American Foreign Policy, the Recording Industry, and Punk Rock in the Cold War

Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Dissertations Department of History Spring 5-10-2017 Music for the International Masses: American Foreign Policy, The Recording Industry, and Punk Rock in the Cold War Mindy Clegg Georgia State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss Recommended Citation Clegg, Mindy, "Music for the International Masses: American Foreign Policy, The Recording Industry, and Punk Rock in the Cold War." Dissertation, Georgia State University, 2017. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_diss/58 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MUSIC FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MASSES: AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY, THE RECORDING INDUSTRY, AND PUNK ROCK IN THE COLD WAR by MINDY CLEGG Under the Direction of ALEX SAYF CUMMINGS, PhD ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the connections between US foreign policy initiatives, the global expansion of the American recording industry, and the rise of punk in the 1970s and 1980s. The material support of the US government contributed to the globalization of the recording industry and functioned as a facet American-style consumerism. As American culture spread, so did questions about the Cold War and consumerism. As young people began to question the Cold War order they still consumed American mass culture as a way of rebelling against the establishment. But corporations complicit in the Cold War produced this mass culture. Punks embraced cultural rebellion like hippies. But they more stridently rejected the culture industries which they viewed as producing inauthentic culture purely for profit. Punk sought to create more authentic music, which they did through a network of independent record labels and punk zines. Punks shared this core idea across borders in translocal communities— where the action was localized, with an authentic punk identity shared and refined across national borders through the sharing of music and writing punk zines. In doing so, punks shaped the recording industry and anticipated modern peer-to-peer networks that typifies the distribution of music today. INDEX WORDS: Cultural Cold War, Recording Industry, Punk, Consumerism, Subcultures, Counterculture MUSIC FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MASSES: AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY, THE RECORDING INDUSTRY, AND PUNK ROCK IN THE COLD WAR by MINDY CLEGG A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of PhD in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2017 Copyright by Mindy Lea Clegg 2017 MUSIC FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MASSES: AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY, THE RECORDING INDUSTRY, AND PUNK ROCK IN THE COLD WAR by MINDY CLEGG Committee Chair: Alex Cummings Committee: John McMillian Denis Gainty Montgomery Wolf, UGA Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University May 2017 iv DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my family. All of them. There's a lot of them. Here is a list of them now. I'm sure you'll forget the first people on the list by the time to get to the end of the list. But here is that list anyways. My mother's family includes my aunt Amy and her sons Donovan, his wife Vicky and their kids Cash and Maddox, and Collin and his partner Kylie. On my late father's side includes: Jude, partner of my late aunt Linda; Christine, and her sons DJ; Vince, his wife Lynn, and their daughter Anna Jean; Brian, and his wife Joanna, and their children Kayleb, and Mimi; and Nathan; Aunt KT, and her daughters, Rene and her husband Mel, and their children Tristian, and Marzena; and Colleen. Uncle Brian, and his wife Diane, and their children (grown!) Scott, and Cara; aunt Shelia, her husband, Russell, and their sons, Sean, Zack, and Rian. Sláinte! My brother in law, Jason, and his kids, Emily, Megan, and Lily. My mother, Beth, my sister Michelle, her husband Ron, and their kids Brandon, Kelly, and Jordan. And always, of course, Rome and Fiona for putting up with me all these years! The end is finally here. Now what will we do with all our family vacation time? I dedicate this work to those who did not live to see it finished. This includes, on my mother's side: Joe and Betty (2016 and 2010); my stepfather Jerry (2016). On my father's side: my grandparents, Tom and Jean (2008 and 1993); my aunt Linda (2016); and my dad Michael (2013). My father-in-law Jerry (2012). Denis Gainty (2017), one of my committee members and a talented musician, passed away one week before my defense date. All will be missed and all will be remembered with the fondness and love. “Of all the money that e'er I spent/ I've spent it in good company/ and all the harm that ever I did/ alas, it was to none but me/ and all I've done v for want of wit/ to memory now I can't recall/ so fill to the parting glass/ good night and joy be with you all...” (from The Parting