AS soon as something organic, original or revolutionary is created, it’s only a matter of time until ill-intentioned profiteers will attempt to re-appropriate it for their own benefit. Band t-shirts in massive high street chains, timeless musical documents of rebellion now found in car advertisements and even David Cameron’s claims of allegiance to The Smiths are enough to make any fan’s stomaches turn.
It is this notion of youth culture being pillaged by corporate influence which sparked the so-called ‘punk funeral’, a ceremonial burning of the genre’s most prized artefacts by none other than Malcolm Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood’s son Joe Corre.
With an estimated value of over £5 million, last weekend saw the man behind underwear brand Agent Provacateur and the year zero punk icon Westwood take to the banks of the Thames to set fire to a collection which included items of clothing owned by Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten and others alongside a number of other sought-after pieces of memorabilia.
Speaking in reference to the rationale behind his decision to torch the historic items, his argument for doing so fell primarily on the grounds that he believed ‘Punk has become another marketing tool to sell you something you don’t need. The illusion of an alternative choice. Conformity in another uniform.’
Incensed by the plans for an exhibit known as ‘Punk London’ which would be supported by bodies such as the mayor of London, the British Film Institute and various other institutions that have been rooted into the establishment, plans were cemented as a means of dispelling ‘the hypocrisy at the core of this hijacking of 40 years of Anarchy in the UK.’
What’s crucial to this proclamation is the claims of Corre defending a genre’s most coveted items by setting them alight and the ingrained hypocrisy of such a wanton act of destruction when Britain’s youths are languishing in a state of political, social and economical injustice.
In many ways, what this alleged guardian of the sanctity of the movement has done is the antithesis of everything which figures such as John Lydon, Joe Strummer, Jimmy Pursey and Steve Ignorant strived to build during the genre’s heyday.
Providing an escape route for a generation of young people that had been plagued by poverty and left with nothing other than overblown prog rock to escape within, the widespread appeal of these artists was ultimately facilitated by the fact that they had to intersect with the mainstream in order to get themselves the necessary exposure. Punk may have possessed a DIY aesthetic and ethos of its own divising but the lion’s share of its biggest bands were signed to labels that enabled them to distribute their music far and wide, tour across the country and even spread their manifesto to the far reaches of the British isles via TV appearances and radio airplay.
The contradictory relationship between punk’s rebellious stance towards the establishment and its unavoidable intermingling with it has been present ever since its genesis, with the aforementioned Strummer known to confide in friends that he felt like a fraud due to his boarding school education and yet he remains one of the most enduringly inspiring figures ever to pick up a guitar and unleash a three-chord barrage upon the world.
Claiming that “punk has become like a fucking museum piece or a tribute act” and “People are feeling numb … we need to explode all the shit once more”, what Corre has failed to realise is that burning items which could be utilised as a means of enabling today’s youth to enter the creative domain is completely and utterly vacuous.
Whilst his estimated net worth sits at a staggering $48 million, the fact that £5 million may be a drop in the ocean for him doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be invaluable to the next generation of instigators and agitators that wish to bring their anarchic sermons to the public.
Many potential musicians are likely discouraged by the inability to make money within the modern era, not willing to struggle to make ends meet with families to provide for and bills to pay. Corre was all too quick to rebuff the notion of giving the money to charity on the grounds that ‘they are becoming corporations in their own right’ but there was no reason that he’d couldn’t have auctioned off the goods to musuems or private collectors in order to set up his own foundation. Food banks, refugees and youth clubs could all have benefited from such a cash injection while a situation in which Corre could’ve mediated funding to struggling acts that he deemed ‘authentic’ enough to be worthy of the money amassed from punk’s legacy would’ve been equally productive.
Allowing them to release their output in a way that didn’t rely on crowd-funding or endless swathes of red tape from labels, Corre could’ve preserved the spirit of something which he allegedly holds so dear as opposed to meaninglessly desecrating a collection which could’ve assisted creatives that continue to be inspired by those who stood boldly in defiance of fascism, racism and inequality all those years ago.
In an era where we’re led by an unelected, puritanical prime minister with no European Union as a regulatory safety net whilst our friends across the Atlantic are now helmed by an ‘alt-right’ minded billionare that harbours some truly unpalatable views, we need the spirit of punk to rise from the ashes of Corre’s putrid fire like a phoenix and once again inspire us all to reject the status quo.
