Annotated Bibliography #3

Hannon, Sharon M. Punks: A Guide To An American Subculture. Santa Barbara, USA: ABC-CLIO, 2009. Web. Accessed 19 May 2011.

Chapter One of Sharon Hannon’s book Punks: A Guide To An American Subculture seeks to answer the highly contested question of what is punk? In this chapter, Hannon offers more of a historical look at punk and its sub-genres than a strictly theoretical one, but through that historical approach she is able to identify and discuss the different ways punk has been understood and defined over its lifetime. In the beginning of the chapter Hannon demonstrates how everyone has a different understanding of what constitutes punk and this in turn makes it virtually impossible to define what is actually punk and what is not. Some of us define punk by the political ideologies it may embody, others identify it by its visual aesthetics while some simply define it by the way the music sounds. (2) This way of understanding punk also shows that no single viewpoint is inherently correct: the person who believes The Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen (a song that expresses anti-monarchist sentiments) embodies all that punk is, is not necessarily more correct than the 15 year old kid who believes My Chemical Romance’s Vampire Money (a commentary on bands ‘selling out’ to be featured on the Twilight soundtrack) is punk. Hannon’s chapter is probably the weakest of the three resources I’ve discussed on here as far as theoretical and critical ideas of punk go, however, I still feel this chapter will be useful as its factual, historical structure gives important background information for me into this subculture and the varying viewpoints it presents expands my understanding of punk and has given me some new ideas to work with.