Who’s Punk? — Kate Bush

So this has been a running series covering different artists who aren’t technically punk but are more punk than most actual punk bands. It’s been a minute, but I decided on Kate Bush partly to shamelessly buy-in on the hype surrounding “Running Up That Hill” and the ubiquitous culture thing that shall not be named. But also, she’s been on my radar for a while as a potential punk of interest. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing this a month late when everyone is sick of this sh*t, goddamnit, Eddie is a metal head not a punk. And not to casually play down real problems, there is also violent action being taken against women and LGBT+ people’s rights, so now would be a good time as any to sum up Kate Bush’s punk cred, I guess. 

(Sorry if the word punk gets super repetitive and abstract.)

Bush grew up alongside punk. She was picked up by a major label at 17 years old and started writing her first album right as punk started in the UK circa 1976. However, the prog-rock sound and pop style she would become known for was quickly replaced by punk's DIY style, especially when her debut “The Kick Inside” was released in 1978. And as is often pointed out, Bush’s hand-selected single “Wuthering Heights” was supposed to be a flop according to the label but would quickly rise to the number one spot on UK’s Billboard chart despite not fitting in with the overall punk craze of the time. 

It’s hard to say exactly how punks received the album but it is easy to argue how Bush, on paper, was very unpunk. Bush came from a suburban middle-class upbringing, was a classically trained musician, never really participated in the genre at all, had access to state-of-the-art synthesizers and deep industry connections. Oof that’s a lot, but something worth considering is that the music industry, especially punk, was heavily male-dominated with notable exceptions like Siouxsie and the Banshees. She was privileged, yes but she wasn’t just another industry cog. Punk and Bush had a critical common ground, they were both weirdos.

Bush never quite fit in anywhere but unlike punk, she could pass anywhere becoming a celebrated icon in Britain quickly from people of all walks of life. She was like the popular artsy girl that never fit in with school cliques but somehow could charm others while still being herself. Punk was the opposite, the school freak hiding under the school bleachers smoking or trying to be hard like they didn’t care what people thought, or whatever. 

I have no way of really proving this but I imagine she conformed well to the ‘70s standards of a woman pop star. She was young, hot, and had a beautiful voice which all made her comfortably familiar to a country growing more conservative entering the Thatcher years. She originated from within the system and was now using it to her advantage. But her engagement with those systems in the larger music industry earned her deep-rooted respect from those who paid attention. 

Fun side note: Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols adored Bush and even wrote a song for her to perform about the evils of the exotic bird trade. She did not do anything with the song. Rotten still adored her. 

Anyway, Bush was fiercely independent and serious about having a hand in all of her work. She would co-produce her early albums before making a personal studio to self-produce for many years, which at the time was almost unheard of in popular music. Bush cared deeply about image but hated virtually every part of the music industry beyond the actual, ya know, music. She rarely performed or toured in her entire career and when she did, it was huge theatrical works full of costume changes, choreography and set design, all created by her. 

She rarely allowed anyone to pressure her to do anything she didn’t want to, including interviews. There is one tape I know of where she talks about punk music and her summation is that she viewed it all as just an act. Cynical for the young dreamer but she saw it as a costume people wore to sell music, much like her red Kimono. According to other interviews, Bush seemed to like punk, but she saw it as less a movement and more a big game. For Bush, music was real but the aesthetics were just part of the act. 

Bush wanted her music to “intrude.” It wasn’t enough that she was one of the biggest pop stars of her time. She wanted to create music that made people pay attention, whether they were comfortable or not. And that’s where her eccentricity allowed her to explore political topics through the lens of personal emotion and fictional stories. 

Very few artists make pop from whale sounds or ballads about the world ending in a nuclear holocaust from the perspective of a fetus. Politically, these are pretty progressive ideas valuing nature with an antiwar sentiment. And it’s not just a few one-off tracks. “James and the Cold Gun,” “Pull Out The Pin” and “Army Dreamers” are also highly antiwar. It was also common for her songs to hint at or address homosexuality and gender issues which have helped make her a queer/feminist icon. 

