It’s nearly 1:30 a.m. on a Tuesday and Bradford Cox is leading Deerhunter through a head-scratching performance on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Dressed in drag (again), black wig, and inexplicably bandaged hand as if he lost a few fingers, the singer’s bizarre antics speak louder than the scuzz-soaked ambience of “Monomania,” bemusing a nation full of basic cable viewers with his look alone. Before the song is finished, the dazed-looking Cox nonchalantly wanders offstage and through the halls of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, snatching a bystander’s beverage and taking a lean next to the elevator as the rest of the band finishes performing. Before Fallon returns to close the show, Deerhunter has already delivered the most arresting televised music segment since the kids in Odd Future donned ski masks and repeatedly shouted “wolf” in the face of a terrified-looking Felicia Day. Though it seems to have been since removed online without a trace, there’s no question it’s great.

“I don’t care if it’s great,” Pitchfork overheard Cox exclaim after the taping. “Was it punk?”

That’s a question you’d more expect to hear in either the late ‘70s or ‘90s than the supposedly boundary-less, “poptimistic” present, but it’s one that’s being asked a lot lately. And that’s not just from Bradford Cox, whose confrontational streak has always hearkened back to the days when punk was inextricable from glam and art rock. Sure, people have been asking “what is punk?” and “is punk dead?” since the Ramones played their first three chords, but that dialogue has been mostly sidestepped over the last decade or so, at least outside of specifically punk communities. Now it’s nudging its way back into the conversation.

Strangely, what’s brought it back is the question of whether or not we should even be talking about it. It started with a shrug from slacker icon Kurt Vile, who remarked in another Pitchfork interview that “in this day and age, ‘punk ideals’ are totally irrelevant,” earning his second 140 character finger wag from Titus Andronicus’ Patrick Stickles in a few years. Vile’s shrugging “times have changed, man” represents the attitude of many indie rockers who no longer see the need to treat its tenets like a bible, even if they still respect it as a vague denotation of “cool.”

It’s harder to imagine now that big-budget one-hit wonders ape Arcade Fire for Mumford & Sons fans, but it wasn’t so long ago that indie and punk rock were intertwined in an inseparable overlap. At the risk of getting all Our Band Could Be Your Life on this column, the tenets and values, or if you prefer “ideals” of indie rock – that is music that is independent – were pre-written by punk and hardcore. That DIY ethic of indie pioneers like Husker Du, Fugazi and Sebadoh—recording on four-track because a professional studio isn’t accessible, playing house parties and squats because you don’t have a proper touring agent, spending countless hours in a van because you need to cover as much ground as possible to break even, fostering a community of like-minded outcasts—you could have picked up all of that by listening to Henry Rollins rant for an hour or two in 1982.

Somewhere down the line, “punk” lost its handle as the default position for indie rockers. Blame Zach Braff or Seth Cohen if you must, but, just like punk, “indie rock” turned from an ethos into a genre descriptor, and a rather limp one at that. Suddenly, the music piped in at Starbucks (the Decemberists, Death Cab, and even major labellers Foster The People) took over the “indie” connotation and shook off much of the punk residue.

It’s no wonder indie rock is going through an identity crisis. Witness Justin Vernon’s hilariously conflicted Grammy speech, an “I don’t know if it’s okay to want this” moment that earned a parody from none other than Justin Timberlake, one of the decade’s biggest pop stars. Or take Kurt Vile’s “punk ideals are irrelevant” quote. On paper, Vile seems like the perfect bridge between Sonic Youth, Pavement, and Tom Petty, a mix of classic rock references with an “anything goes, whatever” attitude. But just as unlaboured as the drawling guitar epics on his new album, Wakin On A Pretty Daze sound (deceptively so, but that’s another matter), Vile doesn’t seem to think too deeply about whether his music follows the “rules” of either genre, many of which are extra-musical.

If he had his way, Vile wouldn’t be having the “punk ideals” conversation, but the reason it keeps coming up is his unapologetic desire to make a comfortable living as a rock and roll dad. A couple of years ago, Vile licensed his song “Baby’s Arms” to a Bank of America advert, privileging “high-end diapers” over sticky questions of capitalist ethics. He’s not alone. Sit through a commercial break and chances are you’ll hear a soundtrack of Tune-Yards, Of Montreal, Los Campesinos!, and Hooded Fang. Last I heard, none of them have had their “indie cred” cards revoked.

Vile’s “times have changed, man” is a common response, and on some level it holds true. Bands aren’t making their money from record sales anymore, and song licensing is one of the few reliable money sources left out there. That may explain the lack of stigma, but it also likely has something to do with the lack of an “us vs. them” attitude.  When Pitchfork celebrates R. Kelly and Mariah Carey on the same level as Deerhunter, it can’t help but feel like a leveling of the playing field. And as many of the bigger indie labels are now on the same level as the majors and recording technology is available to any kid with a MacBook, DIY independence isn’t so much a defiant political act as a de facto starting point.

That’s not to say that it shouldn’t be held up to scrutiny. Far from it. But maybe “punk rock” isn’t the best tool to use. That’s certainly the position of John Roderick, whose Seattle Weekly essay “Punk Rock Is Bullshit” hurled a grenade at the notion that negation and confrontation can be constructive, calling the movement “a Libertarian party for children.” That’s a more extreme position than that of New York Magazine critic Nitsuh Abebe, whose story “This Is Punk?” expertly deconstructs the slippery legacy of punk as “a Superword—a term whose main purpose is for people to fight over what it should mean,” arguing: “punk-think, which used to feel joyful and liberating, has started to look crabbed and guarded as well. Who, at this point, needs to lob spitballs at a monoculture that anyone with an Internet connection can easily escape?”

The supposed “freedom” afforded by the internet is a belief too seldom challenged—is complaining about the monoculture on Twitter really the same as escaping it?—but you don’t have to look far to find evidence of punk rock as an expired ethos. At this moment, the notoriously disgusting bathroom of CBGB’s is rebuilt in the hallowed gallery rooms of the Met, part of an exhibit called “PUNK: Chaos to Couture,” which whittles the movement down to a fashion trend, encases it in bronze, and presents it to the likes of Ivanka Trump and Kim Kardashian.

Fittingly, there’s also been a counter-movement to re-introduce punk to indie rock. Bands like the Men, METZ, Ceremony, Fucked Up, and White Lung, all of whom come from underground punk communities, have managed to cross over to more Pitchfork-friendly audiences. But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy transition. Danish punks Iceage, for instance, can’t escape cries of “fascism” arising from their dark, loaded imagery (link to AUX interview from last issue). The Ramones used Nazi imagery, too, claiming that it was nothing but empty provocation (and that Joey Ramone, like Iceage drummer Dan Kjaer Nielson, was Jewish), but that’s not as likely to pass in an indie landscape packed to the brims with Tumblr thinkpieces.

But Bradford Cox still sees the value in punk as an act of rebellion, so let’s let him have the final word:

“The entire point of asking ‘what is punk’ is, like, ‘Nevermind if this performance was good or not– was it undefinable? Was it slightly unsettling? Was it provocative without being political? Did it smell good?’ After that performance, lot of people were scratching their heads, like, ‘Who’s this fucking lunatic?’ It’s more interesting that way. I’m not interested in punk as an aesthetic and I certainly don’t give a shit what some hardcore kid thinks of our record. It’s a fucking arm-wrestling match, and it’s pathetic. My idea of punk is not being interested in what other people think of punk.”

This article originally appeared in the June 2013 issue of AUX Magazine. Download and subscribe for free in the App Store.