The Bill Campbell: Misanthrope Show -- Episode 26: Burning Down the House: A Post-Punk Party

Last week, after laying down what I felt was a shining moment of rantitude with my very calm, very rational monologue about the Tea Party, Jack Johnson, Obama, and the ever-evolving myths of White Supremacy (check it out: I Is Regusted), I asked Mrs. Anne Thrope what she thought of the music on the show. You could've seen my head about to explode when she almost called the show "adult contemporary." My inner Chris Tucker falsettoed in protest. After all, how can a show that features hip-hop, funk, jazz, rock, world, and all kinds of electronica be considered "adult contemporary." Like any good spouse of an overgrown child, Mrs. Thrope pacified me by saying, "Well, there definitely is a Bill Campbell style."

Fair enough. So, I decided to switch it up this week. And I chose to do it with some post-punk music.

While I'm still not much of a rock fan, I do find something very intriguing about the post-punk period from the late '70s to mid '80s that infected both sides of the globe. I don't know if it was Cold War fatigue, all that inflation, all those recessions, all that premature death-wishing of "late capitalism" talk, the rise of Thatcherism and Reaganism--oh, there were so many things wrong with the world back then--but something really lit a fire under these musicians' asses. And that's what I admire most about the period. It was as though nothing really made sense. Therefore, everything was up for grabs. These post-punk musicians took punk, rock, funk, disco, roots reggae, dub, ska. There were fools picking up instruments for the first time and going in to record. There were nerds going all MacGyver and building synthesizers in their garages. It was a powerful mishmash of everything one could possibly think of and creating a diverse, dynamic sound.