We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America

by Kevin Mattson

Many remember the 1980s as the era of Ronald Reagan, a conservative decade populated by preppies and yuppies dancing to a soundtrack of electronic synth pop music. In some ways, it was the "MTV generation." However, the decade also produced some of the most creative works of punk culture, from the music of bands like the Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys to avant-garde visual arts, literature, poetry, and film. In We're Not Here to Entertain, Kevin Mattson documents what Kurt Cobain once called a "punk rock world" --the all-encompassing hardcore-indie culture that incubated his own talent. Mattson shows just how widespread the movement became--ranging across the nation, from D.C. through Ohio and Minnesota to LA--and how democratic it was due to its commitment to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) tactics.

Throughout, Mattson puts the movement into a wider context, locating it in a culture war that pitted a blossoming punk scene against the new president. Reagan's talk about end days and nuclear warfare generated panic; his tax cuts for the rich and simultaneous slashing of school lunch program funding made punks, who saw themselves as underdogs, seethe at his meanness. The anger went deep, since punks saw Reagan as the country's entertainer-in-chief; his career, from radio to Hollywood and television, synched to the very world punks rejected. Through deep archival research, Mattson reignites the heated debates that punk's opposition generated in that era-about everything from "straight edge" ethics to anarchism to the art of dissent. By reconstructing the world of punk, Mattson demonstrates that it was more than just a style of purple hair and torn jeans. In so doing, he reminds readers of punk's importance and its challenge to simplistic assumptions about the 1980s as a one-dimensional, conservative epoch.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Politics, Sociology, Pop Culture, The United States Of America

352 pages, Hardcover

Published August 3, 2020

About the author

Dr. Kevin Mattson is a historian, critic, and author whose work focuses on the intersection of ideas and politics in the twentieth century. Currently, he is Professor of Contemporary History at Ohio University, where he teaches about U.S. cultural and intellectual history and popular culture.

Mattson's work has appeared in the American Prospect, the Nation, the New York Times Book Review, Salon, and the Guardian. He has also appeared on NPR, Fox News, C-SPAN, and the Colbert Report.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone who grew up in the 80s and listened to punk music in that era, and who still holds leftist politics, this should be right up my alley, but I did not enjoy this at all. I found it lowkey misogynist throughout, and really dismissive of other genres and bands - Devo as corporate sellouts because they’re “new wave”?? Come on. Hip hop gets mentioned only with reference to the Beastie Boys. It’s as if the book is written from the aesthetic and cultural perspective of a 15-year-old white punk boy frozen in amber in the mid 1980s, and it’s very off-putting.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several reviews here of this book make the excellent point that Mattson exemplifies many of the traits necessary to be a punk purist in the early 80's. He's quick to judge bands that "sold out". All mainstream entertainment was shoved down our throats. Mass media exploited punk fashion to belatedly acknowledge the culture change. Even some of the bands he seems to like, at some point he complains about. It's as if no other culture exists! And you know what? That's exactly how I remember early punk culture- attitude for miles. It's actually refreshing to read it if you spent time with punk and hardcore scenes and records. This brought back memories of a exquisitely immature time in my life!
What I really liked about the book is the focus on punk fanzine writers that could put into words what most bands could not with a song format. A major focus of punk and hardcore music was a hatred of Ronald Reagan. If you forgot how Reagan's legacy impacted American life, you get plenty of well researched events here. I had just moved to California in Reagan's final year as Governor. I was amazed at how disorganized his speeches were. That changed in the White House with a better speech writer budget. Punk influenced organizations Rock Against Racism and Rock Against Reagan are well represented here.
I enjoyed the deeper than usual dive into the opinions of key people in the movement- Jello Biafra, Tim Yohannon, Chuck Dukowski et al. Speaking of Dukowski, the book provides the true essence of how the punk rock tour circuit developed by Chuck's encouragement to kids all over the country to put on shows. I got bored with hardcore really quickly. Although the energy level of the music bolted past punk rock, the music often sounded the same. The audiences became increasingly violent and predominately male. When women attended, it was often to hold their boyfriends leather jackets while they bonded in the mosh pit. There's a bit at the end of the book about Riot Girls, but I assume that's past the timeline for this book. The misogyny and deterioration of hardcore led to that movement. One more thing- it's important to me that I help set the record straight about the death of D.Boon of The Minutemen. His girlfriend did not fall asleep at the wheel. There's been enough refute of this story over the years. It's irresponsible for Mattson to repeat it. Punk Rock Enthusiast=must read this book.