Gay rights were only starting to become a reality in the UK in the late ‘60s so the stigma of queerness was still high by Bush's time. Many artists then addressed these issues but few shared the platform she had. “Kashka From Baghdad” is all about a homosexual couple’s fear of persecution and the lengths they go to love one another. 

Another side-note: in the famous song “Cloudbusting,” she has a one-liner that’s kinda cool but it’s unclear if she intended it how it sounds. Lyrics: “And every time it rains / You're here in my head / Like the sun coming out / Look, your son's coming out / Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen / I don't know when.” And it’s repeated a couple of times in the closing refrain, so possible double meaning to the song?

Anyway, even her biggest song “Running Up That Hill,” is about gender-bending. It’s a sort of “take a mile in each other shoes” message that, from one perspective, is a feminist anthem but is also a body dysmorphia song from another. Yearning to be something you aren’t and maybe love differently than your body allows is a topic only someone like Bush can do justice, even if that wasn’t her intent. 

Her campiness made her the perfect escape for people even decades later, where misfits could find a voice and identity. 

I find kinship in that because, in my view, punk was always about creating a space for those who don’t belong. Kate Bush just did it in a way that transcended genre barriers and fused different kinds of arts with music like theatre and literature while also bringing attention to critical issues we still deal with today. This is all on top of her fierce devotion to her craft and carving her path despite constant pressure from industry men saying you can’t do this or you aren’t that. Classic punk defiance wrapped up in glimmering ivy still creeping its way into new generations. 

There’s a ton of other interesting stuff I shouldn’t go to deep into like how she was mentored by her big brothers and Pink Floyd’s guitarist David Gilmour but you can learn more about her background from the sources I read below as well as a really great Bandsplain podcast episode on Spotify.

Sources:

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/what-kate-bush-thought-about-punk/

https://medium.com/geouwehoer/kate-bush-british-institution-or-undercover-punk-a27b3debec7d

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-enduring-incandescent-power-of-kate-bush

https://www.grunge.com/885334/the-untold-truth-of-kate-bush/

https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/kate-bush-feature-running-up-that-hill/13930352

https://i.redd.it/ndmolx5efuj61.jpg

I’m rambling at this point because it’s my newsletter and I need this, please just let me have it. But I just wanted to make note that my limited pool of friends like to take jabs at me for liking Kate Bush but it’s hard to deny how hard her sh*t goes. Like listen to her scream “Get Out of My House” and turn into a donkey and tell me that’s not sick.

Support my work

I started a Patreon because Substack’s minimum subscription cost is way too much. There are personalized benefits and exclusives available. Pay what you can by emailing me daltonspangler25@gmail.com and I’ll send you a year’s subscription.

Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/orbitingpunk

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Big thanks to Brett Fountain and family members who have supported me so far!

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Let me hear from you!

Send me love, hate, music recommendations by emailing me at daltonspangler25@gmail.com. Criticism or corrections are cool. I tend to make dumb errors without an editor so please, I like to learn when I make mistakes!

Welcome to Orbiting Punk! If you missed it, I explained what the newsletter is all about here. New issues every two weeks, so subscribe to keep up with my little newsletter.

This week I looked at Mitski and what even is punk?

Thanks for reading! For questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to email me at orbitingpunk@gmail.com.

​​Who’s Punk - Mitski

“Who’s Punk” is a series on artists who don’t make “Punk” music, but I argue, are honorary punks. In this issue, I wrote about indie-rock idol Mitski. She just released her sixth studio album “Laurel Hell.” This write-up will be a bit different from usual because it’s a more punk-by-way-of-emo look at Mitski. 

Read this next lyric and tell me it’s not punk/emo:

“Good morning, heartache. You're like an old friend come to see me again.”

