Pussy Riot's more punk than you will ever be

And, sorry, but t.A.T.u. doesn’t count. Not only were Lena Katina and Julia Volkova the shittiest Euro-trash dance duo this side of Andrew Ridgeley and that dude who loves to wank it in public crappers, they were even shittier lesbians.

Massive props, then, to Pussy Riot for not only busting out of Mother Russia, but doing so in a blaze of pure punk glory not seen since the Sex Pistols. Not since the rise of Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock has a band so brilliantly managed to convince the world that it is indeed a threat to everything a society holds sacred—“society”, in this case, meaning Russian president Vladimir Putin, who seems like the kind of humourless rock ’n’ roll–hating ghoul who spends his downtime pulling the wings off flies, angels, baby budgies, and fairies named Tinker Bell.

As has been reported everywhere from the New York Times to that blog run by your neighbourhood Harry Hardcore, three members of the provocateurs Pussy Riot are currently up shit creek with a turd for a paddle back in Mother Russia. One minute—on February 21, 2012, to be exact—they were cavorting around Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, treating the Bible-kissing faithful to a guerrilla rendition of the more-riot-grrrl-than-riot-grrrl number “Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!”. The next, they’re being arrested, hauled off to a кенгуру court, charged with religious-hatred-motivated hooliganism, and then sentenced to two years in prison. That’s another way of saying that, with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich now all behind bars, Pussy Riot won’t be heading to your town next year as featured players on the Warped Tour. Too bad. It’s easy to rail on about the police, the government, and that out-of-control high-school hall monitor when you know the chances of actually getting a reaction are slim to none.

In the span of a couple of months Pussy Riot has exposed every band that ever called itself punk as a bunch of sad pretenders. If the 12-person anarcho-collective has taught North America’s spiky, dyed, and dirty masses—both past and present—anything, it’s that they’ve always had it pretty easy. Hell, you can soak the American flag in petrol, stick a corner in your safety-pin-studded ass, light Old Glory on fire, and then do the dance of the flaming anus on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and the worst thing that will probably happen is that you’ll end up on YouTube.

In the summer of 2004, Green Day contributed the song “Favorite Son” to the anti–George W. compilation Rock Against Bush Vol. 2, backing that up with American Idiot, an album that suggested the U.S. is populated largely by redneck morons and high-powered idiot sons of assholes. For their troubles, Billy Joe Armstrong and company didn’t get a midnight visit from the suede-denim secret police, instead going six times platinum and securing a future invitation to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

If it hadn’t been for Ronald Reagan, the iconic punk bands of the ’80s would have had nothing to write about, which would have meant no laying the groundwork for the Offspring, Rancid, or, yes, Green Day. You didn’t see the members of Shattered Faith, Wasted Youth, or D.R.I. getting express passes to Rikers Island. If they had, you can pretty much bet that an entire generation of kids would have fled the punk-rock ship for a safer genre like, say, heavy metal. No one gives a shit if you sing about Satan, as long as you don’t go on about him sodomizing your Geritol-addicted grandfather.

Not so for Pussy Riot, which might be the first punk-rock band in history to find out that sometimes, when you mess with the bull, you get the horns. And despite it all, their message remains loud and clear: they still hate Putin. Despite being made up of women, Pussy Riot has just proven it has more balls than the boys.