Outro: A New Way to Pay Old Debts
The work of contemporary musicians helps explain the significance and legacy of early American punk and the world in which it was created. This conclusion looks first at the continued contradictions and paradoxes of the blues’ central role in punk, through the music of Harry Pussy, This Moment in Black History, and others. The chapter then considers the ways in which groups such as Downtown Boys use a variety of musical approaches to establish female and Latinx punk lineages that intersect or run parallel to taken-for-granted narratives. Then the chapter considers the paradoxes of punk history and the forces of nostalgia through a consideration of the story of Death, an unknown Black rock group from mid-1970s Detroit with newfound success in the 2000s, as well as the diverse styles of contemporary groups such as Soft Pink Truth and Show Me the Body.