If you said, “No it’s not idiot,” firstly rude, second that was Rancid, so fuck you. Now, read this next lyric which is actually by Mitski:

“I wanna tell you about the young ideas, but you turn them into fears.” 

Got you again! I pulled the ol’ double agent switcheroo! That was The Jam (Who? Sex Pistols era, okay. It just sounded Mitski to me). But alright for real this time: 

“And I want a love that falls as fast as a body from the balcony.”

Fucking brutal. That’s off “Townie” from Mitski’s album “Bury Me at Makeout Creek.” It’s probably one of the better examples of Mitski’s blunt, authentic lyricism. 

I played a game with a few friends where I showed them lyrics from classic punk/emo bands like the ones above and lyrics from Mitski. The results were pretty similar. People could mostly tell which were Mitski but the lyrics above mixed people up the most (I’ll attach the game with the answers at the end of the article if you’re interested. The highest score was 14 out of 16). Even my “willing” participants compared her lyrics to La Dispute and another to Taking Back Sunday and they felt many of the lyrics could go either way. My point in all this is that Mitski is as emo as they come lyrically. 

But looking at static lyrics on a page is nothing like listening to the actual music. Like many indie rock artists, Mitski dabbles in several genres of music, with songs pulling more directly from punk influences than others. Tracks like “Townie,” “Your Best American Girl,” and “You’re Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars,” resemble traditional punk/emo the most, with crunching guitars in the forefront of these songs. But lyrical themes of songs like “Working for the Knife,” “Everyone,” and “Carry Me Out,” fit punk’s ethos as well (the whole of “Bury Me At Makeout Creek” is pretty punk, in my opinion).

Mitski’s new album “Laurel Hell” takes a genuinely punk attitude towards the music industry with musings on her success as an artist and the effect that all has had on her as a person. 

In “Working for the Knife,” she addresses her choice to become a musician and to succeed, she must kill or cut parts of herself away to become appealing to the consumer. She sings about crying at the start of every movie because, at one point, she wanted to be a filmmaker but chose music instead. Part of the reason is revealed in the lyric: “I used to think I would tell stories / But nobody cared for the stories I had about / No good guy.” And she goes on to sing about feeling stuck in this career and ultimately will die by the “knife” she’s chosen. 

Carrying on anti-capitalistic themes, “Everyone,” Mitski compares the music industry to a darkness that takes everything you can give in exchange for fame. For creatives, creating art is part blessing but also part bane. It’s an integral part of that person but it’s also their productivity and bottom-line if that’s their career. The closing lyrics sum up the song well: “Sometimes I think I am free / Until I find I'm back in line again.” 

And finally, on the track, “There’s Nothing Left Here for You,” Mitski sings of being washed up — of having nothing left to give the darkness. In a lot of Mitski’s music, her songs portray romantic relationships but she’s stated in interviews that much of the “lovers” or “you’s” in her music are not people at all. In this song, “you” is the music industry and the “she” is artists. And because she’s built a career out of being a musician, there isn’t much she can do once she’s all used up until it all passes on “to someone new,” who will also ultimately become washed up as well— and the cycle continues. 

Mitski has always had a bird’s eye perspective on the purpose of her art dropped in her music. “Laurel Hell” addresses the meta well but she’s even written about the subject like an album review she wrote of Weezer’s “Pacific Daydream.” The way she writes about Weezer seems equally self-reflective, “How do you keep writing pop songs when you stop having pop-song feelings?” 

She writes about consumer demographics and how important age is to making money as an artist. Most would agree, Weezer and specifically lead singer Rivers Cuomo is pretty washed up. But Mitski humanized the plight an artist like Cuomo must be going through. It’s the definition of a first-world problem but one that all artists must grapple with eventually. 

