Stephen Alexander (à la Jamie Reid): God Save Russ Bestley (2025)
I.
I have my own tale to tell in relation to the theme of Chapter 6 - 'Industry and the Individual' - or punk vs the closed shop.
In 1982, I worked for six weeks at 19 Magazine in the features department, on an attachment as part of a degree course. I arranged and conducted an interview with Vivienne Westwood at her West End studio. The fashion editor at 19 wasn't happy - as I’d not sought her permission - and the NUJ rep wasn't happy either, as I wasn't a member nor even a paid employee. And so, even though the features editor loved the piece I wrote on Westwood, it went unpublished.
I hate the bosses and the management. But, despite "intersecting concerns regarding class" [a] and worker's rights, I hate the unions and their restrictive practices too.
II.
"By the late 1970s, the original punk scene in the United Kingdom had been largely commercialised through the rebrading of new wave and post-punk ..." [200]
That's true: but we should also recall that "some of the movement's more successful exponents" [200] were more than happy to collaborate in this and to assume elevated positions within "a revised and updated professional arena" [200]; i.e., to build careers and to make something of their lives.
In other words, there were ambitious and the aspirational individuals who wanted to get ahead had no issue with transforming from punks into yuppies and celebrities:
"The entrepreneurial spirit of punk [...] afforded entry to the fields of journalism, popular music, film, photography and design for those who chose to take the opportunity and run with it." [200]
Some may still have pretended they wanted to 'smash the system' or 'disrupt it from the inside', but we all know most simply wanted to feather their own little nests and, whilst wearing their designer suits, turn rebellion into money.
"To some critics", writes Bestley, "it was like punk had never happened" [200] [b].
Or, rather, I would say, it was as if the Sex Pistols had never existed.
III.
On the other hand ...
I don't much care either for those who continued to cling on to a "stereotypical model of punk [...] despite the proliferation of new styles and the fragmentation of post-punk in myriad new directions" [201]. To paraphrase Jello Biafra: 'you ain't hardcore 'cause you spike your hair / when a [stuckist] still lives inside your head [c].
Like Bestley, I'm less than impressed by hardcore punks in the early 1980s who "seem fixated on death, destruction and war, with little of the humour or self-awareness of the previous punk generation" [202].
And the hardcore punk designers were less than imaginative too, giving us "illustrations of stereotypical 'punk' figures replete with studded leather jackets and mohican hairstyles" [202] which have helped to establish "a set of generic graphic conventions that unfortunately still resonates across global punk scenes today" [202].
Bestley concludes:
"Unlike the first wave of punk designers, who quickly moved on from what were fast becoming stereotypical visual symbols - such as the swastika, safety pin and razor blade - this punk generation seemed stuck in a time loop (or doom loop) of its own making." [202]
IV.
Away from the hardcore dinosaurs, "punk and post-punk dress styles shifted [...] to the more flamboyant and expressive end of the dressing up box" [204], as a colourful new romanticism replaced punk nihilism; in 1980, McLaren and Westwood closed Seditionaries and opened Worlds End; out with the black bondage trousers and in with the gold striped pirate pants.
Ultimately, writes Bestley, "the punk 'revolution' was to prove largely ineffective in its ambition to move away from pop music traditions and long-standing business practices, with many artists [...] falling into line as the industry took control" [204].
Rather irritatingly, Bestley (like so many others) seems prepared to let Rotten off the hook and give him far more credit than he deserves:
"Seeing the winds of change, Sex Pistols vocalist Johnny Rotten quit the band at the end of a disastrous North American tour in January 1978. Going back to his real name, John Lydon, he quickly established a new group, Public Image Ltd., with the explicit intention to turn the image of the rock performer upside down and to critique the exploitative practices of the music indusry from the inside." [204]
Firstly, Rotten didn't 'quit the band'; he was thrown overboard by McLaren with the agreement (or, if you prefer, connivance) of Cook and Jones who didn't like the fact Rotten was behaving like a prima donna, if not actually morphing into Rod Stewart [d].