[Russell Belding · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember, as a young person in the early 80s, amassing a collection of rock records, among them some punk. Because I also read widely in the rock music press, I noticed a certain disdain among punk fans for any other kind of music; not just that they thought it sucked but that it was morally inferior. There was also an intense dislike of whatever music sold lots of copies, or for bands that somehow managed to land a major label contract. I recall thinking (or overthinking), why should I like this stuff at all when its adherents say that everything else I like is morally bankrupt? I just kind of shrugged it off, though, and continued buying what I liked.
Well, now there's a book that explains that whole punk attitude so that it makes some sense. It also helped me to understand some of the things about the era that I'd either forgotten or never knew. I certainly recall a lot of anti-Reagan stuff among the punk literature and music, which I enjoyed; but I never really thought that Reagan knew or cared about any of it. Author Kevin Mattson tells of a few TV show episodes, a couple of movies, and some misguided woman on the Donahue Show to establish the popular culture view of punk. There were also police crackdowns on punk shows. (All of this prefigured Tipper Gore's PMRC, which is outside this book's scope.)
I think it may be a stretch to suggest, though, as Mattson does, that the record industry's ridiculous vendetta against "home taping" was used primarily as a weapon against D.I.Y. sharing of music by punks. To me at the time it seemed largely like an effort to ensure that acts like Pat Benatar or Journey sold the maximum amount of records. Perhaps the punks and the anti-punks used each other's rhetoric to overstate how much of a threat each was to the other, and hence how significant the fight was.
The Reagan vs. Punks narrative of the book is interwoven with some interesting profiles of people who might be described as thinkers of the scene, including artists Raymond Pettibon and Matt Groening. Mattson seems to have made a laudable effort to go through much of the literature produced at the time, to judge by his knowledgeable and engaging work (and a long list of zines at book's end).
What this book isn't, and what Mattson himself points out at the book's beginning, is any kind of comprehensive overview of American punk music or punk artists. The Los Angeles group X, one of the major punk bands of the time, receives mention only twice, and that in passing. Black Flag, The Minutemen and Husker Du, on the other hand, are analyzed quite extensively, probably in part because they represented the trajectory of punk over the period discussed (Black Flag devolving into a crass "heavy metal" band, Husker Du "selling out" by signing to Warner Bros., and the Minutemen remaining true to the punk cause but tragically losing member D. Boon). More tellingly though, these three bands actually made some interesting music, unlike not a few of their contemporaries in the genre.
I enjoyed reading this book, because it made a little more clear to me what the idea of punk constituted, because it explained just how political the whole scene was (which I'd kind of forgotten) and because it made me want to pull out my old Minutemen records.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently punk rockers didn’t get AIDS. An entire book about politics in the 1980s and and nary a mention.

[François Blanchette · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for any punk-rock fan. It distills all the influence this music had throughout the first half of the eighties whether in music, magazines, films and literature. Us readers are offered a plethora of cultural discoveries that will surely deepen our love of the style. The greatest strength of the book resides in its analysis of the then culture and its homogeneity and how punk-rock challenged dominant ideologies. Everything is efficiently presented with ample historical references and context. All in all, punk an incredible manifestation of youth Ian Mackaye said in the documentary American Hardcore – one that we would desperately need in today’s digital leashed world.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

We’re Not Here to Entertain is not the consummate history of punk rock, or even of American punk. It is, however, along with a handful of other books (Greil Marcus’ Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century and Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 being the first two that come to mind) an invaluable and deeply researched contribution to that history, one that helps clarify what American punk really was, as opposed to how the news media and entertainment industry tried to hype it, caricature it, tame it, and finally turn it into a mere fashion statement. It emphasizes the politics, economics, and rhetoric of the punk movement, and draws uncomfortable parallels between the illusions and inequities of the Reagan Era and those of the Trump years.

While Marcus’ book centers on the philosophical, aesthetic, and art-historical roots of the international punk movement as a whole, and Azerrad’s on (some of) the seminal bands and important personalities of Eighties American punk and their music, Kevin Mattson focuses on locating the movement within the larger context of American politics and pop-culture from 1981-85. It shows us how the punks saw themselves, and how they struggled to live their ideals within an often hostile American culture at large. It contextualizes their often-anarchic organization, the diversity of their philosophical viewpoints and aims, and the ways in which they communicated those viewpoints and aims among themselves and to the broader culture.

