With the biting winds of PUNK ROCK beginning to blow through the Popular comments boxes it’s time to examine the ways in which punk has become institutionalised as a metaphor – starting with Richard Williams on the Guardian football blog: Stadium Rock of Top Flight looks Bloated Against The Joy Division.
Richard Williams of course is a music journalist of old and his argument is a bit more nuanced than any article which begins a sentence “If Manchester United and Chelsea can be seen as the King Crimson and Moody Blues of English football in 2008…” has a right to be. He’s not comparing the Championship and Premiership to punk and prog: he’s comparing them to pub rock and prog rock – though by the end he permits himself an apocalyptic vision of collapse and change which does draw on some familiar metaphorical wells. Something to contemplate, anyhow, as the Tarkus of Portsmouth prepares to meet the Roogalator of Cardiff this weekend.