Secondly, the North American tour may have been ill-starred, but it was not 'disastrous' in the sense that I think Bestley means. Rather, it was the consummation (or perfecting) of the nihilism that always lay at the heart of the Sex Pistols project and should be celebrated as such. Rotten's was a necessary sacrifice; just as Sid's death, which secured his tragic and iconic status, is a promise of life and its eternal recurrence [e].
Thirdly, whatever his 'intentions' we all know 'Lydon' [f] signed an eight album record deal with Virgin and received a £75,000 advance from Branson [g] soon after exiting the Sex Pistols, with the latter promising to promote PiL at the forefront of the post-punk scene.
V.
This is true enough - and a good thing, I think:
"The new post-punk scenes moved away from focusing purely on music and lyrics to far more visual expressions of style and taste, along with a wider range of philosophical and aesthetic concerns ..." [207]
I'm not sure that references to oblique postmodern theory by music journalists such as Paul Morley necessarily makes them pretentious, however. And, besides, surely we might question the supposed moral merits of humility? The dreary utilitarianism (and realism) of the English intellectual tradition is not something I would wish to defend.
After all, pretension is a form of pretending and, as my friend Thomas Tritchler likes to remind me, pretending is a vital and productive act of the imagination [h].
VI.
Anyone for electronic music ...?
No thanks: I don't care about (or care for) the Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Ultravox, Gary Numan ... et al.
As Malcolm always said: 'A man sitting on a mountain top tapping two sticks together makes a much bigger sound than all the electronic music of today.'
And who really wants to see pop stars standing behind synthesisers like clerks behind the counter of a hightstreet bank?
VII.
Bestley closes Chapter 7 with a couple of paragraphs that essentially summarise the book and so merit being quoted at length:
"Graphic design and commercial art have a long-standing relationship with both advances in technology [...] and artistic or cultural trends. While this book has argued that much punk graphic design was heavily impacted - or even driven - by access to materials and technology, punk's visual provocations clearly also had antecedents in Dada, Surrealism and the Situationist International, together with Pop Art and its inherent critique of the distinction between fine art and the commercial arena ... But those connections were often indistinct, serendipitous and stylistic, rather than formal - and the same can be said of the similarities between post-punk or new wave music graphics and the new styles emanating from American and European designers in response to postmodernism." [230]
"As all these converging themes illustrate, the historical relationships between punk, art history and design are highly complex, with punk and post-punk graphic approaches drawing upon earlier visual conventions while they themselves helped to inspire a new generation of design professionals working outside the subculture. Whether that fits the model of postmodernist theory or not is something of a moot point, since punk's historical moment intersects so closely with wider changes in the arts, media and politics that it is almost impossible to separate causes from consequences." [230-31][i]
VIII.
"Popular music has changed irrevocably in the past forty years." [233]
Well, that's true - but then everything has changed hasn't it? Change is the only constant (becoming is ironically stamped with the character of being, as Nietzsche might say) [j].
One of the things that has significantly changed for Bestley is the fact that popular music no longer plays such a crucial role in the lives of the young: "The notion of music as a core element of personal identity and (sub)cultural capital seemed to fall away in the 1990s, a process that accelerated in the new millennium." [235]
When Bestley and I were teenagers, the first question we would ask of anyone was: What bands d'you like? And that pretty much determined the relationship (or lack of relationship) going forward.
But young people today pick 'n' mix from a variety of music genres and have a much wider range of interests; "from film to fashion, celebrity culture, sports, literature and the arts" [235]. They don't care about shared communal identity so much as their individual right to like what they like and share selfies on social media.
This doesn't bother me as much as it bothers Bestley, who bemoans the fact that pop music is once again "simply a form of light entertainment or background noise" [235] and that rock music was also sent into sharp decline by "banal television 'talent' shows and the return of the pop music Svengali in the odious form of Simon Cowell" [235].