All of this is to say that her ideas are punk as fuck. It’s anti-capitalistic, anti-establishment, and directly addresses the purpose of music in the first place. It’s the feeling of being literally consumed by your fans. It’s the realization that your creation is only a reflection of yourself and not your actual self— just a hunk of meat to be devoured by the masses or left to spoil. It begs the question, “why make art for such a system at all?”

And the way Mitski approaches songwriting is deeply confessional and authentic like a good punk or emo record. Unlike a lot of punk though, Mitski is a classically trained musician who is actually talented. She has suburb control over her voice, pulling off ranges of emotions hardcore screamers could only dream of doing. 

Some surface-level arguments for Mitski’s “punkness” are her politics and origins within the scene. She started out in the early ‘10s performing in many DIY punk venues before eventually landing bills with many major punk/emo artists like Joyce Manor and Against Me!. As a POC woman, she has always been openly anti-racist, feminist and other values that fit in within good punk politics. Her importance through representation in music can’t be understated and as she broke into the mainstream and began headlining shows, she’d prioritize highlighting other POC women on her bills like Jay Som and Japanese Breakfast. 

Mitski’s take on consumer culture, her brutal and authentic lyricism, politics and origins within the scene all make for solid punk credentials. Now with this series, I don’t intend to argue that Mitski’s music has to be anything more than it is but I hope I’ve given some compelling reasons to at least respect her. 

Check out some highlight songs on this week's playlist and check out the Mitski lyric game I made at the end of the newsletter. Comment below on how well you did.

Orbiting Punk Playlist #3

Mitski and songs musing on Punk.

YouTube for my Spotify protestors.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit of square. I come from a middle-class upbringing. I’m 24-years-old. I don’t do drugs. I work a lot. I don’t have tattoos or piercings. I can’t write about music without a dorkish amount of reverence and seriousness. Maybe it makes me difficult to read—  a bit stiff, overly meta or dry. But I don’t know how to approach writing in any other way than embarrassingly personal or clinically distant. 

The whole premise of this newsletter hinges on the idea that punk is a “celestial body” that “pulls” a “solar system” of “art” into its “gravity.” And to keep this jank-ass metaphor going, seeing the “beauty” in its fucked up “constellation.” But for a dork like me to write about all those cool things that surround punk, I feel the need to have a (working) definition of what punk even is to start. 

It’s one of the oldest, most tired discussions surrounding punk. One, two, three, four. Who’s punk? What’s the score? “You’re not punk and I’m telling everyone,” type shit. 

Punk is old. The roots of it started in the mid-'70s mostly in NYC and the UK. Every decade since has at least a dozen subgenres spawning from it. And with each iteration, the definition of punk becomes even harder to nail down. People started calling punk vague things like a feeling or attitude. The definition became a “you know when you know” thing like falling in love or that Jesus is in your heart with faith (just make sure you pick the right denomination of punk).1 

But over the many decades that Punk has been around as a descriptor of bands, many key virtues and characteristics have stuck around. So here is a list of key parts that I believe define punk mostly. Disclaimer: This is all going to be a bit reductive as you could write several books about each of the scenes and ideologies I’m trying to wrangle in here. Anyway, what does punk give a shit about?

“The People” 

Punk is inherently egalitarian. When the first punks arose they were generally young, poor people rebelling against a world they saw as having no future, at least not one they could join. Rock music became the art of the affluent cultural elite who were teens in the 50s and 60s. The teens of the 70s wanted to create music and culture they felt belonged to them and the working class. DIY arose and so too did a lot of other virtues that I’ll discuss in greater detail. But class consciousness is a huge part of the punk mental framework. It’s the poor vs the rich. The bottom rungs of society sometimes violently fighting for a space of their own on stage and beyond. Punk provides everyone with an equal platform so long as you have a cheap guitar and a shitty amp. Or in a broader sense, punk’s goal is to give everyone in the community equal opportunity to live, create and be happy. 

