Screaming for Change

Screaming for Change advances an understanding of punk rock by going beyond description of punk as a musical, political, social, and cultural genre of communication. Previous scholarship about punk rock has primarily dealt with those boundaries of genre. Previous scholars neglected to examine the ideology of punk across the decades and continents. That ideology, in a word, is deviance. Through Gramscian textual analysis, this book uncovers this ideology of deviance with some surprises along the way. Students and scholars of punk rock will value the book's attention to both well known and more esoteric punk artists. Punk is arguable the most studied 'subculture' to ever launch itself onto the larger social agenda as a possible counterbalance to the mainstream cultural hegemony. During the late 1970s, punk scenes sprouted up in large numbers all over the globe, and it appears that deep feelings of discontent towards the inherent alienation present in the capitalist system were the motivational seed that facilitated their growth. Unconvinced that the historical accounts have been successful in adequately describing and proficiently capturing the essence of punk, this study examines the phenomenon in slightly different terms. This study proposes that punk should be understood as a way of seeing the world, as a way of reasoning, or, essentially, as a philosophy on its own terms.

The aim of this study is to shape a sensible, intelligible philosophy—the unity of the subtitle—of punk rock, a philosophy that resists historical and cultural specifics, and categorization and containment, scholarly or otherwise. By grounding his argument in a theoretical hybrid of ideological rhetorical criticism and Gramscian analysis, Kristianson, the lead author (of four), offers a convincing critique of historical, sociological, and cultural readings of punk only to affirm, finally, the difficulty of transcending these critical frameworks in articulating a unifying philosophy. Far more successful are readings of four punk rock recordings, each representing a different decade. Bad Religion's 1988 release Suffer emerges as the strongest, most sustained, and most convincing example of how punk rock might look and sound....An important book, not least for its review and synthesis of more than 40 years of punk rock commentary and criticism. Recommended., Screaming for Change reveals the study of punk rock as a subculture and convincingly argues for a reconstitution of punk as more than a musical or alternative clothing style, but rather an ideological unifying punk philosophy that transcends time and space.

Lars J. Kristiansen is a communication Ph.D. candidate at the University of Missouri. Joseph R. Blaney is associate professor of communication at Illinois State University, and co-authored The Rhetoric of Pope John Paul II. Philip J. Chidester is assistant professor of communication at Illinois State University. Brent Simonds is associate professor of communication at Illinois State University, and co-authored Communication as Critical Inquiry: Becoming Critical Producers and Consumers of Messages.