Joy Division/New Order’s “In a Lonely Place”

Example 3. Four measures of music in bass clef (single line)

I Want Your Love

From Chapter 3

Example 3. The bass line in “I Want Your Love” by Chic

Example 4. Two measures of music in bass clef (single line)

Death Disco

From Chapter 3

Example 4. The bass line in “Death Disco” by PiL

Example 5. Seven measures of music for bass guitar and drums

She's Lost Control

From Chapter 3

Example 5. The opening drum part and bass line in “She’s Lost Control” by Joy Division, mm. 1–7

Example 6. One page of music for electric guitar, bass guitar, drum, and drumset

Newtown - John Peel version

From Chapter 4

Example 6. The drums, percussion, electric guitar, and bass part to the 1977 John Peel version of the Slits’ song “Newtown” with Palmolive on drums, mm. 5–13

Example 7. Bass guitar and drumset. The drum part has crosses in the notation.

Newtown

From Chapter 4

Example 7. The drum and bass parts to the beginning of the album version of the Slits’ song “Newtown” with Budgie on drums, mm. 1–5

Example 8. Three staves of music with lyrics “Fury, brute fury” in them.

Brute Fury

From Chapter 4

Example 8. The vocal part accompanied by two tenor saxophones for the chorus section of “Brute Fury” by Lora Logic

Example 9. Three measures of music with two electric guitars at the top

Adventures Close to Home

From Chapter 4

Example 9. “Adventures Close to Home” by the Raincoats, mm. 4–6

Example 10. Three measures of music for voice, electric guitar, bass guitar and drumset

Adventures Close to Home 1

From Chapter 4

Example 10. “Adventures Close to Home” by the Raincoats, mm. 7–9

Example 11. One measure of music for voice, electric guitar, bass guitar and drumset

Adventures Close to Home 2

From Chapter 4

Example 11. “Adventures Close to Home” by the Raincoats, m. 10

Example 12. Two measures of music for voice, bass, guitar and drums with one measure in 5/4 time

Adventures Close to Home 3

From Chapter 4

Example 12. “Adventures Close to Home” by the Raincoats, mm. 11–12

Example 13. Two measures of music in bass clef

Adventures Close to Home 4

From Chapter 4

Example 13. The chromatic bass line and return to 4/4 in “Adventures Close to Home” by the Raincoats

Figure 2. The image is a cartoon showing the members of the Runaways fighting on a stage in front of a drumset. Two of the band members have their breasts’ exposed. A giant image of their manager hovers behind them ominously.

ZigZag; cover December 1977

From Chapter 4

Figure 2. The front cover of ZigZag magazine previewing the upcoming two-part cartoon about the Runaways. December 1977. Cartoon by Tony Ghura.

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