In advance of our dinner with Jordan and Cathi Unsworth, we mused on the meaning of punk in an age allergic to anarchy

Punk is a difficult thing to define. It is, after all, an attitude as much as it is a genre of music. Emerging in the mid 1970s, punks were generally anti-establishment iconoclasts with a taste for the extreme. Big hair dyed in bright colours, leather, latex and piercings were the tribal uniform, a style pioneered by visionary fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. This was a war against the bourgeoisie, the norm, the office, the man. Beneath the aesthetic was political substance, original anarcho-punk bands like Crass and Poison Girls preached about animal rights, feminism and environmentalism long before they became mainstream liberal talking points.

Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson wrote of their politics for the Independent: ‘[Punks were] generally vegetarian, pacifist, anti-fascist, pro-feminist and, like William Blake, sympathetic to the oppressed, they kept a close eye on each other for ethical lapses, such as the ultimate crime of “selling out”. They adhered to an anti-authoritarian DIY ethic, putting on their own shows and producing their own fanzines and records’. The dawn of the internet seemed as if it might allow punks worldwide to take music production into their own hands, like the brilliant Billy Nomates who we profiled in Issue 67 of the Idler or Sleaford Mods, the cover star of Issue 68, both self-producing success stories.

For the most part, however, the internet has resulted in a commercialising of the formerly radical punk philosophy. Globally recognised, multi-million dollar hit makers like Lady Gaga have adopted the aesthetic of the punks without the anarchic politics to back it up. Under the control of mercenary record labels with strict PR guidelines, the so called ‘punk’ stars of today lack any of the values of the original movement. Vivienne Westwood is the favourite fashion brand of former PM Theresa May, whose idea of rebellion is to run through fields of wheat. Not exactly hard core.

So maybe punk is dead. Or maybe we’re just looking for it in all the wrong places.

Michael Omari, known to most of us as Stormzy, performed the headline set at Glastonbury this year. Stormzy is a Grime artist, an increasingly popular genre of music that was born on the streets of East London. Grime is DIY and anti-establishment: Stormzy shot to fame when his self-produced YouTube freestyle series went viral in 2013. Grime is democratic (you do not need to be able to sing), raw and angry. It is like the original punk movement reincarnated and reclaimed by metropolitan youth with something to say. Performing his single Vossi Bop at Glastonbury, Stormzy invited the crowd to rap the line “fuck the government, fuck Boris”. Amidst a display of fireworks and flamethrowers he also found time to decry racial injustice, sampling a speech by the MP David Lammy on the disproportionate number of black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system. Wearing a Union Jack stab vest designed by street-artist Banksy, Stormzy mimicked the Sex Pistol’s iconic screen print used to promote Anarchy in the UK. Like the punks before him, Stormzy matches style and substance, medium and message. Although the aesthetics of punk may be more mainstream than ever, the heart of the movement has been inherited by a new generation of musicians in the UK. They may not call themselves ‘punk’, but the principle is the same: smash the system.

We think there’s hope for the anarchists yet.

Write to us with your thoughts at mail@idler.co.uk

Want to re-live the golden age of punk?

Writer Cathi Unsworth and radical muse Jordan are in conversation at our upcoming Idler Dinner on the 30th of October.

More information and tickets can be found here.