Some people ride the wave

The year 1991, regarded by some as the year punk broke, left me unimpressed. I really think the status quo was improbably upended when Elliott Smith suddenly had a Oscar Awards appearance and nomination for his song "Miss Misery" in the film "Good Will Hunting." What was improbable or punk wasn't the song itself, but that the singer had done little to insert himself onto that larger stage (other than be a homeboy with filmmaker Gus Van Zandt) but nonetheless achieved a level of market place acceptance that many performers with much more ambition failed to achieve.

My contrarian view comes from the viewpoint that punk is more than a music genre, but an ethos that undermines and subverts all that is currently standing. This of course means that it must always be re-inventing itself as the loyal opposition when its ideas, cultural artifacts, etc. become commonly accepted, and thus is subject to being undermined and subverted. For instance, new primitivism became the new totalitarianism completely removed from its original meaning and intent.

Or maybe the meaning of the 'Year Punk Broke' has another meaning than I didn't recognize before. I had interpreted the phrase as when this style of music burst upon the national media consciousness, but maybe it is simply a statement of the time when a music style became disfunctional because its success fixed its meaning in so many people's minds and it lost its fluidity. It had become a commodity to be marketed and sold.