“An Attitude”

Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols is often revered as the first true embodiment of punk attitude— nihilism, hedonism, and violence. At worst, Vicious was a murder and at least a complete asshole that enabled a great deal of toxicity to be glorified in the scene as outlaw-ism. Undeniably, aspects of early punk virtues embodied by Vicious and others have held strong in defining punk. Self-destruction almost seems like a prerequisite for many punk legends. The nihilistic idea has evolved over time to include self-destructive anxiety, tongue-in-cheek irony, and what I call positive apathy (Not caring about the purpose of things and doing good anyway). This is the aspect of punk that seems more a feeling you have about someone than a hard-set rule, so ultimately it’s subjective. 

“Counter-Culture” 

This is where I get a bit meta and abstract, sorry. Punk only really exists within the context of modern society. There’s never been a punk, utopian state as the dominant culture.2 And so punk virtues are very “anti-” this and “anti-” that. Punk is anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, anti-corporate, anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-transphobic, anti-sexist, et cetera. Punk is what it is not. And defining punk gets even muddier when actual musical elements are thrown in the mix. However, the inherent anti-mainstream characteristic is crucially punk. Not in the hipster, I only listen to unpopular music sense (although sometimes that’s the case) but in the larger cultural sense that punk can only exist in opposition to the current society. This whole point might be kind of moot since there likely won’t ever be a punk utopia but it’s a key characteristic any artist related to punk should have.

“Authenticity” 

Hip-Hop and Punk have a great deal of historical, musical and ideological links between one another. The value of “keeping it real” was an early connection that became a key part of both genres. Original punks created DIY scenes to counter the music industry through home venues, independent labels, grassroots touring circuits and fanzines. It created an economy of its own that operated on street-cred as currency. The result was an emphasis on authenticity, fabricated or otherwise. This would become a regular point of contention within the punk community of who was really real or not. Who were the poseurs and sellouts vs the hardcore punks?3 Some “punk” bands often held false values to buy their way into the scene which rightfully pissed off some people. In turn, it led to a gatekeeping crisis that poisoned the punk well. Authenticity is one of the issues that makes artists like Killer Mike, Dolly Parton and Mitski more punk than some punk bands.4 Punk has to be real in some way or another. 

“The Island of Misfit Toys” 

Ideally, punk is a place for everyone. Not to get all mellow-dramatic, but punk is the roots for the rootless, worth for the worthless, a voice for the voiceless, and arms for the armless. Most of the subculture (excluding Nazi punks, fuck off), is accepting of anyone despite class, race, gender and sexual orientation. It’d be disingenuous to say that punk has always done a good job of this but that’s the dream. It’s in the name. “Punk” literally means a worthless person. This aspect drew me into the genre. If you’ve ever felt alienated and tired of the status quo, punk can be your home and your weapon. Ultimately, punk is there for everyone.

“A Moral Compass” 

It’s no secret that punk is a sacrilegious and godless genre a lot of the time. It kinda has to be to rebel against a religious and well-mannered mainstream. Like I mentioned earlier, punk is an egalitarian genre that sees all people as having equal value and purpose aka humanitarianism. There is a reason why so many punks work in activism, nonprofits, shelters and other humanitarian efforts. Punks use nihilism as an excuse to dedicate themselves to helping others. I’m not trying to be preachy but a critical part of being punk is giving a shit about others. 

“The Music” 

Notice this was last on my list. Being punk has almost nothing to do with how you dress and the music you play or listen to. But I’d be doing a disservice if I defined punk without its sonic characteristics. Generally speaking, punk is heavy, fast, aggressive, openly political and emotional.5 It’s historically guitar-based rock music but punk has evolved into an ideological/influence descriptor for many bands rather than a hardline genre. Not all music inspired by punk is punk but it helps. Punks often emphasize complete creative control and nonconformity when making music. There is no better way to make your music completely yours than doing it yourself (DIY). And punk music can be made by anyone regardless of talent or technology. Traditionally “bad” sounding music is a sought-after quality in punk albums— lo-fi recording, harsh vocals or basic but potent power chords. The more flaws an artist or album has, the more sincere and raw the music seems. You get to witness artists’ flaws connect with them on a ground level. 

