Punk rock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaPunk rock is an
anti-establishment music movement which began around 1974-1975 (although transitional forms can be found several years earlier), exemplified by
The Ramones, the
Sex Pistols,
The Damned, and
The Clash. The term is also used to describe subsequent music scenes that share key characteristics with those first-generation "punks," and it is often applied loosely to mean any band with "attitude" or "youthful aggression." The term is sometimes also applied to the
fashions,
ideology,
subculture, or irreverent "
DIY" ("do it yourself") attitude associated with this musical movement.
Characteristics
Punk bands often emulate the approach of sixties
garage rock bands. Punk rock emphasizes simple musical structures and arrangements. The early
UK punk
fanzine Sniffin' Glue in 1977 famously included drawings of three chord shapes captioned, "This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band". Most punk songs have a
verse-chorus structure and
4/4 time. Short songs are also a staple of punk rock. Songs are normally about two and a half minutes in length, but sometimes are less than thirty seconds, and on very rare occasions, a punk rock band will release a song that exceeds four minutes in length; this is common feature of songs by The Clash and the
Dead Kennedys. Punk rock usually has fast tempos, especially hardcore punk.
Typical punk instrumentation includes a drum kit, one or two electric guitars, an electric bass, and vocals. The drums typically sound heavy and dry. The guitar parts are made up of highly distorted
power chords à la
Link Wray, though some bands, especially California punk rock bands, take a
surf rock approach, with lighter, "twangier" guitar tones. Punk vocals are usually nasally, gravelly, or throaty. Production is minimalistic, with tracks sometimes laid down on tape recorders in garages. More often than not, the band themselves produce, record, and distribute the album.
In the mid-1970s, punk lyrics introduced a confrontational frankness of expression and social and political relevance that had been missing from contemporary music. Songs like The Clash's "Career Opportunities" and "London's Burning" dealt with
unemployment, boredom and other grim realities of urban life; some were openly disparaging of governments and monarchies, as in The Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” and “Anarchy in the UK”; and still others were decidedly anti-romantic in depictions of sex and love, such as
Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk to Fuck" and
Richard Hell and
the Voidoids' "Love Comes in Spurts". Other themes associated with punk rock lyricism include anti-conformity, such as in
Bad Religion's "Automatic Man."
History
Origins
UK Punks, circa 1986
The phrase "punk rock" (from "
punk", meaning a beginner or novice
[1]) was originally applied to the untutored
guitar-and-
vocals-based
rock and roll of United States bands of the mid-1960s such as
The Standells,
The Sonics, and
The Seeds, bands that now are more often categorized as "
garage rock".
The term was coined by rock critic
Dave Marsh, who used it to describe the music of
? and the Mysterians in the May 1971 issue of
Creem magazine
[2], and it was adopted by many rock music journalists in the early 1970s. For example, in the liner notes of the 1972 anthology album
Nuggets, critic and guitarist
Lenny Kaye uses the term "punk-rock" to refer to the Sixties "
garage rock" groups, as well as some of the darker and more primitive practitioners of 1960s
psychedelia. Shortly after the time of those notes, Lenny Kaye formed a band with
avant-garde poet
Patti Smith. Smith's group, and her first album,
Horses, released in 1975, directly inspired many of the mid-1970s punk rockers, so this suggests one path by which the term migrated to the music we now know as punk.
In addition to the inspiration of those "
garage bands" of the 1960s, the roots of punk rock draw on the snotty attitude, on-stage and off-stage violence, and aggressive instrumentation of
The Who; the snotty attitude of the early
Rolling Stones; the abrasive, dissonant style of
The Velvet Underground; the sexuality, political confrontation, and on-stage violence of Detroit bands
Alice Cooper,
The Stooges and
MC5; the
UK pub rock scene and political
UK underground bands such as
Mick Farren and the
Deviants; the
New York Dolls; and some British "
glam rock" or "
art rock" acts of the early 1970s, including
David Bowie,
Gary Glitter and
Roxy Music. Influence from other musical genres, including
reggae,
funk, and
rockabilly can also be detected in early punk rock.
