
Galaxie 500 and the (Upper) Class Consciousness of Indie Rock
If you spend a lot of time pondering the importance of “punk rock,” applying the adjectives “restraint,” “educated,” or “upper class” to a band is clearly a dis. Not so with Galaxie 500. As we see in Temperature's Rising, a new oral history of the band, they mark a turning point—when underground artists began questioning rock and roll’s rebellious foundational aesthetic, rather than pushing it to its alienated extremes.
The perfect encapsulation of Galaxie 500 appears rather late in Temperature’s Rising, a brief but intriguing scrapbook and oral history about the band. A college classmate of theirs explains, “Their album covers made a statement. Cool Restraint. Educated. Upper Class. Lots of Social Contacts.”
This frames them in a way few musicians would aspire to be framed. From one perspective, it could even be taken as a devastating bon mot. First of all it’s about their album art, not their music. Second, the word “restraint” was anathema to rock and pop music until quite recently. If you still look