The White Scene--Your Thoughts
 

Look at the most popular bands that are covered on this site: Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Say Anything. They all share something in common. Now bring in almost every other band that we cover and they'll all share the same thing in common: their skin color.

The punk/emo genre seems to lend itself to a predominantly Caucasian crowd. It wasn't always this way.

Take Bad Brains. They made arguably the first hardcore record with their single "Pay To Cum" in 1980 and are sources of influence for punk/emo icons such as Minor Threat and Rites of Spring. Basement 5 was a trio from England that combined punk, dub and Metal, with Lemmy-like (Motorhead) vocals. Jean Beauvoir was an established bassist, pianist, and songwriter (The Ramones). Even Ice T's song "Cop Killer" was recorded with a hardcore/thrash band. All of them and many more were at the beginning of the punk movement and not white and all influential.

We at Absolutepunk.net want to know--if this music scene started off so integrated, what has changed about the music or the scene that has allowed it to become so cookie-cutter and predictable in terms of race?

Sure, there are bands like Gym Class Heroes, Killswitch Engage, and El Pus that feature nonwhite members, but it is still a very small percentage in a still-growing genre. Even the membership on this website is primarily white. Why do you think this type of music primarily attracts Caucasians?

Rap/R&B is stereotypically for African Americans. Rock is stereotypically for Caucasian Americans. Take every other ethnicity and it seems that they have their own stereotypical brand of music. Why do you think these musical bounds have been created--is it a product of society or is it the music?


Thanks to doomcrs04 for the topic suggestion. If you choose to comment, please be respectful.


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