Punk rock was also a reaction against tendencies that had overtaken popular music in the 1970s, including what the punks saw as superficial "
disco" music and bombastic forms of
heavy metal,
progressive rock and "
arena rock." Punk also rejected the remnants of the
hippie counterculture of the 1960s. Bands such as
Jefferson Airplane, which had survived the 1960s, were regarded by most punks as having become fatuous and an embarrassment to their former claims of
radicality.
Eric Clapton's appearance in
television beer ads in the mid-1970s was often cited as an example of how the icons of 1960s rock had literally sold themselves to the system they once opposed.
Cover of the
Sex Pistols album
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.
The cultural critique and strategies for revolutionary action offered by the
European Situationist movement of the 1950s and 1960s were an influence on the vanguard of the British punk movement, particularly the Sex Pistols. Pistols manager
Malcolm McLaren consciously embraced situationist ideas, which are also reflected in the clothing designed for the band by
Vivienne Westwood and the visual artwork of the Situationist-affiliated
Jamie Reid, who designed many of the band's graphics.
The British punk movement also found a precedent in the "do-it-yourself" attitude of the
Skiffle craze that emerged amid the post-
World War II austerity of 1950s Britain. Punk rock in Britain coincided with the end of the era of
post-war consensus politics that preceded the rise of
Thatcherism, and nearly all British punk bands expressed an attitude of angry social alienation.
Early emergence
The first ongoing music scene that was assigned the "punk" label appeared in New York in 1974-1976 centered around bands that played regularly at the clubs
Max's Kansas City and
CBGB. This had been preceded by a mini
underground rock scene at the Mercer Arts Center, picking up from the demise of the Velvet Underground, starting in 1971 and featuring the New York Dolls and
Suicide, which helped to pave the way, but came to an abrupt end in 1973 when the building collapsed. The CBGB and Max's scene included
The Ramones,
Television,
Blondie,
Johnny Thunders (a former
New York Doll) and the Heartbreakers,
Richard Hell and
The Voidoids and the
Talking Heads. The "punk" title was applied to these groups by early 1976, when
Punk Magazine first appeared, featuring these bands alongside articles on some of the immediate role models for the new groups, such as
Lou Reed, who was on the cover of the first issue of Punk, and
Patti Smith, cover subject on the second issue.
At the same time, a less celebrated, but nonetheless highly influential, scene had appeared in
Ohio, including
The Electric Eels,
Devo and
Rocket from the Tombs, who in 1975 split into
Pere Ubu and
The Dead Boys.
During this same period, bands that would later be recognized as "punk" were formed independently in other locations, such as
The Saints in
Brisbane, Australia,
The Modern Lovers in
Boston, and
The Stranglers and the
Sex Pistols in London. These early bands also operated within small "scenes", often facilitated by enthusiastic impresarios who either operated venues, such as
clubs, or organised temporary venues. In other cases, the bands or their managers improvised their own venues, such as a house inhabited by The Saints in an inner suburb of Brisbane. The venues provided a showcase and meeting place for the emerging musicians (the
100 Club in London,
CBGB in New York, and
The Masque in
Hollywood are among the best known early punk clubs).
While the London bands may have played a relatively minor role in determining the early punk sound, the London punk scene would come to define and epitomize the rebellious punk culture. After a brief stint managing the
New York Dolls at the end of their career in the US, Englishman
Malcolm McLaren returned to London in May 1975. He started a clothing store called
SEX that was instrumental in creating the radical punk clothing style. He also began managing The Swankers, who would soon become the
Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols soon created a strong cult following in London, centered on a clique known as the
Bromley Contingent (named after the suburb where many of them had grown up), who followed them around the country.
Cover of
The Clash album
London Calling.
An oft-cited moment in punk rock's history is a
July 4, 1976 concert by the Ramones at
the Roundhouse in London (The Stranglers were also on the bill). Many of the future leaders of the UK punk rock scene were inspired by this show, and almost immediately after it, the UK punk scene got into full swing. By the end of 1976, many fans of the Sex Pistols had formed their own bands, including
The Clash,
Siouxsie & the Banshees,
The Adverts,
Generation X,
The Slits and
X-Ray Spex. Other UK bands to emerge in this milieu included
The Damned (the first to release a single, the classic "New Rose"),
The Jam,
The Vibrators,
Buzzcocks and the appropriately named
London.
