Reagan's Not Dead
<a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/123038.html">John Rotten joins the PTA</a>.
Paraphrasing from the article: Ramones/Sex Pistol's killed the hippies and enabled Reagan/Thatcher to emerge. So, Punk created the '80s.
Reagan created hardcore though.
Just picked up a collection of essays about Rotten, which hovers close to the top of my to-be-read pile (along with the new Doug Coupland and Joe Carducci and Michael Ruhlman):
<img src ="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51M5X8XDNHL._SS500_.jpg">
And <a href ="http://www.amazon.com/John-Lydons-Metal-Box-Public/dp/1900924668/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/104-8283061-0041561?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192647437&sr=1-3"> this </a> comes out in December:
<img src ="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xi96Pc1OL._SS500_.jpg">
The groundwork for hardcore was already down by the time the Reagan took office -- over here, the Germs came and went during the Carter administration, and Black Flag had gone through three of their four singers. Working class punk/oi/whatever had sped-up tempos in England. It was the Reagan/Thatcher tag team that shifted punk and hardcore from a city phenom to the suburbs.