Rebellious Music, Bourgeois Listener

It's true that a lot of punk (and related immediate off-shoots), maybe most of it, hasn't held up for me, but even so, there's still something I like about it. It's still often a sound that hits me in a way that much of the rock I hear on the radio does not. Aside from the fact that these days I would usually rather listen to Mohammed Abdel Wahab or Cheo Feliciano, I think I also listen to it less than I might otherwise because I feel slightly silly listening to it now, when at one time it was at least partly meaningful to me as some sort of rebellion (or at least a marker of being part of a new generation). Now I am (a) definitely not remotely living a rebel existence, though there is much about the current social order that I don't like, and (b) seriously doubtful that punk ever was much of a challenge to anything, or even if it was, there were too many anti-social/nihilistic currents in it for me to "approve" in retrospect. Yet I still like the energy and sound of some of it.

(I started thinking about this in response to the pop punk thread.)