ABSTRACT
The mainstream/subculture antipathy can be worked through in a multitude of ways. In the case of punk (which has come to be held up as the subculture par excellence), the mainstream is rejected, criticized and lampooned. Stylistic articulations of this come in the form of dress (secondhand clothes, safety pins, Nazi regalia, aimed at shocking mainstreamers), music (home-made, emphasizing lack of musical virtuosity – set against the pomposity of previous rock music), politics (anarchy and nihilism in opposition to party politics) and lifestyle (drug-taking, being on the dole, causing trouble, against conformity and respectability). Hebdige’s discussion of bricolage – the resignification of a patchwork of symbols, given new meanings in new contexts – remains important in showing us how subcultures adopt, transform and rework that which already exists – as William Gibson put it, ‘the street finds its own uses for things’.
