Cover not available

Article In: Journal of Language and Pop Culture: Online-First Articles

Sometimes selling out is giving up your grammar

Style shifting and career progression for an American punk rock band

ORCiD logo with link | Newcastle University
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Punk artists and audiences have a strong anti-commercial stance, but at points in the genre’s history artists have signed recording contracts with major labels and produced music targeted at a broader audience. For many in punk communities, to do so was “selling out,” and an indicator that the artist was not an authentic punk. Following past work examining language variation in pop music, this paper tests whether there is a linguistic correlate to an artist’s career progression. Using the American punk band Rise Against as a case study, I examine lead singer Tim McIlrath’s production of the (ING) variable over the course of their career. I show while McIlrath’s production initially resembles patterns found in community-based studies, he style shifts away from this gradually throughout his career, apparently kickstarted after the band signed to a major label. This offers support to claims that artists centralize linguistic production in music around supralocal norms at least in part due to commercial pressure.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language variation in pop music
  • 3.Authenticity, commercialism, and selling out
  • 4.Case study: Rise Against
  • 5.Approach
  • 6.Methods
  • 7.Results
    • 7.1Model outputs
    • 7.2Summary
  • 8.Discussion and outlook
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
References (59)
References
Bailey, G. (2024). Three’s a crowd: Ternary (ing) variation in the North of England. Language Variation and Change, 36(3), 283–306. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barker, H., & Taylor, Y. (2007). Faking it: The quest for authenticity in popular music. W. W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B. M., & Walker, S. C. (2015). Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beal, J. (2009). “You’re not from New York City, you’re from Rotherham”: Dialect and identity in British indie music. Journal of English Linguistics, 37(3), 223–240. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bell, A., & Gibson, A. (2011). Staging language: An introduction to the sociolinguistics of performance. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(5), 555–572. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berger, H. M. (2003). Introduction: The politics and aesthetics of language choice and dialect in popular music. In H. M. Berger & M. T. Carroll (Eds.), Global pop, local language (pp. ix–xxvi). University of Mississippi Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bloomfield, T. (1993). Resisting songs: Negative dialectics in pop. Popular Music, 12(1), 13–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campbell-Kibler, K. (2007). Accent, (ING), and the social logic of listener perceptions. American Speech, 81(1), 32–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). I’ll be the judge of that: Diversity in social perceptions of (ING). Language in Society, 37(5), 637–659. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, N. (2009). The mediated performance of vernaculars. Journal of English Linguistics, 37(3), 284–300. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). Voice, place, and genre in popular singing performance. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(5), 573–602. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutler, C. (2003). “Chanter en yaourt”: Pop music and language choice in France. In H. M. Berger & M. T. Carroll (Eds.), Global pop, local language (pp. 329–348). University of Mississippi Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duncan, D. (2017). Australian singer, American features: Performing authenticity in country music. Language & Communication, 52, 31–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2025). Variation in fictional dialogue in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Language and Literature, 34(3), 248–273. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duncan, D., & Gerwin, J. (2027). Enregisterment and authenticity in pop culture. In V. Werner, A. Moody & C. Cutler & (Eds.), Handbook of language and pop culture (pp 307–322). De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duncan, D., & Robinson, M. (2027). If Blink-182 went country: Genre convention and stylization in cover songs. In V. Werner, C. Cutler, & A. Moody (Eds.), Sociolinguistics of pop culture. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eberhardt, M., & Freeman, K. (2015). “First things first, I’m the realest”: Linguistic appropriation, white privilege, and the hip-hop persona of Iggy Azalea. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 19(3), 303–327. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, P. (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(4), 453–476. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, J. L. (1958). Social influences on the choice of a linguistic variant. Word, 14(1), 47–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flanagan, P. (2019). “A Certain Romance”: Style shifting in the language of Alex Turner in Arctic Monkeys songs 2006–2018. Language and Literature, 28(1), 82–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2027). Genre, linguistic style, and pop music. In V. Werner, A. Moody & C. Cutler (Eds.), Handbook of language and pop culture (pp. 206–226). De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Forrest, J. (2017). The dynamic interaction between lexical and contextual frequency: A case study of (ING). Language Variation and Change, 29(2), 129–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibson, A. (2024). Pop Song English as a supralocal norm. Language in Society, 53(3), 471–498. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibson, A., & Hay, J. (2025). Perceptual style-shifting across singing and speech: Music activates Pop Song English for NZ listeners. Language and Speech, 69(3), 651–683. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Green, T., & Sinclair, G. (2022). The broken record: How the music industry is making sense of uncertainty and change. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l’Administration, 39(2), 131–231. