In his famous 1976 essay, "The Me Decade and the Third Great Awakening," Tom Wolfe first put forth the now widely accepted idea that the counterculture of the 1960s had been perverted in the '70s by formerly progressive-minded baby boomers when they realized that genuine social change wasn't as important to them as personal peace-of-mind.

Wolfe, however, didn't address the nascent punk and new wave movements, which proved that no matter how narcissistic the boomers had become in general, a sizable portion continued to reject American-style materialism and embrace the underground as represented by unconventional pop music, drugs and transgressive literature. The main difference was that this generation of slightly younger boomers weren't as sentimental as the original flower children were.

The continuity of the idea is shown in two exhibitions opening Tokyo this month -- one dedicated to John Lennon, who, perhaps more than any other rock star, defined the social and political terms of '60s counterculture; and the other to Joe Strummer, who, as the frontman of The Clash, helped re-assert the primacy of rock as a cultural tool for change.