ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how, in a historical perspective, social and cultural modernization processes are reflected and thematized within Swedish punk rock and other popular-music genres from 1979 to 1989. In 1976, bands such as the Ramones in the U.S.A. and the Sex Pistols and the Damned in England released records that made them the vanguard of a new musical genre, punk rock. During the Swedish success years in the 1960s many distinctly nostalgic popular songs were released that expressed sadness over the old homes, neighborhoods, and environments that were demolished to make way for the new, for progress and development. The chapter shows how rapid and profound transformations in Swedish society since the late nineteenth century and onwards have given rise to unique forms of music as a cultural means to process these changes; a music that is mainly characterized by humor and a reflective nostalgia.