As for punk? Well, punk "became recuperated [...] through the cementing of a set of visual and musical tropes that could be picked up and regurgitated in the affectation [...] of a generic 'punk' identity" [235].
Indie, meanwhile, is dismissed as "the bastardised offspring of the original independent post-punk scene, combined with a postmodern, sometimes ironic and often conceited form of self-reflection in musical approach, dress style and design" [236].
And, finally, don't mention the post-punk revival of the early 2000s; because that was merely a commercial pastiche "with highly successful groups adopting some of the gestures and signature styles of their late 1970s forebears, though often with little of the wit or intelligence" [236].
Ouch!
Even today's reinvigorated interest in music graphics is greeted with more sorrow than joy:
"Sadly, this interest is often linked to home decor and interior styling, with 'album art' displayed on bookshelves or in purpose-made frames hung on the wall - a marker of the owner's cool taste and cultural capital, rather than an object with a function and purpose." [236]
Again, all this is absolutely true, but I simply don't really feel his pain.
As for themed live events and corporate festivals ... the answer is don't go!
I wouldn't dream of heading up to Blackpool for the Rebellion Festival, although I wouldn't mind visiting the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas that Bestley mentions; "a massive former warehouse building in the Arts District. now dedicated to preserving the history and heritage of punk rock while offering guided tours led by ageing pop punk musicians" [237] - and a gift shop!
Like it or not, this is who we are today; not fans in the old (authentic) sense, but consumers in search of a simulated (or ersatz) experience they can post about on Instagram or upload to YouTube [k].
Malcolm McLaren decried such toward the end of his life as a karoake culture - i.e., one which lacks substance and originality and relies upon pre-existing ideas and old styles constantly being recycled and repackaged - and, to be honest, I'm a little disappointed Bestley didn't refer to McLaren's TED Talk on this topic [l].
IX.
Returning to his theme (not quite like the proverbial dog to its vomit, but like someone with an itch that they simply have to scratch, even if it causes irritation to do so), Bestley writes:
"Punk's visual conventions [...] were appropriated, mimicked and blatantly copied by a rampant branding and marketing industry that is always on the lookout for material that might communicate an elusive sense of authenticity and agency. From trainers to power tools, credit cards to hamburgers, punk graphic conventions have been milked for all they are worth in the pursuit of profit. [...] Meanwhile, identikit, cosplay 'punks' around the globe adopt outfits lifted directly from the stylistic dead end of 1980s hardcore punk, in a desperate search for subcultural legitimacy." [237]
Again, all of that is true, but one wonders why Bestley cares so much (to the point, indeed, of writing a 250 page book about it)? I suppose it's because he believes that just as beneath the paving stones lies the beach, so there is "much more" [238] beneath the surface of punk and post-punk graphic design than meets the eye.
What would this hidden punk substance "beyond stylistic gestures and visual tropes" [238] be one wonders? And why should it have priority over the latter?
I suspect, for Bestley, this (metaphysical) substance consists of content, function and purpose and is what guarantees that the superficial (material) expressions of punk possess value and meaning.
I have to admit, I find that a rather odd coming from a graphic designer. One might have expected him to remain bravely at the surface, affirming forms, tones, and words; i.e., the world of appearance [m] (which is perhaps the only world that exists for us).
Unfortunately, we do not have time to enter here into a philosophical discussion about "punk as a concept and its manifestation" [247] in physical form (a statement almost Platonic in its dualism which makes me wonder if punk wasn't simply another form of idealism all along).
Notes
[a] Russ Bestley, Turning Revolt Into Style: The process and practice of punk graphic design (Manchester University Press, 2025), p. 190. All future page references to this work will be given directly in the post.