That broader culture encompassed the narcissism of the Baby Boomers as they transitioned through the “Me decade” from idealistic Yippie to acquisitive yuppie; the bloat and hero-worship of arena cock rock; the brainless solipsism of disco; and the Entertainment-Industrial Complex: Hollywood, big advertising, the major record labels and their promotion via top-40 radio programming (and later MTV). As the American political scene stumbled through Vietnam, stagflation, de-industrialization, the 1973 and 1979 oil crises, and the Iran hostage crisis, Jimmy Carter’s dour ethic of reduced consumption and belt-tightening gave way to Ronald Reagan’s magical thinking. Reagan’s sunny disposition, pro-big business policies, and high regard for the entertainment industry helped along the subsequent boom in entertainment blockbusters and the big media synergies that produced an economy of movie tie-in products and soundtracks, movies that were themselves little more than extended music videos, multiple-platinum albums, and so on—an all-embracing dreamtime of unreality. But underneath this happy surface was cold, hard greed; a disregard for the poor and working classes; and the bizarre apocalyptic thinking of the Christian Right and their Manichean Good vs. Evil narrative, which fueled Cold War tensions and led to a general surge in anxiety over the stark possibility of World War III.

Mattson briefly introduces the first- and second-wave of punk during the 1970s: in the UK: e.g., Crass, the Clash, the Damned, and the Sex Pistols (who themselves had a problematic relationship to celebrity culture and the Society of the Spectacle, being the creation of pop culture impresario Malcolm McLaren), and in the US, where it was based mostly in lower Manhattan (Richard Hell and Television, Patti Smith, the Dead Boys, early Blondie, Talking Heads and Ramones, for instance, centered around CBGB’s and a few other clubs) and in Greater LA and the Bay Area (e.g., early Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, the Avengers, the Dils, the Germs, Fear, X). He then charts its growth (and suppression by authorities) in LA and beyond. As Blondie went disco, Talking Heads went pop, Patti Smith retired, and some bands, like Black Flag, embraced a sludgy sound reminiscent of heavy metal (which would in turn evolve into the “grunge” sound of Melvins and Mudhoney), other bands and scenes came to the fore: San Pedro’s Minutemen—who were among the least stereotypically punk-sounding acts—were nonetheless among the strictest adherents of the punk ethos of informed political activism and “econo” touring and living; the Washington, DC, scene erupted with TSOL and Ian MacKaye’s Minor Threat at the forefront; and the rest of America proved Black Flag’s Chuck Dukowski correct when he predicted, “Just because this isn’t LA or NY it doesn’t mean something can’t happen here.” From Portland to Pittsburgh, Seattle to Austin, Akron to Minneapolis (where Hüsker Dü became one of punk’s most influential acts), punk bands and punk culture suddenly bloomed all over America.

But it wasn’t just bands. Punk ‘zines were equally, if not more, important than any one band or scene, since they provided art, interviews, reviews, tour dates, and of course, editorial commentary, essays on radical history and politics, and philosophical musings on how punk should be put into practice. BravEar, Blur, Flipside, MAXIMUMROCKNROLL (MRR), Op, Plan 9, The Rocket, Search and Destroy, Sense of Purpose, Sub Pop, and Troubled Times represent just a small sampling of the scores of Xeroxed samizdat ‘zines that came and went. A few became long-lived institutions, even branching out into music production, most famously in the case of Tim Yohannon’s MRR and Seattle’s Sub Pop label. Mattson also shines a well-deserved spotlight on the graphic artists featured in the 'zines and on album art, among them Raymond Pettibon, Gary Panter, Winston Smith, Dennis Worden, Fred Tomaselli, Jimmy Barf, Pushead, and of course Matt Groening, all of whom would contribute to punk’s look and a good deal of its attitude.

Punk was influenced by novelists Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, Thomas Pynchon, Ursula K. LeGuin, William S. Burroughs, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and JG Ballard. It would in turn influence writers Dennis Cooper, John Shirley, Lewis Shiner, Rudy Rucker, Bruce Sterling, and William Gibson. Filmmakers Penelope Spheeris, Stephanie Beroes, Jim Jarmusch and Alex Cox all contributed to, and were influenced by, punk aesthetics.

