BETWEEN 1960 and 1980 Washington, DC, lost roughly one-sixth of its population. White flight left the city divided into a largely wealthy north-west and a largely poor rest of the city. Between 1980 and 2010 its population shrunk further still, but by less, both overall and proportionally. And that loss masks a rise from 2000 and 2010—DC's first in half a century. The riots that affected so many American cities in the 1960s devastated DC. It was then a completely federal city, without even the vestiges of local governance (known as "home rule") that would emerge in the last quarter of the 20th century. Ambitious politicians love getting to Washington by proclaiming how much they loathe DC, and how their constituents need to send them there so they can show everyone How Things Are Done. Small wonder that the city suffered. The House District Committee managed DC's affairs; John McMillan, an ardent segregationist from North Carolina, chaired that committee, and DC was then, as it (barely) is today, a black-majority city. When Walter Washington, DC's first home-rule mayor, delivered his budget to Congress, McMillan responded by delivering a truckload of watermelons to Washington's office. It may seem hard to fathom for anyone who moved to DC in the last 15 years, but in 1980 much of the city remained bombed out, abandoned, neglected. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the city was America's murder capital. In 1991 its population was roughly 598,000 and it recorded 482 murders; if contemporary London had a similar rate in 2011 then 6,588 people would have been killed.

And yet, during those years a remarkable, raw, vibrant underground culture flourished—one that far exceeds, in creativity and uniqueness, anything offered by contemporary DC (one is reminded of Harry Lime's observation that Italy under the Borgias had murder, terror and bloodshed but produced Michelangelo, Da Vinci and the Renaissance, while Switzerland had peace and prosperity and produced the cuckoo clock). "Pump Me Up: D.C. Subculture of the 1980s", which opened at the Corcoran Gallery this week and runs through April 7th, celebrates three aspects of that culture: DC's rough, raw, socially conscious punk and hardcore music; its infectious and criminally unknown go-go music, and its stark graffiti. The exhibition's curator, Roger Gastman, has also produced a deeply researched and deeply felt film about Cool "Disco" Dan, a famous and prolific DC graffiti-writer. To mark the opening of the exhibition, Mr Gastman organised a very noisy romp down Memory Lane last weekend at the 9:30 Club. To anyone who lived through that period in DC, the objects on display—sketches for Minor Threat's "Out of Step" album cover, fragments of a wooden wall or door with Cool "Disco" Dan's tag and, best of all, a room full of Globe's colourful and vibrant concert posters—have a totemic power. The objects on display wrap around the wall of the Corcoran's immense entry hall, organised by year, set amidst ample and well-chosen political posters, newspaper front pages and photographs from DC's history. Mr Gastman managed to source some remarkable political artefacts: "Just Say No: The Board Game", buttons supporting and opposing Ronald Reagan and George Bush, one of the innumerable "Meese is a Pig" posters that dotted DC. Such items make the progression on display richer, though here I ought to admit that I have a hard time judging "Pump Me Up" on its own merits; like Mr Gastman, I grew up in the DC area in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and walking around this exhibition often felt like walking around the bedroom of my adolescence (of course my bedroom was much smaller, and had lamentably fewer women in it).