Streetpunk

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Streetpunk (also known as reality punk) is both a subgenre of punk rock and a word that describes punk rockers who are working class and / or from the inner city. The streetpunk image includes items such as studded and customized leather jackets, jeans, bondage trousers, bullet belts, studded belts, shaven heads or spiked / mohawk hairstyles (often dyed), piercings, check shirts, polo shirts and army boots (basically, clothes associated with and worn by traditional style punks and skins). The musical genre streetpunk is favoured by skinheads, punks and herberts.

Overview

The streetpunk music genre started as the Oi! music scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s in Great Britain. Musical influencs include the original wave of punk bands, as well as late '70s British pub rock and glam. It was seen as a reaction against middle and upper class punk bands, like Generation X, and trendy people who embraced the punk lifestyle in a superficial way. It was developed by bands such as Cock Sparrer, The Business, 4-Skins and The Cockney Rejects. It started as a youth music style with songs about tales of the street, police brutality, working class politics and drunk mayhem, and gradually was intertwined with UK 82 and other punk subgenres as time went on. Streetpunk bands of the mid '80s include The Exploited, Oi Polloi and Attak.

Streetpunk bands are often at odds with more mainstream "pop-punk" elements of the punk community. A song by Chicago pop-punk band Screeching Weasel, entitled Tightrope, takes aim at the "resurgence of tough-guy, so-called working class or streetpunk bands". Little Rich Working Class Oi-Boy by The Queers is another song which criticizes those in the streetpunk and Oi! segments of the punk scene. The song Wicked Sensitive Crew by the Dropkick Murphys is an attack right back at the pop-punk groups who criticize the content and sentiments of streetpunk bands.

Bands

The following list of musicians and bands are identified with the streetpunk subculture, but not all of them label themselves as Oi! or streetpunk bands.

• A Global Threat - website: http://www.aglobalthreat.net
• Abrasive Wheels - website: http://www.abrasivepunk.com
• Bakers Dozen - website: http://www.bakersdozen.5u.com
• Blitz - website: http://www.myspace.com/blitzwarriors
• Career Soldiers - website: http://careersoldiers.com
• Cheap Sex - website: http://www.cheapsexpunks.com
• Clit 45 - website: http://www.myspace.com/clit45
• Cock Sparrer - website: http://www.cocksparrer.co.uk
• Dropkick Murphys - website: http://www.dropkickmurphys.com
• Lower Class Brats - website: http://www.lowerclassbrats.com
• Nuts and Bolts - website: http://www.nutsandboltsoakland.net
• Oi Polloi - website: http://www.myspace.com/oipolloialba
• Operation Ivy - website: http://www.purevolume.com/operationivy
• Splinter - website: http://my.punksite.com/splinter
• Swingin' Utters - website: http://www.swinginutters.com
• Time Again - website: http://www.timeagainband.com
• The Analogs - website: http://www.analogs.inet.pl
• The Casualties - website: http://www.thecasualties.net
• The Cockney Rejects - website: http://www.cockneyrejects.netv
• The Corps - website: http://www.the-corps-australia.com
• The Unseen - website: http://www.unseenpunks.com
• The Virus - website: http://www.virustheband.com

Sound samples

To download a song, right click on the download link and select 'save target as'.

• "British Oi! Is Fighting Back" by Bakers Dozen, from The Storm Of Discontent (released 2004):
  http://www.archive.org/download/Splinter-Anticipation/other_bands/BAKERS.DOZEN_British.Oi.Is.Fighting.Back.mp3

• "Flashback" by Splinter, from Got A Feeling (released 2005):
  http://www.archive.org/download/SPLINTER_Got_A_Feeling/02_Flashback.mp3
  
  

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