Additionally, punk music is original. True punk artists defy convention and push the genre further and further into new territory. Clones of bands copying historic ‘90s acts like Nirvana and Green Day led to entire swaths of garbage, unpunk music in the ‘00s like a lot of pop-punk and post-grunge. It’s hard to say if punk ever died since it's a continuous evolution and splintering up the punk family tree. Progressions led to the dreaded modifier post- this and post- that to be used as descriptors for music everywhere. Post- implied a lineage but it’s not always clear how best to label it beyond after so and so.

First, there was hardcore punk and then there was post-hardcore which would be a genre (within a genre, within a genre and so on) for over 20 years. There’s a wild difference between the post-hardcore bands of the ‘90s and the post-hardcore bands of today. Post-post-hardcore doesn’t exist in name but despite generational divides, defining any long-lasting genre of music proves difficult. But one thing is for certain, punk is not dogma. Punk is radical and bold. Punk is sometimes spontaneously kicking a garbage can but sometimes it’s a loving hug. Despite whatever long-winded descriptors, new artists keep cropping up carrying the punk banner forward. 

In summary, some checkboxes for punk musically include: music made DIY, influenced by punk music or philosophy, is original, bares human flaws plainly and defies convention.

It’s not my place to decide what punk is or isn’t. I’m not sure who could rightfully claim they could, anyway. But each of these pieces all fit together to explain at least how I define my perspective on punk. I’d love to hear your thoughts or if you have any ideas of your own of what punk is in the comments. Thanks for reading through my rambling if you made it this far and check out the playlist I made for this week with punk songs from Mitski as well as some punk musings from a variety of artists.

Mitski Lyrics Game (answers at end)

Guess if each lyric’s below is M - Mitski or P/E - Punk/Emo. You may want a notepad or notes app to keep track of your answers. Correct answers are at the end of the newsletter. 

1. We'll meet again when both our cars collide.

2. I'm pulsing, my blood is red and unafraid of living.

3. And I want a love that falls as fast as a body from the balcony.

4. Good morning heartache, you're like an old friend, come to see me again.

5. I wanna see the whole world. I don't know how I'm gonna pay rent.

6. Sometimes I think I am free until I find I'm back in line again.

7. I'm not sure what I meant to you then, so I'm not sure what I owe you now.

8. If your hands need to break more than trinkets in your room, you can lean on my arm as you break my heart.

9. And I'm the idiot with the painted face in the corner, taking up space.

10. The mirrors lie, those aren't my eyes. Destroy them. Raise my hand; reflected in savage shards.

11. I wouldn't mind if you took me in my sleep tonight; I wouldn't even put up a fight.

12. I always wanted to die clean and pretty, but I'd be too busy on working days.

13. We are not our failures; we are love.

14. I wanna tell you about the young ideas, but you turn them into fears.

15. Just the way you were raised; just the way you were raised.

16. ‘Cause nobody butters me up like you, and nobody fucks me like me

Support my work

I started a Patreon because Substack’s minimum subscription cost is way too much. There are personalized benefits and exclusives available. Pay what you can by emailing me daltonspangler25@gmail.com and I’ll send you a year’s subscription.

Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/perfectsoundwhatever

Virtual Tip Jar via PayPal: @orbitingpunk

Big thanks to Brett Fountain and family members who have supported me so far!

Forwarding this to a friend helps a ton too!

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Let me hear from you!

Send me love, hate, music recommendations, story tips, musicians you want to see interviewed, shows you want to see promoted, etc. by emailing me at daltonspangler25@gmail.com

Mitski Lyric Game Answers

Footnotes

Welcome to Orbiting Punk! If you missed it, I explained what the newsletter is all about here. This week I wrote about the punk in Killer Mike and about Avril Lavigne’s new single.

