Punk
· Musical and cultural. The movement that emerged simultaneously in New York and London in the
mid-1970s as a deliberate rejection of the technical complexity and commercial ambition of arena rock —
characterized by speed, volume, minimal technique, and the assertion that three chords and something to say
constituted sufficient qualification to make music.
Feedback
Loop
· Electronic and systemic. The process by which a system's output is routed back as input, amplifying
or modifying the original signal in a cycle that can produce either instability or sustained resonance. In music,
literal guitar feedback — but also the cultural mechanism by which punk's DIY ethic returned its own influence
back into successive generations as both inspiration and constraint.
The Punk Feedback Loop
adj. Of or pertaining to the self-reinforcing quality of punk's cultural influence — the way
in which each generation of punk-derived music simultaneously rejects and perpetuates the original gesture of
rejection.
n.(a The Punk Feedback Loop) (a Punk Feedback Loop) The cyclical pattern by which
punk's anti-establishment aesthetic is absorbed by successive subcultures that then themselves become
establishment targets for the next cycle — the feedback mechanism through which rebellion perpetuates itself by
producing new objects to rebel against.