Glass) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my committee for their hard work in helping me finish this dissertation – John McMillian, Denis Gainty, and Montgomery Wolf. My adviser Alex Cummings offered indispensable advice over the course of my PhD. There aren't enough thanks in the world, translocal or otherwise! Working on my dissertation, I visited several archives including Special Collections at Georgia State University, William Fulbright Archives in University of Arkansas, Popular Music Archive at Middle TN State University, the National Archives in College Park, and the Library of Congress in DC. Dr. Harcourt Fuller shared his knowledge of the legendary Black President, Fela Kuti. Allyson Tadjer, Lauren Thompson, Sara Patenaude, and Dylan Ruediger all read drafts at various points in this process and I thank them for their criticism and friendship. Andrea Scionti, another cultural Cold War historian who received his PhD from Emory also occasionally weighted in on my work. Part of this dissertation came from my MA thesis. Michelle Brattain and Isa Blumi advised me through that project and I appreciate all their hard work on my behalf. Some of my earliest thinking on this topic began as an undergraduate in Isa Blumi's Balkan history course and in Ian Fletcher's class on global social movements as a MA student. Mohammad Al-Habib, Musemma Sabancıoğlu, Supad Ghosh, Michelle Lacoss, Kevin Baker, Casey Cater, and Jon Schmidt were all indispensable during the my time as an MA student. vi Anna Baumstark offered to read and critique some chapter drafts. I appreciate her sharp eye and her friendship (namaste!). Rome, my very patient husband, also read various drafts of various papers over the years and never once wavered in his love and support of this project. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in life. My thanks for all the kindnesses shown me by everyone listed here! They all helped make this a better work and made me a better person. And I'm sure I forgot many people who helped me along the way. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ V 1 INTRODUCTION: EVER GET THE FEELING YOU'VE BEEN CHEATED? 1 2 CHAPTER 1: JAZZ AS AN AMERICAN INSTITUTION: FORGING A PRIVATE-PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP SECTION HEADING ............................................... 27 3 CHAPTER 2: AMERICAN DIPLOMACY AND THE CONTRADICTIONS OF ROCK SECTION HEADING ................................................................................................... 53 4 CHAPTER 3: THE RISE OF THE REAGAN YOUTH: CONNECTIONS AND MODES OF PRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 53 5 CHAPTER 4: RISE ABOVE MY STATION: PUNK ROCK AS A TRANSLOCAL COMMUNITY ............................................................................................. 135 vii 6 CONCLUSION: THE COLD WAR ROOTS OF YOUTH SUBCULTURES . 176 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 200 viii 1 1 INTRODUCTION: EVER GET THE FEELING YOU'VE BEEN CHEATED? “Piss stain” tends to be a phrase not ordinarily associated with an institution like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But in 2006 Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited (PiL) frontman John Lydon—better known as Johnny Rotten—selected that term to describe the museum in his missive to them. The Sex Pistols had been inducted into the Hall of Fame, but the still living members of the band refused to attend that year's festivities. Long having ignored punk as an influential musical genre, official sanction came with induction of the proto-punk pioneers the Velvet Underground in 1996. Later bands that made up the first wave of punk rock slowly garnered attention from the recording industry through the Hall. True to form, Lydon would have none of it. He cited the Museum's role in perpetuating corporate control of popular music. “Your [sic] not paying attention,” he wrapped up the letter where he explained the bands' refusal to attend.1 But the fact was that the recording industry finally saw fit to include punk bands into the mainstream of the industry by acknowledging their role in shaping tastes and influencing the mainstream of popular music. By the time the Sex Pistols were inducted into the Hall of Fame, the market finally agreed on punk's musical influence and the museum responded. Starting with the Seattle band Nirvana's big break through in 1991, bands influenced by the genre broke through to the mainstream during the alternative music craze that conquered the airwaves. Lead singer Kurt Cobain often cited punk bands as Nirvana's primary musical inspiration.2 As a result of the success of Nirvana's breakout single “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” punk and postpunk musics 1 John Lydon, “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a Piss Stain,” Letters of Note, September 21, 2010, http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/09/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-is-piss.html, (accessed September 27, 2016).

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