plastic punk

plastic punk

1. adjective Trying and failing to affect the outrageous, anti-establishment, countercultural looks, attitudes, and styles made popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Sometimes hyphenated. The theme park has this plastic punk vibe that you can tell was carefully calculated in a board room somewhere by a bunch of rich old men. I was in this plastic-punk band back in college, before I got a handle on the type of music I really wanted to make.
2. noun A person, band, or type of music that tries and fails to replicate punk rock or punk rockers from the late 1970s or early 1980s. The bands my teenager listens to are all these plastic punks trying so desperately to rage against the machine, conveniently forgetting that they are very much a part of that machine. You're not a punk just because you listen to a couple Sex Pistols albums. You're just a plastic punk, at best.
See also: plastic, punk
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

plastic punk

n. falsely stylish. Isn’t all punk really plastic punk?
See also: plastic, punk
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • punk
  • bulletproof
  • appropriate for
  • muck-raking
  • hippie
  • hippy
  • as (something) as the next man/woman/person
  • as as the next man
  • as good, well, etc. as the next person
  • man to man
References in periodicals archive
"Some people thought Billy was a plastic punk but he was the real deal," says Chris.
David Bowie kept coming round begging us for cash to make a demo. We'd pretend we were out; MUSIC MOGUL'S TALES OF SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK'N'ROLL; EXCLUSIVE
What do you try - Franz art-rock, The Killers' camp or Green Day's plastic punk?
The Razz: Pop: sound check
STARS Alexandra Burke and Miley Cyrus in last night's Royal Variety show POLITE Smiles all round as Lady GaGa meets the Queen after performance HYSTORICAL Lady GaGa in her Elizabethan-style plastic punk gear
MAD MEETS MAJ; And this is when she's trying to be on her very best behaviour.
I like matches - let's do lunch." Or his putting down of plastic punk Donny Tourette: "Oh no, he's put sunglasses on.
A load of old Buzzcocks!
In starring roles in movies such as Natural Born Killers, Juliette Lewis always had the look of a gal with a rock beast inside, and the plastic punk and regurgitated grunge of The Licks allows her to confront her frayed emotions.
CD Reviews: NEW ALBUMS: Hear It: KILLER QUEEN; JULIETTE AND THE LICKS You're Speaking My Language HHH
This following is fuel to those who accuse them of being "plastic punks" but the question really should be: are they good at what they do?
Put some Offspring in your step; REVIEW: THE OFFSPRING, SECCC, Glasgow