Thanks for reading! For questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to email me at orbitingpunk@gmail.com.

The Punk In - Killer Mike

The Punk In… is a series on artists who don’t make “punk” music but are more punk than most bands that like to say they are. In this issue, I’m looking at hip-hop artist Michael Render aka Killer Mike.

Mike’s music career has always been about killing your masters. 

El-P, Mike’s rap-partner and producer in Run the Jewels,  describes Mike’s worldview as “Black nationalism with a hint of socialism and armed to the teeth.”

He’s anti-drug even though he sold drugs at 14-years old. 

He’s anti-police even though his dad was a cop. 

He’s pro-local government and non-partisan but worked on Bernie Sander’s 2016 presidential campaign.

He’s anti-capitalist but proudly owns various businesses and properties in a theory he calls “compassionate capitalism.”

He’s pro-arms even getting into some controversy for sitting down with the NRA for a radio show (controversy is a common reoccurrence in his life).

He’s a complicated guy who thinks for himself and makes actions against his oppressors. It’s a part of him that makes his music more visceral, authentic and powerful than most punks.

Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Mike has lived a life he would call “a goddamn BET movie.” Born in 1975 to a teen mom, he grew up during the height of the cocaine epidemic and would become entangled in the drug world throughout much of his young life.

After graduating high school, he would go to college at Morehouse, Dr. Martin Luther King's alma mater, before dropping out two semesters later to become a rapper. Thanks to like-minded people he met in college and his first mixtape, Mike would get the attention of CeeLo Green and eventually OutKast in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. 

Working with OutKast brought Mike into the mainstream when he was featured on “The Whole World” in 2001, winning a Grammy for Best Performance by a Duo or Group. He would release several solo albums that would make their mark on the Billboard charts and in a popular video game, Madden NFL 2004. 

In 2011, Mike would be introduced to El-P by Cartoon Network executive Jason DeMarco to produce Mike’s fifth studio album R.A.P. Music. This album, an acronym for “Rebellious African People,” is where Mike’s punk-ness shows. 

The track "Reagan" stands out for its chastising account of the Reagan years from the eyes of a young Mike. He witnessed the powers-at-be poison his communities with drugs and police crackdowns. It’s the kind of song that make you want to burn shit down. 

It’s a track explicitly about black communities in the country, especially Atlanta. Mike calls out the power struggle at play between the haves and have nots, between those who control capital and those who do not. But he does it with wordplay. 

“We brag on having bread, but none of us are bakers

We all talk having greens, but none of us own acres

If none of us own acres, and none of us grow wheat

Then who will feed our people when our people need to eat?”

He points out the value for money and material position but challenges those values asking, “What really keeps you fed?” It’s a direct social commentary on black communities and the shrinking population of black people in the agriculture industry. But also can be interpreted more broadly. 

Who really controls food? The people or corporations? 

He goes on to rap, “So it seems our people starve from lack of understanding.”

That’s punk as fuck. Killer Mike points out the proverbial rug that powers can pull out from under the people at any time. He challenges people to do better, know more and do something because you are hurting your neighbor by not. 

He explicitly references the theory that US military planes which brought crack cocaine to urban and black neighborhoods inciting the subsequent “war on drugs” that allowed police militarization to begin. And like a PhD, he reveals the sinister motivations behind locking up drug offenders in double digits— modern-day slavery as made legal by the 13th amendment. 

There’s nothing more punk than spotlighting slavery hidden in your backyard. People might hear this and think conspiracy or that doesn’t happen today. But in many states across the country, specifically Louisiana, prisoners work farms or operate oil rigs. 

For Killer Mike, community is everything. Your masters, your oppressors, prevent your community from prospering and slowly drain the people of money and resources. To kill your master, the best thing the people can do is invest in your community. 

