AGAINST APPLAUSE: CULTIVATING AN AESTHETIC OF CONTEMPT

"Ever had the feeling you've been cheated?"—Johnny Rotten

by Andy Nowicki

I have written about the internecine war between white youth of the 80s: “punk” vs. “metal.” That earlier article, this subject functioned as an as introduction to Duran Duran’s 2011 “neo-retro” album All You Need Is Now, summarized the differences thusly:

If you were a youth in the ‘80s—as some of us may be old enough to remember—you simply weren’t allowed to like both Metal and Punk at the same time. The sort of kids who were into Metal (who had the rest of us outnumbered, it always seemed) tended to be less thoughtful or reflective, and more swaggering and macho, while we “Punk” kids liked to style themselves as intellectual and artsy.

THE MORNING AFTER

by Andy Nowicki

Recently, White Nationalists have touted Metal—particularly Black Metal—as a uniquely Caucasoid sound, one which has the power to unearth the badass fury of proud, salt-of-the-earth, put-upon honky folk in an age of mounting multicultural tyranny and insufferably smarmy media-enforced White guilt.

These writers probably have a point, in a way. It seems to me, though, that what’s uncouth remains uncouth, whether it sports gold teeth, a Flava-Flav necklace-watch and sagging britches, or moon boots, a Def Leppard T-shirt and a mullet. That is to say, a nigger is a nigger, whether he’s Black or White