infoterror's Journal: Why Youth Cultures Fail

This article examines an enduring question raised by subcultural studies: how youth culture can be challenging and transgressive, yet 'fail' to produce wider social change. This question is addressed through a case study of the black metal music scene. The black metal scene flirts with violent racism, yet has resisted embracing outright fascism. The article argues that this is due to the way in which music is 'reflexively antireflexively' constructed as a depoliticizing category. It is argued that an investigation of such forms of reflexivity might explain the enduring 'failure' of youth cultures to change more than their immediate surroundings.

(Translation: youth culture always becomes more about socialization and buying products to socialize about, thus loses all impetus. Punk. Hippies. Death metal. Black metal. Techno. All failed, all for the same reason: popularity became greater than ideology. The crowd took over.)

Full PDF text:
http://ecs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/7/1/95.pdf