Mike advocates for things like owning your own business, making your own money separate from corporations, hiring police officers from the community to actually serve and protect, not be robotic soldiers of fortune. And he doesn’t just talk about doing it, he does it like his historic barbershop.

So to sum up, Killer Mike is punk because…

1. He’s real. He lived through the things he battles and has based his convictions around those experiences. 

2. He talks big game. He’s a damn good rapper and lyricist with arguably one of the best producers of the 2010s producing his beats. He uses that platform to point out the flaws of capitalism, American politics, police and so much more. 

3. He’s a player. He’s investing in his community financially using oppressive systems in his favor. Beyond that, he actively engages in local politics and occasionally national discourse. 

There’s a great deal more I can write about Killer Mike. His work in Run the Jewels is deeply political too and there are dozens of songs I could feature from their four albums (“walking in the snow,” “A Report to the Shareholders / Kill Your Masters”). He’s unafraid to say what he thinks is true, which has also led him to say some less-than-punk things too like his poor choice of word criticizing Hillary Clinton in 2016. But he’s always had the people at heart. It’s what informs his worldview and allows him to resist political stereotyping. 

Killer Mike’s punkness - 9/10

Note: I got a lot of my info for this piece from a few excellent profiles of Killer Mike. So, thank you for the excellent storytelling and reporting from GQ and The Bitter Southerner.

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Orbiting Punk Playlist #1

Reviewing Spotify’s All New Punk Picks

I’m reviewing all the tracks on Spotify’s “All New Punk” playlist in order over on my Twitter. I’m going to post one a day so turn on notifications so you don’t miss a track that might actually be worth your time. Here’s a longer write up on the first track: 

Love It When You Hate Me - Avril Lavigne

It’s a no-brainer to call this track corporate nostalgia-bait lacking charm or craft. I'm bummed because I kinda like Avril Lavigne. Of the early 2000s pop-punk acts, Lavinge's songs have aged the better than most. Tracks like Complicated, Sk8er Boi and even Boyfriend are just fun at least in a post-ironic meme way. 

She falls into the “pop-punk revival” camp that feels less like a movement and more like a telegraphed marketing campaign. Travis Barker has been at the forefront of this and has defined the style sonically. It features new and old artists, which ya know, good for them. It seems like there is a solid population of teens who want to hear punk music again and not just nostalgic millennials. But it markets to both, especially in Avril Lavinge's case.  

“Love It When You Hate Me” isn’t terrible but it’s not good either. Her other single, “Bite Me” sounds like an old-school Lavinge in the best ways. “Hate Me” seems like a teaser to how she’s updated her style or at least married it to fit artists like featured emo rapper blackbear. It mixes bits of trap with a traditional pop-punk song structure. The hook is everything in this song, but it’s just about as bland and uncreative as you can get lyrically. Juxtaposing love and hate, especially blatantly like this, has been done to death. 

There are only two verses on the track, one for Avril and one for blackbear. Lavigne’s rhymes make blackbear seem like Nas in comparison. It could just be the rap vs pop-punk lyric divide but there’s plenty of new pop-punk with better writing, even coming from Lavigne's new stuff herself. The verse from blackbear makes the story of this song confusing too. I think it’s about crushing on someone you know isn’t good for you but blackbear’s verse makes it seems like there’s more history going on that’s never explained. It’s hard for a song to feel anthemic when the anthem is the only context. 

The only semi-redeemable quality is the instrumentation and production, making it seem more anthemic. There's a goofy 2000s-style echo to Lavigne's voice that's kind of nostalgic. But it's paired with squeaky clean production that sounds like Ed Sheeran Trap.

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Let me know if your thoughts on the track by commenting or @soundwhatever on Twitter. Idk if anyone actually cares to know my thoughts on the punk Spotify promotes but I’m doing it for fun anyway so come follow along by turning on notifications for my tweets.

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