“Search and Destroy”

Abstract

Punk rock, as a movement within popular music, sought to differentiate itself from prior forms of commercial rock in both sound and attitude. Anti-corporate and anti-consumerist in orientation, punk’s guiding maxim of “do it yourself” was about taking control of the means of production and shifting the musical form outside of the nexus of capitalism. This chapter examines the resultant effects and contradictions surrounding the use of punk music in television advertisements from the 1990s to the 2010s. The advertising industry initially kept their distance from punk until after the self-appointed architect of punk style, Malcolm McLaren, began writing original music for ads in 1990. From Iggy Pop seducing Royal Caribbean customers to The Clash hawking Jaguars, punk has proven to be a lucrative way for advertisers to connect to a demographic group who define themselves as anti-consumerist.