Though members of the punk movement self-identified with a broad spectrum of leftist politics, from democratic socialist to anarcho-syndicalist, many were consciously influenced by the Situationist International movement, and Mattson frames much of their activity (and the developments in American culture as a whole during the Eighties) within SI member Guy Debord’s theory of the Society of the Spectacle. “There is no freedom outside of activity, and in the context of the spectacle all activity is negated,” is reflected in the punks’ ethos of Do It Yourself, or DIY. When everything around you is an entertainment product confected to keep you passive, the only way to be free is to “drop out”—not, as they saw it, in the passive, stuporous, drug-induced way of the Boomer counterculture, but in a clear-eyed, active, intellectually-engaged, and politically-conscious rejection of the entertainment media’s dreamworld. Though there was no punk orthodoxy, most punks could agree on that much. They wrote, printed, and distributed their own ‘zines, produced their own records, and “jammed econo”—touring on a shoestring budget, often in their own vehicles, sleeping on sofas and in squats and studios, without roadies and hangers-on or the VIP frills enjoyed by mainstream rock artists. They largely espoused principles of mutual aid and rejected the profit motive, often reinvesting what little money remained after expenses into their operations, bartering services and taped music. (The big record labels, which were just recovering from a sales slump after 1979, especially reviled the latter, calling for a surcharge on cassette tapes and laws against music piracy; Reagan always referred darkly to the punks’ mutual aid as an “underground economy,” no better than the illegal drug trade.) Yet in spite of their portrayal in popular media, and unlike the hippies, many punks were “straight edge,” avoiding alcohol and drugs; some also eschewed eating meat. Much of this punk praxis also reflected the influence of other thinkers, including Peter Kropotkin, Albert Camus, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, and Wilhelm Reich. Punks stood in stark contrast to the prevailing Principle of the Spectacle, according to Debord: “That which is good appears; that which appears is good,” The punks would not abide being mindlessly spoon-fed the pablum of the masses, and they generally resented celebrity and resisted buying into the mainstream entertainment industry.

We’re Not Here to Entertain marshals this dizzying array of characters, bands, scenes, and events into a convincing argument about capitalism’s insidious ability to co-opt and neuter any threat against it. Mattson describes the phenomenon of the New Left of the Sixties and Seventies morphing into the center-right materialism of the Eighties by examining popular films such as The Big Chill and St. Elmo’s Fire. We’re also shown glimpses of how punks were unfairly demonized as drug-addicted criminals on TV shows like Quincy and The Phil Donahue Show—while at the same time, Hollywood’s take on more “normal” young people was ridiculously unrealistic and lame, as we see in the vapid blockbuster films of John Hughes.

Mattson shows us Ronald Reagan’s public embrace of celebrities (over the protestations of White House Associate Counsel John Roberts), his campaign’s (mis)use of Bruce Springsteen’s hit “Born in the U.S.A.,” and his “aw, shucks” humor and charm. But this fantasy world served as cover for his generally unpopular policies: his firing of striking air-traffic controllers, slashing of social safety-net programs, reinstatement of Selective Service registration, secret support for right-wing movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and buildup of the nuclear arsenal and constant baiting of the Soviet Union—reflected in films like Red Dawn, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Rocky IV. As the ‘zine Third Rail put it: “Who could be easier to hate as president? Reagan presented the perfect picture of an idiotic, argumentative, disgruntled, reactionary, doddering old uncle who was nonetheless charming enough to be unbelievably irritating.”

Even for readers who lived through the decade, there are parallels with our more recent past, an awful lot of déjà vu—as if 1981-1985 prefigured 2016-2020—and it’s to Mattson’s credit that he mostly lets it speak for itself without comment. In opposition to punks’ social and political direct action—feeding the homeless, demonstrating against nukes—we find slacktivism and misguided billionaire philanthropy v. 1.0 in the ensemble hit song “We Are the World” and the follow-up Live Aid concert. As he delightfully puts it,

“We Are the World” stood within a long history of private charity. Almost one hundred years before Jackson wrote up the song, Andrew Carnegie had argued—amid the populist revolt and radical unionism of his times—that those who made wealth out of their own acumen should be those who decide how to spend surplus profits charitably (an argument informed by “social Darwinism”).…There was no call for regime change—right as a movement against South African apartheid was hitting college campuses—or permanent redistribution of wealth. That would have sunk the whole project in the first place. “We Are the World” was a narcissistic performance.

