Punk as a culture and punk as a style of music diverged decades ago.

I’m a kid of the 80’s New Wave era punk bands. I enjoy 90’s pop punk bands like Green Day, blink 182, and Sum 41. I dig the contemporaneous 90’s skacore. I’m not old enough to be precious about the Pistols, and even the first wave punk I did latch onto in my youth – Adam & the Ants, Billy Idol, Toy Dolls, Buzzcocks – were decidedly pop punk by their second major label release.

by Allan Ballard, cibachrome print, 1981

So much made of “Green Day didn’t earn it.” Earn what? Hit records for making enjoyable music with mainstream appeal? By the 90s with punk music, you were buying a style and not a lifestyle. This is more true today. We’re a half century away from the punk culture and what we’ve got is the punk aesthetic.

For which I’m glad, because as a suburban boy who liked a good slam pit, there was little chance I’d be putting diaper pins through my eyebrow and spiking my hair with raw egg. It’s the punk music for me, not the punk movement. Bollocks.