In his book Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984, Simon Reynolds identifies Teenage Jesus and the Jerks as an exercise in rock sacrilege: Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and their comrade bands Mars, Contortions and DNA, defined radicalism not as a return to roots but as deracination.
Lydia Lunch has voiced her disdain for contemporary rock, claiming in Rip It Up: "I hated almost the entirety of punk rock.