We are also reminded that many of our contemporary social and economic maladies didn’t begin with the Internet Age. Of our dwindling attention spans, the decontextualization of culture, and the “crisis of truth,” Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth had this to say way back in early 1985: “In the 80s truth passes into fiction and out again, history is recycled into the present without a context, and the present has become a leap of faith, as we sit back and enjoy the ultrafast life of MTV,” and Reagan’s Press Secretary Larry Speakes famously said of Reagan’s frequent tall tales, “If you tell the same story five times, it’s true.” We’re shown the beginnings of gentrification in New York and San Francisco, as punks (and the working class) were priced out of their own neighborhoods. And of course, capitalism was already well advanced in the process of atomizing and homogenizing culture, taming the “dangerous elements” of society, absorbing everything and selling it back to us as sanitized, standardized entertainment product; by the mid-Eighties, punk was less an active movement than a fashion statement, a “look” and “sound” that sold movies and CDs. The entertainment industry “picked off” popular punk acts “for media treatment,” Mattson says, enticing them away from the larger movement with lucrative recording contracts. And so through the all-too-human foibles of vanity and greed, punk was divided, conquered, and defanged. The story of the punk movement ends where We’re Not Here to Entertain begins, with Kurt Cobain lying dead on his floor, an ex-punker kid crushed by celebrity. But for all that, Mattson concludes by astutely observing:

In the words of the cartoonist John Crawford, “Punk is an anathema to the corporate greedheads.” Such a statement reminds us both of punk’s promise and its overburdened challenge. After all, we have to ask how a bunch of scroungy kids could overthrow the entertainment industry. As much as discussions about “mutual aid” fueled punk in the 1980s, there were just as many reports about the burn-out factor and fragility of DIY practices as well as the impossibilities of anarchism. It was just too damned difficult to imagine how kids with little power were going to overturn those with all the power—the juggernauts of the entertainment industry, like the corporate behemoth Warner Bros. But, for a moment, they tried, while often consoling themselves with dark humor. A “punk rock world” had been built, and though it was fragile, it expressed a hope for a world different from the decadence that Reagan and the corporate entertainment industry stood for. We should remember it precisely for that.

That Mattson is able to cram so much information and sharp analysis into 300 pages is extremely impressive—and I know from personal experience that the archival research involved in this book is monumental and probably unprecedented on this subject. Whether or not you lived through the Eighties, We’re Not Here to Entertain is an informative, necessary, and well-argued piece of scholarship that fills a void in the cultural history of the United States I feared would never be fully explored because of its ephemeral and often obscure nature. It’s also a fun read. May it inspire a new generation of dissenters.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where to start? The title. "Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan and THE REAL CULTURE WAR OF 1980s America." Wait, what was the fake culture war? Mattson never says. A more accurate title would have been "Punk Rock and Ronald Reagan from 1980 to 1985."

By the first hundred pages, I was really frustrated with this book. I couldn't reconcile my own experiences of the punk era (1980-1985) with Mattson's. His recounting seemed more like mythologizing than a critical examination of the movement.

Mattson focuses on the many political bands, but there were just as many apolitical ones and those are given much less attention. I listened to a lot of punk bands of that era, but I also remember that most kids I knew got off on the anger and violence, not any anti-nuclear message. He passingly notes that the punk movement was almost entirely male and white, but there is no discussion of why that was the case. He notes that the DK's had a song "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" but doesn't question why they needed to write that song in the first place. Seeing the punk movement as unique, he ignores obvious parallels with earlier (or later) anti-establishment, youth-driven subcultures (e.g., the beats, the hippies, or even the pre-WWI socialists and anarchists). Mattson takes the punks self-professed disdain of hippies and the music industry at face value without exploring any contradictions in their own views. For example, punks suffered existential anxiety because the might be forced to register for the draft, but hippies (worthy of dismissal only) were protesting an actual war. When punks sent tapes with 'zines, its DIY power, but when corporations combine two media (e.g., videos and music), its described with the pejorative "synergy" (always in scare quotes). Mattson views eventual death of a very specific punk scene as due to malign corporate power or betrayal by the faithful. Could it be, however, that that simply aging out of teenage rebellion combined with artistic growth meant that evolution was inevitable? That punks would need to move beyond the rigid boundaries of a subculture anchored in a specific time? Perhaps Mattson's biggest blind spot is his lament that punks offered kids the "freedom to make their own culture" but can't see that, within the punk world, they were only free to make punk culture within the confines of the rules made by the gatekeepers, i.e., the scene itself. After all, it would be unthinkable that a musician might want to make their own culture using a synthesizer. Mattson takes everything the punks did or said as true and worthy, which is a shame, because I think the punk attitude and aesthetic continues to have cultural significance, and a more balanced exploration of that subculture would have made for a more interesting and rewarding book.

