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Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk ed. by Mirko M. Hall, Seth Howes, and Cyrus M. Shahan

2018; Music Library Association; Volume: 75; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/not.2018.0101

1534-150X

Marci Cohen,

Music History and Culture

Reviewed by: Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk ed. by Mirko M. Hall, Seth Howes, and Cyrus M. Shahan Marci Cohen Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk. Edited by Mirko M. Hall, Seth Howes, and Cyrus M. Shahan. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. [x, 179 p. ISBN 9781501314087 (hardback), $120; ISBN 9781501314124 (paperback), $39.95; ISBN 9781501314100, 9781501314117 (e-books), $35.95.] Illustrations, bibliography, index. Originating in the United States and United Kingdom, punk has become a worldwide movement. Scholars embrace punk because it encompasses not just music but also the fertile territories of subcultures, youth, rebellion, and politics. Punk's manifestation in Germany reflected the reverberations of Nazism and the Holocaust as well as Germany's unique position as a country divided after World War II then ultimately reunified. Beyond No Future: Cultures of German Punk, a collection of essays edited by Mirko M. Hall, Seth Howes, and Cyrus M. Shahan, examines these many facets. The contributors represent US and German universities, providing a balance of insider and outsider perspectives that are useful for a book aimed at an English-speaking audience. While the goal might be to expand punk scholarship beyond the study of Anglo-American punk, thereby legitimizing German punk to an anglophone audience, the book does something more valuable in surveying the intersection of punk and German culture. [End Page 277] The editors provide the introduction and coda jointly, and each supplies a chapter written individually. Other authors contribute the remaining chapters. The introduction outlines the aims: "this anthology illustrates how paradigmatically German punk traced the global fissures effaced by the construction of two Germanies in the postwar period" (p. 4). The editors give an overview of the topic in the introduction—for example, arguing that German punk countered the assumption of the inevitability of reunification. They offer a brief review of existing German-language literature on the native scene and acknowledge their desire to fill a void in the intersection of disparate elements of coverage of the topic: English-language cultural studies, German cultural studies, and German punk studies. Reflecting a long-standing schism, the editors identify punk as originating in the UK then spreading to New York rather than having its birthplace in the US. While there is widespread consensus about the importance of Malcolm McLaren's witnessing the scene in New York and the Ramones playing in London, these events are viewed as the antecedent to punk rather than ground zero. Regardless, the editors point out that punk spawned concurrently in Germany and the influence flowed both ways between Germany and the UK. Dennis Borghardt analyzes topographic references in German punk lyrics, particularly for themes of urban location. Without heavy explicit reference, German punks narrated their hometowns, particularly Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg. Borghardt extracts meaning from their descriptions, such as the focus on small aspects of daily life, depictions of interior spaces, and recurring themes of collapse. Like several contributors, he unifies the book by making connections to other essays contained within. Reflecting on the common punk theme of boredom, Matthew Sikarskie finds connections between the West German punk movement and the Wander vogel movement from the Wilhelmine era. Sikarskie assumes readers are familiar with "Wilhelmine" (the period from 1890 to 1918 when Wilhelm II reigned as German emperor), but explains "Wandervogel" in detail, recognizing it as an unfamiliar term to most anglophone readers. Essentially, it was the "No Child Left Inside" movement of its day, which encouraged youths to develop their autonomy and escape modern urban life (and, by extension, boredom) by hiking. Both the Wandervogel and punk movements incorporated music, eschewed strict allegiance to progressive politics, and occurred during times of national transition. Sikarskie also discusses the relationship with modern technology and finds ideologies of "us versus them" in both movements; for example, participants in the Wander vogel movement distinguished themselves from tourists (pp. 47–48) and rejected society's rigidity (pp. 49–50). Peter Brandes focuses on literary analysis of punk lyrics, grounding his essays in questions of why this is even necessary. He starts with the surprising fact that the stalwart German punk band Die Toten Hosen scored their first number one hit in Germany in...