This article addresses the question of the relationship between the underground and the mainstream through two examples bracketing the period under consideration (1977-82 on the one hand and 2014- on the other). The first example concerns the establishment in Great Britain of an independent production and distribution network associated with the punk and post-punk scenes. The second consists of a subcultural formation on a smaller scale served by a promotional approach which has the particularity of relying almost exclusively on digital communication.While claiming a musical radicality that distinguished them from a more generalist production, both have come to negotiate an intermediate position between the oppositional strategies associated with the underground and a growing popularity, betraying an ambivalence on the subject of their inclusion in a market or commercial network.