[b] Writing in the following chapter of his study, Bestley notes:
"Even the arch Situationist behind punk's original graphic provocations, Jamie Reid, found a creative home in the mid-1980s, taking up the offer of a studio at Assorted Images to develop his art practice. While Reid never did make the leap to the commercial graphic design industry, he did continue to collaborate with musicians, artists, filmmakers and political activists, embracing the potential of new print reproduction tools to create a new aesthetic." [215]
[c] The paraphrased line is from the Dead Kennedy's track 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off', written by Jello Biafra, and found on the EP In God We Trust, Inc. (Alternative Tentacles, 1981). It was also released as a single in November of that year.
[d] For more on Rotten's dismissal from the band in January 1978, see the post entitled 'It Was on the Good Ship Venus ...' (4 March 2024): click here.
As indicated here, Rotten was starting to develop certain
starry pretensions and thinking about how he might develop a long-term
(possibly solo) career in the music industry. In this, he had the
backing of record company executives, who saw him as a valuable asset
and someone whom - unlike McLaren - they could work with (see note g below).
[e] See the post 'Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified' (3 Feb 2024) - click here - where I explain what I mean by this.
[f] On being told that 'Johnny Rotten' was a name owned by the Sex Pistols management company (Glitterbest), John Lydon reverted to his birth name.
[g] Lydon also enjoyed a very nice, all expenses paid 'working holiday' in Jamaica, staying at the Sheraton hotel, accompanied by Richard Branson and others in the first three weeks of February 1978. In addition, Virgin agreed to pay for the rehearsal facilities and studio time for the new group Lydon planned to get together.
Later that same month, Lydon also flies to LA for a meeting with executives at Warner Bros. and to solicit further support for his (still unformed) new band. They eventually pay him £12,000 and Lydon uses the cash to buy a flat at 45 Gunter Grove in Fulham, West London.
Finally, let it be noted that when Lydon takes McLaren and Glitterbest to court in 1979, Virgin - supposedly neutral and in favour of an out of court settlement that will allow both the Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited to peacefully coincide on the same label - are clearly more in Lydon's camp than McLaren's.
The public school hippie Richard Branson - "four years younger [...] but by far the smarter businessman" - was arguably motivated by a degree of personal animosity towards McLaren; not least because he disliked the derisive nickname, Mr Pickle, that the latter coined for him. When Cook and Jones were offered a record deal of their own by Branson, the former Sex Pistols switched sides and Glitterbest's case (such as it was) pretty much collapsed.
Note: the line quoted is from Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 355.
[h] See the third part of Tritchler's post on the malign/ed art of faking it (27 Dec. 2014): click here.
[i] One wonders if Bestley has ever considered the possibility that there are no causes and consequences - i.e., that the theory of cause and effect is a convenient and conventional fiction that we impose on reality in order to simplify and understand the complex chaos of events and which enables us to posit concepts such as free will and moral responsibility.
[j] See §617 of The Will to Power, trans. and ed. by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, 1968), p. 330.
[k] As Bestley later notes:
"Viewed from a contemporary vantage point, 'spectacular subcultures' such as punk, that centered on tribal affiliations and subtle (or not so subtle) visual tropes, appear to have come from another age. The internet, personal blogs, influencers, social media and search engines have redefined modes of discovery, criticism and taste-making." [247]
[l] See McLaren's TED Talk on the topic of authentic creativity contra karaoke culture (October 2009): click here. [m] I'm half-quoting and half-paraphrasing from section 4 of Nietzsche's 1886 Preface to The Gay Science, written in praise of those artists who, like the ancient Greeks, knew how to be superficial out of profundity.
I have to admit, McLaren rather surprises - and rather disappoints - with this return to highly suspect notions of authenticity, originality, substance, etc. Here was a man who once celebrated style and, as an artist, understood the importance of the surface (see note l below).
It pains me to say it, but one wonders if, in this final public presentation, it's fatigue, and age and illness that speaks (McLaren died six months afterwards, aged 64, from a form of asbestos-related lung cancer (mesothelioma)).
Notes on the Introduction to Russ Bestley's Turning Revolt Into Style can be read by clicking here.
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