Watching Rashomon helped me let go of my frustration. Mattson's history is just one telling of the story. Its like looking through a spyglass: what you see is in clear focus, but everything else is simply out of the frame. A number of other reviewers have made similar comments, but some see Mattson's myopic view as a feature, not a bug. Ultimately, this is a book of description, not analysis. Perhaps it would have worked better as a memoir.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

finishing this almost killed me. the book could've been half as long if we didn't need to detail every instance of leftist infighting. i liked the parts where things actually happened, though.

[Stacy Helton · Rating 4 out of 5]

We’re Not Here to Entertain You is a meticulously-researched, specific niche study of the emergence of postpunk rock (and the birth of “college radio”) from 1980-1985, argued in this book as a protest against the Reagan administration and their pro-nuke stance, as well as the administration’s overzealous involvement in Nicaragua. The detailing of the book is apt, due to author Kevin Mattson’s perusal of a treasure trove of ‘zines from the late 1970s through 1985, and his rollcall of what seems like a thousand punk bands formed directly before and after the 1980 election. Special attention is given to the San Francisco, LA, and DC scenes, but Mattson points out that the postpunk movement was filled with the DIY spirit, noting that bands were forming all over the world, and in small parts of the United States that were seemingly immune to any kind of protest. Mattson puts forth several logical arguments. The author recalls the period from the “Disco Sucks” movement to the release of Thriller as a time when corporate rock ran out of gas, with many thinking the “industry as a business” was doomed. In this narrow window emerged bands like the Minutemen, Husker Du, the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, the Dead Milkmen, and Fear. Along with the new style of socially conscious music came the world of supported ‘zines, featuring artists Matt Groening and Raymond Pettibon. Along with the emerging spirit, filmmakers like Penelope Spheeris and Jim Jarmusch, writers Dennis Cooper and William Gibson used their artform to document the strange new times. Mattson was smart to include the invasion in the mid-1980s by the skinheads and the National Front members who brought a dangerous element to a movement that was led by leaners of the far left (so far left that they disdained the hippie affectations of the 1960s generation). While some bands featured women, members of the LGQBT+ community, and racial minorities, Mattson gives the sociological swing of the movement short shrift. Mattson severely misunderstands Madonna, and his use of her iconic acceptance as a straw man throughout the book seem a tad misogynist, with his mistaking her as a pawn of the revamped music industry, who sings inane music that celebrates consumer culture (note: Material Girl is satire, but Mattson presents it straight-faced). Madonna brought a punk aesthetic to the early days of MTV that were seen by more people than a parking lot concert in Pasadena. But those complaints aside, Mattson does a great job of jockeying the postpunk movement with the politically barren landscape of the 1980s.

[John Marr · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always fun comparing second-hand accounts to first hand experience. There's plenty of silly nit-picking I could do here--the Fillmore Auditorium <> the Fillmore West Auditorium, Positive Force was based in Reno, not Las Vegas, but these are just minor details. Overall Mattson does an excellent job presenting a history of certain aspects (i.e., the left-wing political ones) of the early '80s hardcore scene. The stuff on Maximum RnR is particularly good. Unfortunately, this is far from the whole story, First, he greatly overestimates the size of the hardcore movement, seemingly thinking it's comparable to the '60s counterculture. Not even close. Much as I hate hippies, there were far, far more of them than us. Outside a few major cities, the "scenes" were tiny, with members numbering in the hundreds, or even the dozens. And then he pretty much ignores the parts of the scene that wasn't wrapped up in hating Reagan, supporting El Salvador, and reading Bakunin, which was most of it (sadly, the part that wasn't writing letters and publishing zines). When he writes about LA, he goes into detail about the police-instigated violence at punk gigs, but completely overlooks the number of clubs and halls trashed by punks without police assistance. And New York, he barely mentions it. Much as I wish otherwise, you really can't write a book like this without even mentioning Agnostic Front. Sigh.

