NO FUTURE - A HISTORY OF PUNK

A global synthesis of the Punk movement, from the music that originated in London to New York art schools and the Parisian graphics art scene.

No one questions today the huge importance of May ‘68 as a social, cultural and political divide. The conclusions drawn about May ‘68 can be restated: the arrival of the punk movement was taken for the umpteenth adolescent agitation, incomprehensible because it sang the praises of ugliness, but without any more impact than pop music. Yet 1977 represented a fracture as important as 1968: the world had changed, young people too. They had always known television and abundance, but this abundance was revealed to be
tainted, with carcinogenic chemical dyes and hormone-fed veal. Well concealed behind its love of provocation, punk was much more serious than it seemed: it was one generation's answer to a worn-out world, whose arrogant economic model had been shattered by the 1974 oil crisis, in which even the counter-cultural values no longer made any sense to the young. This generation was the Blank Generation, the empty generation.

But while the word punk refers first of all to music, it fed other artistic forms, such as graphic design. It also affected lifestyles, aesthetics, philosophy and politics. These words would have seemed pretentious to the adults who in 1977 were confronted by surly youths with torn clothes and spiky red and green hair. Four decades later, it is possible to look back on this era more impartially and to trace the fruitful developments of a fascinating movement.

Caroline de Kergariou was rock critic for the magazine Rock ‘n' roll musique during the 70's, the punk years. A specialist of this movement, she went on to write for Music Scène, Rock Hebdo and Rock en Stock.