Rage finds an unlikely ally: Hope

When Iggy Pop recommends a band on his BBC Radio 6 Music show, it's time to listen.

- Sanjoy Narayan

The man who turned stage-diving into an art form, and survived both The Stooges and a heroin addiction, doesn’t waste airtime.

So when he recently championed the British band High Vis, it felt like benediction by a high priest, confirmation of what those paying attention already knew: that punk is back, and it has never sounded more vital.

It is now something stranger, more ambitious, and infinitely more necessary.

The parallels with the genre's 1970s origins are almost too obvious. Britain then was a place of soaring unemployment, rampant inflation, and millions of youngsters staring at a bleak future. Sex Pistols responded with God Save the Queen (1977) and its snarling promise of “no future”.

Today, Gen Z has inherited a world on fire. The climate crisis, economic precarity and rise of authoritarianism worldwide make their parents’ struggles look innocent by comparison. Yet, unlike the nihilism of the punk of the ‘70s, today’s version mixes rage with something unexpected: hope.