‘Tout Faux’: Parisian landscape and hardcore punk, 1983–87

Abstract

Though punk scholars, fans and critics have increasingly embraced France’s role in punk history, the Parisian hardcore era remains largely ignored. When hardcore arrived in Paris in the 1980s with the groups Kromozom 4 and Heimat-Los, a scene struggled to coalesce both because of suppressing factors and despite some ostensibly supportive ones. The city’s constricted urban geography prevented the growth and development of loud, noisy or otherwise outsider music scenes. Concurrently, escalating blight and street violence kept the hardcore scene from retaining membership and performance spaces. As this article argues, oral histories and collectivized accounts of the Parisian hardcore scene of the 1980s offer a powerful counternarrative to commonly accepted imaginaries of the city. It also posits Paris’ landscape as a potent actor in the hardcore scene’s landmark successes and failures.