“The Revolution Is Over—and We Have Won!”: Alfred Hilsberg, West German Punk, and the Sixties

Abstract

Since its emergence in the 1970s, punk rock as a musical genre, fashion, ideology, and consumer product has been predicated on the rejection of the 1960s. Punk songs abandoned the psychedelic soundscapes of 1960s bands such as Pink Floyd or the earnest activism of folk artists such as Joan Baez and instead sought to return rock’n’roll to a stripped-down roots-rock sound. Fabrics like cotton or denim associated with hippies were discarded by punks who instead donned plastics, faux furs, and leather to represent, aesthetically, the artificial nature of modern life. While hippies in London or Haight-Ashbury experimented with downers such as marijuana and hashish, punks popped uppers to prepare themselves for nights of wild abandon and frenetic activity. Punks replaced 1960s’ slogans such as ‘Peace & Love’ with ‘Hate & War’ as a more realistic vision of the world. Political issues that obsessed Sixties activists, such as concern over the environment, were summarily dismissed as romantic nonsense by punks: Mick Jones, guitarist for the Clash, famously remarked, “I hate the country. The minute I see cows I feel sick.”1 Indeed, there is perhaps no better encapsulation of punk rock’s hostility to the 1960s than the chorus to The Clash’s “1977,” the B-side to their first single White Riot (1977): “No Elvis, Beatles, or the Rolling Stones / in 1977.”

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