This paper seeks to examine different narratives within contemporary queercore music from a hermeneutic perspective. As a self-proclaimed fan of punk music, and a queer person myself, this genre is of interest to me on a personal level. In writing this paper, it was especially important for me to consider how the narrative of different examples of contemporary queercore music is both present in a purely textual context as well as a musical one. Narratives within queercore are important, as it is foundational to the genre; it was a way for queer punkers to create their own narrative in an especially homophobic period of American history in the 1980’s.

The basis for what constitutes contemporary queercore music in this paper is grounded in empirical gatherings from the official Spotify queercore-playlist. By way of elimination, I ended up selecting 13 pieces of music from this official playlist, which is supposed to represent some sort of notion of contemporary queercore music. In seeking to understand the connection of the two elements of narrative both as textual and musical constituents, I examined and was subsequently inspired by an article by Rob Fatal. His article itself examined narratives in lesbian queercore music from the 1990’s, which in part laid the foundation for my own interest in attempting a similar type of examination. To further examine the contemporary queercore music, I attempted to apply four characteristics of punk music, which Fatal presented in his own article, as a way to categorize the different songs. They include instrumentation, DIY-aesthetics, lyrical materiel, and vocal type. I also wished to apply Kate Hevners moodwheel, known from the world of musical psychology, when trying to describe these different songs’ sounds and moods, as condensed as possible. To further the process and level of categorization, I was inspired by thematic analysis and decided to apply this method in the construction of my analysis.

I ended up concluding that narratives in contemporary queercore music can be as varied as quite possibly any other genre. Within the official playlist constituting a notion of contemporary queercore music, several different narratives are to be found. They range from songs which have the capacity of being antagonistic and critical of LGBT-bourgeois groups, to songs which assure the listener that life is worth living. My own ideas of what constitutes queercore music have been challenged and it would be interesting to analyze the official playlist further. Additionally, it could also be interesting to examine what constitutes contemporary queercore music in other, less “official”, online spaces.