In December of 1976, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned and Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers united for the
Anarchy Tour, a series of gigs throughout the U.K. Many of the gigs were cancelled by venue owners, after tabloid newspapers and other media seized on sensational stories regarding the antics of both the bands and their fans. The notoriety of punk rock in the UK was furthered by a televised incident that was widely publicised in the tabloid press; appearing on a London TV show called Thames Today, guitarist Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols was goaded into a verbal altercation by the host,
Bill Grundy, swearing at him on live television in violation of at the time accepted standards of propriety.
One of the first books about punk rock — The Boy Looked at Johnny by
Julie Burchill and
Tony Parsons (December 1977) — declared the punk moment to be already over: the subtitle was The Obituary of Rock and Roll. The title echoed a lyric from the title track of Patti Smith's 1975 album Horses.
During 1977, a second wave of bands emerged, influenced by those mentioned above. Some, such as
The Misfits (from
New Jersey),
The Exploited(from
Scotland),
GBH (from
England)
Black Flag (from
Los Angeles),
Stiff Little Fingers (from
Northern Ireland) and
Crass (from
Essex) would go on to influence the move away from the original sound of punk rock, that would spawn the
Hardcore subgenre.
In the UK, punk interacted with the Jamaican
reggae and
ska subcultures. The reggae influence is evident in much of the music of The Clash and The Slits, for example. By the end of the 1970s, punk had spawned the
2 Tone ska revival movement, including bands such as
The Beat (The English Beat in U.S.),
The Specials,
Madness and
The Selecter.
Gradually punk became more varied and less minimalist with bands such as
The Clash incorporating other underground musical influences like
ska and
rockabilly and even
jazz into their music, but the message of the music remained the same; it was subversive, counter-cultural, rebellious, politically incorrect and often
anarchist. Punk rock dealt with topics such as problems facing society, oppression of the lower classes, the threat of a nuclear war, etc. Or it delineated the individual’s personal problems, such as being unemployed, or having particular emotional and/or mental issues, i.e. depression. Punk rock was a message to
society that all was not well and all were not equal.
Genres of Punk
The
Swedish punk band
Ebba Grön, a poster from 1981
While it is thought that punk had a decline in the 80s, many sub-genres branched off playing their own interpretation of “punk rock”.
The United States saw the emergence of
hardcore punk, which is known for fast, aggressive beats and political lyrics. Early hardcore bands include
Dead Kennedys,
Black Flag,
Bad Brains,
The Descendents, early
Replacements and
The Germs and the movement developed via
Minor Threat,
Minutemen and
Hüsker Dü, among others. In New York, there was a large hardcore punk movement led by bands such as
Agnostic Front,
The Cro-Mags,
Murphy's Law,
Sick of it All, and
Gorilla Biscuits. Other styles emerged from this new genre including
skate punk,
emo and
straight edge.
In the UK, meanwhile, diverse
post-punk bands emerged, such as
Joy Division,
Throbbing Gristle,
Gang of Four,
Siouxsie & the Banshees &
Public Image Ltd, the latter two bands featuring people who were part of the original British punk rock movement.
Although most the prominent bands in the genre pre-dated the 1980s by a few years, it wasn’t until the 1980s until journalist
Garry Bushell gave the sub-genre “
Oi!” its name, derived from the Cockney Rejects song “Oi! Oi! Oi!”. This movement featured bands such as
Cock Sparrer,
Cockney Rejects,
Blitz, and
Sham 69.
Bands sharing the
Ramones'
bubblegum pop influences formed their own brand of punk, sporting melodic songs and lyrics more often dealing with relationships and simple fun than most punk rock's nihilism and anti-estalishment stance. These bands, the founders of
pop punk, included the Ramones,
Buzzcocks,
The Rezillos and
Generation X.
Legacy and recent developments
The underground punk movement in the United States in the 1980s produced countless bands that either evolved from a punk rock sound or simply applied its spirit and DIY ethics to a completely different sound. By the end of the 1980s these bands had largely eclipsed their punk forebearers and were termed
alternative rock. As alternative bands like
Sonic Youth and the
Pixies were starting to gain larger audiences, major labels sought to capitalize on a market that had been growing underground for the past 10 years.
