Punk to Pop: When the Underground Went Mainstream

Between 1972 and 1985, British popular culture underwent a transformation that encompassed music, fashion, graphic design and visual culture. This period is the focus of Punk to Pop, an exhibition tracing the shift from glam rock and disco to the explosion of punk, and on to the pop of the 1980s and the new possibilities opened up by technology. The story begins in the early 1970s, when glam rock made image-making, costumes and sexual ambiguity an integral part of music. Within a few years, the landscape had changed. Economic crisis, unemployment and social tensions accompanied the emergence of new urban subcultures and, from the middle of the decade, the rise of British punk. The Sex Pistols and other bands turned provocation, musical simplicity and a rejection of convention into a generational language. The do it yourself principle soon extended beyond music: producing a record, starting a fanzine, designing a poster or altering an item of clothing could all be part of the same creative process. Punk to Pop follows the different paths opened up by that period. The Slits, an all-female band that emerged from London’s punk scene, brought reggae and dub into their music, Joy Division became leading figures in Manchester’s post-punk movement, and The Specials combined punk with ska, drawing on Jamaican musical traditions. The 1980s then brought the electronic pop of Eurythmics and the mainstream success of Wham!, as a culture born in clubs and independent scenes gradually reached a mass audience. The exhibition brings together around 300 objects, including stage costumes, photographs, music videos, graphic works and design. Together they document the growing importance of image in shaping an artist’s identity. Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, the music video assumed an increasingly prominent role, while synthesisers, drum machines and new recording technologies transformed the production and sound of pop music. The exhibition places these developments within the economic and social changes experienced by Britain during the 1970s and 1980s. Reggae and Caribbean culture, punk, ska, electronic music and club culture continually intersected, while clothing and image became means of experimenting with identity, gender and belonging. The exhibition ends in 1985. By then, many of the movements that had emerged in clubs, small venues and independent productions had entered the international music industry. The pop culture of the 1980s circulated through records, fashion, television and music videos, while practices that had originated in the underground of the previous decade had become part of its language.