ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on why the music itself is such a powerful tool, how it is used within Straight Edge to engage with and deconstruct 'religion', and whether that can be considered successful. Within punk 'a rebellious sense of social deviance has remained a central subcultural ideology, rooted in punk's loud and disorderly musicality'. This musicality, or admittedly at times the 'deliberate lack thereof, is often the focus of studies on punk. Commitments within punk are often strongly tied to the music and are shaped by the understanding of society as a failing and flawed capitalist system that perpetuates and promotes inter-connected oppressions. The commitment required of someone claiming edge is not simply to the notion of Straight Edge itself, but is also a commitment to oneself and to the community. Straight Edge music could arguably be understood as an attempt to reintegrate or unite body and soul.