In 1991,
Nirvana achieved huge commercial success with their album,
Nevermind. Nirvana cited punk as a key influence on their music. Although they tended to label themselves as punk rock and championed many unknown punk icons (as did many other alternative rock bands), Nirvana's music was equally akin to other forms of garage or
indie rock and
heavy metal that had existed for decades. Nirvana's success kick-started the alternative rock boom that had been underway since the late 1980s, and helped define that segment of the 1990s popular music milieu. The subsequent shift in taste among listeners of rock music was chronicled in a film entitled 1991: The Year Punk Broke, which featured Nirvana,
Dinosaur Jr, and Sonic Youth; Nirvana also featured in the film Hype!
The resurgance of punk's mainstream visibility in the early and mid-1990s was characterized by the scene at
924 Gilman Street, a venue in
Berkeley, California, which featured bands such as
Green Day,
Operation Ivy,
Rancid and later bands including
AFI, (though clearly not simultaneously, as Rancid included members of the defunct Operation Ivy). This scene emphasized a return to punk's melodic roots with a strong adherence to punk principles in its lyrical messages.
Epitaph Records, an independent record label started by
Brett Gurewitz of
Bad Religion, would become the home of the "
skate punk" sound, characterized by bands like
The Offspring,
Pennywise,
NOFX, and
The Suicide Machines, many bands arose claiming the mantle of the ever-diverse punk genre -- some playing a more accessible, pop style and achieving commercial success. The late 1990s also saw another
ska punk revival. This revival continues into the 2000s with bands like
Streetlight Manifesto,
Reel Big Fish, and
Less Than Jake.
The early commercial success of alternative rock also gave way to another style of punk success in the mainsteam called
punk pop. Examples of pop punk bands include
Simple Plan,
Good Charlotte, and
Sum 41. By the late 1990s, punk was so ingrained in Western culture that it was often used to sell commercial bands as "rebels", amid complaints from punk rockers that, by being signed to major labels and appearing on
MTV, these bands were buying into the system that punk was created to rebel against, and as a result, could not be considered true punk (though clearly, punk's earliest pioneers also released work via the major labels). This debate continues among young punk acolytes (who, as do most new generations, seek a sense of originality or authenticity) amid the popularity of modern punk in the early 2000s, including the
emo trend of recent times, and the Grammy success and superstar status in 2005 of pop-punk band Green Day.
There is still a thriving punk scene in North America, Japan and Europe. The widespread availability of the
Internet and
file sharing programs enables bands who would otherwise not be heard outside of their local scene to garner larger followings, and is in keeping with the DIY ethic championed by some earlier punk bands. Many punk bands retain the political streak of their forebears. The political ascendency of
George W. Bush and
Tony Blair have inspired both songs and political action, such as the
Rock Against Bush movement, that can be compared to the original rage at
Reagan and
Thatcher.
There is a new brand of punk called "Lo-Cash" or "Crack Rock Steady." With bands from New York such as
Leftover Crack, the main band,
Choking Victim, INDK and No Cash. These bands combine elements of punk, ska, death metal, hardcore and rap into their songs.
Punk rock
Stylistic origins:
1950s R&B,
rock and roll,
country, and
rockabilly,
1960s garage rock,
frat rock,
psychedelic rock,
pub rock,
glam rock, and
proto-punkCultural origins:
Mid
1970s United States,
Australia and
United Kingdom.
Typical
instruments:
Vocals –
Guitar –
Bass –
DrumsMainstream popularity:
Chart-topping in the UK, less success elsewhere. Some success for
pop punk, especially
ska punk and
Two ToneDerivative forms:
Alternative rock –
Emo –
Gothic rock –
Grunge –
Math rock –
New Wave –
Post-punk –
post-punk revivalSubgenresAnarcho-punk –
Christian punk –
Crust punk –
Garage punk –
Hardcore –
Horror punk –
Oi! –
Pop punkFusion genres
Anti-folk –
Death rock –
Funkcore –
Jazz punk –
Psychobilly –
Queercore –
Ska punk –
Two ToneRegional scenes
Punk rock in Belgium –
BrazilOther topics
History –
Cassette culture –
DIY –
Pioneers –
First wave –
Second wave –
Punk cities –
Punk movies –
Fanzine –
Fashion
