Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros22.2RecensionsRomain Garbaye and Gérôme Guibert...

Recensions

Romain Garbaye and Gérôme Guibert (eds.), Musical Scenes and Social Class–Debating Punk and Metal

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, 240 p. ISBN : 978-3-031-56505-2. $134
Eric DOUMERC
Référence(s) :

Romain Garbaye and Gérôme Guibert (eds.), Musical Scenes and Social Class–Debating Punk and Metal. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, 240 p. ISBN : 978-3-031-56505-2. $134

Texte intégral

1Musical Scenes and Social Class–Debating Punk and Metal (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) is a collection of articles about the relationship between social class and punk and metal, by a group of scholars working in the field of cultural studies and sociology more generally. It is edited by Romain Garbaye, Professor of British Studies at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, and Gérôme Guibert, Professor of Cultural Sociology and Head of the Communication and Media Institute at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle.

2After an introduction by Romain Garbaye and Gérôme Guibert, the collection falls into three main parts, “Class Domination and Class Agency,” “Subcultures, Sub-genres and Social Class,” and “Evolving Audiences: Ageing, Gentrification, Feminization?”

3Romain Garbaye and Gérôme Guibert's detailed and thorough introduction defines key concepts like “social class” and “subcultures,” and after summarising briefly the historiography of punk and metal studies, it maps out the book, introducing the main approaches used by the various scholars, including cultural studies, quantitative analysis of data, historical narratives, and sociology. The editors set out to answer a fundamental question: can the punk and metal scenes be said to reflect or embody a truly working-class or lower-class identity, or have they evolved to offer more complex narratives and to morph into different entities?

4The first part contains articles by Andy R. Brown, Deirdre Gilfedder, and Jeremy Tranmer about the relationship between social classes and the formation of specific subcultures in the 1970s and 1980s, like the punk scene in Britain and its counterpart in Brisbane, Australia. Jeremy Tranmer’s article examines the links between the Miners’ Strike of 1984-85 in Britain and the punk scene at the time.

5The second part, featuring articles by Tim Heron, Guillaume Clément, and Eric Smialeck, delves into the sub-scenes and sub-divisions that emerged after the initial wave of subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s, for instance in Northern Ireland where a specific punk scene emerged to voice the angst and malaise of the suburbs. Tim Heron's article about punk music in Northern Ireland provides a detailed account of the way punk’s DIY aesthetics enabled young people in Northern Ireland to voice their concerns through two subgenres of punk music: realist punk and pop punk. Realist punk dealt with mainly social themes and was concerned with certain urban locations and a particularly violent and depressed environment, whereas pop punk was more concerned with teenagers’ issues like alcohol and girls. Heron’s piece offers a fascinating glimpse into a local manifestation of punk in a context dominated by the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland.

6Guillaume Clément’s article examines the way contemporary post-punk bands in the UK have dealt with the issue of Brexit, voicing working-class and middle-class concerns in the process.

7The third part contains articles by Pierig Humeau, Rosemary Lucy Hill, Molly Megson, David Hesmondhalgh, Corentin Charbonnier, and Charlène Bénard, and focuses on more contemporary issues like the possible gentrification and feminization of the punk and metal scenes, and the ageing of their audiences.

8Collectively, these articles paint a rich tapestry of the scholarship available to researchers interested in delving deeper into the fields of punk and metal studies. The reader of this book will emerge with a much more thorough knowledge of the varieties of musical forms that go under the general names of “punk” and “metal,” and also of the varieties of identities they can accommodate. Reading this book will reveal that the punk and metal scenes are much more varied cultural entities than the usual stereotypes would lead us to believe. For instance, Corentin Charbonnier’s impressive quantitative analysis of data about the audience at the French Hellfest festival reveals that its working-class nature cannot be taken for granted. Likewise, Jeremy Tranmer’s detailed analysis of the relationship between the punk scene and the 1984-85 Miners’ Strike seems to imply that the punks' support of the miners was neither inevitable nor natural. Similarly, Charlène Bénard about the reception of “symphonic metal” in France addresses the received notion that this subgenre of metal, which combines metal and symphonic instrumentations, is the preserve of female fans or middle-class fans. She comes to the conclusion that symphonic metal cannot be considered as a purely "feminine" or softer type of metal.

9What makes this collection engaging and fascinating is also the variety of contributors. The collection was originally the product of a conference that was organised in Paris on 21 October 2022 and brought together experts on punk and metal musical forms based in the UK and in France. The original contributors to the present volume were therefore scholars who had attended that conference, but the editors took care to add other specialists in the field and to even include some PhD students. That inclusive approach makes for a thoroughly enjoyable collection that will no doubt be a reference for many years to come. The readership for this volume will probably include scholars in the fields of cultural studies, sociology, music studies, and “British Civilisation” (“Civilisation britannique”) in French universities. It is less likely to be of interest to punk and metal fans, who tend to look elsewhere for information about their favourite musical forms. But the same could be said about any academic publication dealing with aspects of a particular musical form. That said, this is a sound contribution to the study of popular music, and it will soon find its place in the bibliographies of numerous books and articles in that field. The variety of approaches (from sociology to cultural studies) and the diverse contexts present in this collection (from Northern Ireland to Australia) will no doubt make this volume indispensable to numerous scholars working in various fields.

Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Eric DOUMERC, « Romain Garbaye and Gérôme Guibert (eds.), Musical Scenes and Social Class–Debating Punk and Metal »e-Rea [En ligne], 22.2 | 2025, mis en ligne le 15 juin 2025, consulté le 20 juillet 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/erea/19815 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/144qm

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search