ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the concept of "subculture" alongside that of the "suburb" and argues that they are inextricably linked even if common understandings of both terms are constantly shifting, rendering these twinned terms continuously subject to both continuity and change. It explores the case for the importance of the suburban dimension of youth culture by showing that it is driven by post-war migration as exemplified by the contemporary dubstep movement from Croydon. The old "sex and drugs and rock and roll" youth cliches were rooted in hedonism plus idealism yet have seen the breakdown of the presumption that youth equates automatically with rebellion and resistance to the hegemonic order. The chapter argues that much of post-war Anglo-Saxon youth culture historically originates in the outer limits of the major cities and that there is therefore a hidden history of suburban subcultures in need of illumination.