[Hayden Merrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly mind boggling depth of research to this book. Mattson connects the dots between Matt Groening, 2-minute songs about killing cops, E.T., the Reagan admin, and how idealistic anarchist kids overthrew the entertainment industry with the help of zines and collective action. The biblio is a novella in itself. Genuinely staggering that the Simpsons was born out of the essentially radical left punk world and ended up being the most famous/ubiquitous/palatable thing on TV for the next almost-forty years. It’s not a focal point of the book but it stuck out to me, a stan, as emblematic of the sheer power and influence punk was able to wield throughout the ‘80s and beyond—arguably a way more impactful period than the defining ‘70s heyday and a serious rebuttal against the embarrassingly false “punk died in ‘79” argument you’ll get in an old-man pub in Camden. The sprawling and yet small-world network of bands, venues, publications, activist groups across the country—it’s overwhelming. It makes me wanna start a GD zine. Also, Mattson leaves you with a question about how, with the pluralism of choice available today via the internet etc. and how deconstructed/diffuse(?) culture ostensibly is, it’s a bit insane that we are just as top-down influenced as we were 40 years ago—how the blockbuster spectacle shows a la Taylor Swift thrive now, how we are such consolidated consumers, just as Reagan would’ve wanted. I need to read this shit again though, man. I’m not making any sense.

[Josef · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will write a proper review of this book once I finally start working on my music related blog again, and will link here. I generally enjoyed reading this book, albeit at times it's a tedious read and that's mainly due to the fact that the reader has to switch back and forth between Reagan's politics, some lengthy reviews and anecdotes about '80s flicks and hardcore punk. Don't go into reading this book thinking that it's about the '80s hardcore punk scenes, it is not. And I am not saying that it is a bad thing, because overall the author has done a great job at putting hardcore punk within the context of that time, its politics and state of the entertainment industry. I just wish the film parts were not that long in the book, and the author would have dedicated more time and pages to music. But again, it's a good book, it's well written, thoroughly researched and well worth reading.

[Courtney Golden · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was ok. (I don’t usually give less than 3 stars unless I really can’t stand something.). It definitely was a slog to get through at times. I never really got into hardcore because it was, as other reviewers have pointed out, such a guys club (seriously, the few times a woman is mentioned there’s a whole “see there’s a girl involved” mention), and this did nothing to change that. Everything is also very black or white, you’re a part of it with our very strict definitions or you’re a sell out (again as other commenters have noted), and I disagree with some of the author’s views of who sold out. With all that said, I didn’t know about all the political thought involved in the movement and that part of the book I found very interesting.

[Bernie Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give it 3.5 stars — so rounded up. This book was very well researched and super thorough, almost to a fault. I could have stood for less minutia and more of the political narrative, which is why I picked up the book. I did think it was interesting that this book went through the entire culture war era of the 80s with no mention of the AIDS epidemic. I felt like the author wrote from the perspective of "that dude I went to high school with who was really into punk”. That said, the author does know his stuff. Read in conjunction with Burning Down the Haus by Tim Mohr. The comparison of punk music in America and the movement in East Germany is pretty interesting. Definitely recommend this if you’re interested in reading about the era — but I’d skip over the tedious bits.

[Miguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the also recent “Corporate Rock Sucks” about SST covered a lot of the same ground as this one, the former was like enjoying one of the classic SST albums, while reading this one was more like picking up an old copy of Maximum Rocknroll and wading through the usual disjointed and at times hyperventilating commentary. It just was not a focused or pleasurable read and was especially disappointing after recently reading the Ruland summation of those times.

[Jon B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was my life, to an extent. I was one of these kids, scouring the import section of the local record store, trading tapes with friends, finding new bands in MRR (when a issue managed to trickle down to my Southern town) and sending them three dollars for their EP (I'm looking at you DRI, The Edge, Teenage Love, Corrosion of Conformity etc.)

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched exploration of the relationship between conservative politics and punk rock music. A balanced take that doesn't get lost in the weeds of politics or the navel-gazing tendencies of the punk rock scene.

[Len or Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loses momentum at the end, but it’s a smartly written account of the punk rock era during the Reagan administration. Both an excellent history and astute analysis.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fairly perfect. But it misses a significant member of the teeny punks—Connecticut.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting thesis ultimately undone by lazy writing

[Mrsculpepper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough. Extensive bibliography.

[Michael Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great look at the punk music scene and Reagan politics that influenced it during the early 80s. Brought back a lot of fond memories of living in DC at that time.