-Although rock shows in their various sizes and permutations can resemble political rallies, generally speaking, attendees (the fans) are not encouraged to participate in or contemplate collective action but instead are urged inwards, on solitary, quasi-spiritual journeys of false transcendence. Fists are pumped, beer is drunk, boyfriends and girlfriends hold hands and look past each other with glassy, unfocused eyes.
-Atomization is encouraged due to the frequent consumption of rock music by the solitary listener. A universal experience of the rock fan consists of consuming rock music while alone in one's bedroom etc. (or alone in a crowd while wearing headphones) and partaking in a pseudo-spiritual communion/identification with the rock performers. Physical response to rock includes a rise in blood pressure, increased heart-rate, adrenal response, feelings of ecstasy and well being. Rock music is often consumed (in the same way that alcohol, caffeine or other drugs are consumed) in a solitary fashion in preparation of and prior to important events in the listener's life, such as: work, exercise, social activities, dating, mass murder, sporting events, war etc (it is also consumed in conjunction with these events).
Common themes in rock songs:
-Rugged individualism
-Nihilism
-Misogyny
-Greed
-Depoliticization, the encouragement of apathy
-Commodity Fetishism
-Enshrinement of bourgeois sex roles
-Encouragement of false transcendence via drug and alcohol abuse
-Violence
-Revenge
Punk Rock, as both a style of rock music and as a product of the groundbreaking Punk era, is widely viewed as Rock and Roll's most revolutionary moment/movement. It is, however, the embodiment of counter-revolution in rock and roll. Reactionary in musical form, fashion and outlook Punk began during a period of world-wide economic turmoil (similar in circumstance to the beginnings of other populist, reactionary movements) and following the end of the Vietnam War and the subsequent de-mobilization and demoralization of the anti-war Left. Punk was, according to its adherents, theorists and players, a direct response to the 'excesses' of the 'hippies'. Song lengths were cut from ten minutes to two minutes. Tempos were doubled in speed. Long hair was shorn and replaced by close cropped quasi-military hairstyles. Punk fashions evolved from the torn t-shirts festooned with safety pins favored by Sid Vicious to the military chic of the (unabashedly left wing) Clash and others.Along with the martial beats that characterized the music, Punk bands and fans flirted with overt fascist imagery (Swastika chic)*. Transgressive nihilism was embodied by songs like "No Feelings", "Holidays in the Sun" (an incoherent mish mash of Situationist slogans) and "Beat on the Brat". Self-mutilation and mortification of the flesh were fashion accessories common to both the practioneers and fans of Punk. Punk Rock as a cultural phenomenom channeled the anger of disaffected, angry working and lower middle class youth away from political activism, a significant component of the previous decade, towards an all embracing nihilist world view that accentuated the meaninglessness of one's own life and actions. Violence was common at many Punk shows and narcotic and alcohol abuse were celebrated. Before it could become a truly mass movement Punk was watered down and 'liberalized' by a more consumer friendly version of itself called New Wave. Thatcherism and Reaganism followed on the heels of the Punk era.…
Rock and Roll, like Christianity, with which it shares the worship of long-haired, bearded men, is a source of solace and spiritual/psychic regeneration for the bruised psyche of the worker and executive alike. It is a mechanized folk music for the thrill seeking inhabitants of the hi-tech, capitalist West…and when one considers the apathy and political disengagement that this folk music encourages, and it's constant reinforcement of patriarchal, capitalist values, it seems reasonable to think that Rock and Roll was not the ideal personal soundtrack for a member of the SDS, but instead it was and is far better suited for a member of the Rotary Club...
*Punk's NYC pioneers/progenitors (Richard Hell, Television, Patti Smith etc) were acolytes of the hermetic, hyper-atomized Bob Dylan school of rock and roll and eschewed fascist imagery and martial, hyper aggressive musical styles.
(the well written song is objet a)
...the last modernist guitar player...a human paradigm.... 