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guy, G., & Cutler, C. (2011). Speech style and authenticity: Quantitative evidence for the performance of identity. Language Variation and Change, 23(1), 139–162. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holliday, N. (2017). “My presiden(t) and firs(t) lady were Black”: Style, context, and coronal stop deletion in the speech of Barack and Michelle Obama. American Speech, 92(4), 459–486. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hothorn, T., Hornik, K., & Zeileis, A. (2006). Unbiased recursive partitioning: A conditional inference framework. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 15(3), 651–674. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hracs, B. J. (2012). A creative industry in transition: The rise of digitally driven independent music production. Growth and Change, 43(3), 442–461. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jansen, L., & Gerfer, A. (2023). The Arctic Monkeys live at the Royal Albert Hall: Investigating Turner’s “lounge singer shimmer”. In C. Schubert & V. Werner (Eds.), Stylistic approaches to pop culture (pp. 156–175). Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konert-Panek, M. (2022). Polish punk rock in English: Sociophonetic aspects. Forum of Poetics, 27, 60–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2027). Variationist approaches to pop music. In V. Werner, A. Moody, C. Cutler (Eds.), Handbook of language and pop culture (pp. 359–375). De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kristiansen, L. J., J. R. Blaney, P. J. Chidester, & Simonds, B. K. (2010). Screaming for change: Articulating a unifying philosophy of punk rock. Lexington.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1966/2006). The social stratification of English in New York City. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W., Ash, S., & Boberg, C. (2006). The atlas of North American English: Phonetics, phonology and sound change. Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W., Ash, S., Ravindranath, M., Weldon, T., Baranowski, M., & Nagy, N. (2011). Properties of the sociolinguistic monitor. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(4), 431–463. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lacoste, V., Leimgruber, J., & Breyer, T. (2014). Authenticity: A view from inside and outside sociolinguistics. In V. Lacoste, J. Leimgruber, & T. Breyer (Eds.), Indexing authenticity (pp. 1–13). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laing, D. (2003). Cockney rock. In H. M. Berger & M. T. Carroll (Eds.), Global pop, local language (pp. 207–232). University of Mississippi Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lenth, R., & Piaskowski, J. (2026). emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, aka Least-Squares Means. R package version 2.0.3. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lin, Y. & Chan, M. K. M. (2022). Linguistic constraint, social meaning, and multi-modal stylistic construction: Case studies from Mandarin pop songs. Language in Society, 51(4), 603–626. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lyon, L. R. (2019). Shifting personas: A case study of Taylor Swift. (Unpublished MA thesis). University of Kentucky. [URL]
Macías, A. (2014). Black and brown get down: Cultural politics, Chicano music, and hip hop in racialized Los Angeles. In B. Lashua, K. Spracklen, & S. Wagg (Eds.), Sounds and the city: Popular music, place, and globalization (pp. 55–75). Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moody, A. (2021). The authority and authenticity of performative Englishes in popular culture. World Englishes, 40(3), 459–479. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moore, R. (2004). Postmodernism and punk subculture: Cultures of authenticity and deconstruction. The Communication Review, 7(3), 305–327. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ozzi, D. (2021). Sellout: The major-label feeding frenzy that swept punk, emo, and hardcore (1994–2007). Dey St.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poplack, S., & Malvar, E. (2007). Elucidating the transition period in linguistic change: The expression of the future in Brazilian Portuguese. Probus, 19(1), 121–169. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Powell, D. (2022). Yo soy de p fkn r: Mainstream reggaeton artists’ use of coda [l] as a raciolinguistic marker. Borealis — An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 11(2), 7–40. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prinz, J. (2014). The aesthetics of punk rock. Philosophy Compass, 9(9), 583–593. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2024). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Version 4.4.3. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. [URL]
Schleef, E., Flynn, N., & Barras, W. (2017). Regional diversity in social perceptions of (ing). Language Variation and Change, 29(1), 29–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Server Benetó, N. (2023). Enregisterment of sung speech: Seseo and distinction in Rosalía. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences, 45, 83–99. [URL]
Simpson, P. (1999). Language, culture and identity: With (another) look at accents in pop and rock singing. Multilingua, 18(4), 343–367. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trudgill, P. (1974). The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1983). Acts of conflicting identity: The sociolinguistics of British pop-song pronunciation. In P. Trudgill (Ed.), On dialect: Social and geographical perspectives (pp. 141–160). Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wallach, J. (2003). “Goodbye my blind majesty”: Music, language, and politics in the Indonesian underground. In H. M. Berger & M. T. Carroll (Eds.), Global pop, local language (pp. 53–86). University of Mississippi Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2014). Indieglobalization and the triumph of punk in Indonesia. In B. Lashua, K. Spracklen, & S. Wagg (Eds.), Sounds and the city: Popular music, place, and globalization (pp.148–161). Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weinreich, U., Labov, W., & Herzog, M. (1968). Empirical foundations for a theory of language change. In W. P. Lehmann & Y. Malkiel (Eds.), Directions for historical linguistics (pp. 95–195). University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue