Guys, I’m 41. I was a huge art-rock fan in high school, but it was pretty obvious even by the late 70s that the genre was moribund. Art-rock was just one of many rock movements that had a moment in the sun, yielded a lot of records (some great, some good, some godawful), then pretty much faded away. A few of my favorites in that genre had a resuegence in the 80s, but that was more a last gasp than a resurrection. Today, it’s pretty much dead. So, let’s get one thing straight- I wasn’t claiming that Yes or the Moody Blues represent the future of music! They’re not much more than nostalgia acts now. Sort of like the Beach Boys with mellotrons. Those acts had their day, but that day has been gone for a long time now.
But at least they HAD their day. In their prime, they sold millions of records and filled hockey stadiums. That’s a lot more than any of the punks can claim. Even the few breakout stars of the punk movement almost never achieved the commercial success of the “dinosaurs” they claimed to have buried.
Punk, like art-rock, was a “movement” that lasted a few years, yielded a lot of records (a few great, a few good, mostly godawful), and faded away.
There are only a few ways to dispute the notion that punk was a tiny, insignificant short-lived, failed “movement.” To wit:
- Insist that commercial success and mass popularity are irrelevant, as many on this board have done. Even at the height of their popularity, the Ramones couldn’t draw a tiny fraction of the crowds coming to see heavy metal dinosaurs like Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath… but we’re supposed to pretend that the Ramones somehow mattered more.
Sorry, folks, I don’t buy this line of reasoning. This is rock and roll we’re talking about, not avant-garde poetry. High art can be magnificent, even if only a handful of people appreciate it. But rock and roll is part of popular culture… and what are we to make of popular culture that isn’t popular?
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Expand the musical definition of “punk” to include practically everything (music critics do this regularly, though any definition of “punk” that includes both Cheap Trick and the Buzzcocks strikes me as ridiculously vague, folks).
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Treat punk as a “spirit” rather than a genre, so that ANY music expressing anger (gangsta rap, say) can be embraced as a continuation of the punk ethos.
I keep putting the word “movement” in quotes, because I never saw any common threads linking the various punk bands. I mean, what was “punk” supposed to be? Was it…
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An Expression of the Underclass’ Anger at “the system”? Naaah! Too many of the leading punk bands (especially in America) were apolitical, for this too make much sense, and too many of the leading lights of punk wouldn’t know the Underclass if they tripped over it (Joe Strummer, like many of the politically-minded punks, was a rich brat POSING as a proletarian).
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A Rebellion Against “Pompous, Pretentious” Art-Rock, and a Return to Simple, Three-Chord Rock." Naaaah! First of all, just like the art-rockers, most of the “punks” were wimpy, cerebral, pompous, art-school dropouts to begin with (geez, can you imagine the grief Keith Emerson would have gotten if he’d changed HIS name to “Keith Verlaine”?). Second, only a few punk bands (like the Ramones) fell into the simplistic three-chord pattern. Blondie and the Talking Heads, for instance, played every style imaginable BESIDES three-chord rock.
“Punk” had no common theme or ideology, and represented too many different styles of music to make for a meaningful movement.
That said, did I/do I like some of the music that came out of the brief punk wave? Sure. I have the Ramones’ greatest hits CDs, and still get a kick out of it. “Never Mind the Bollocks” started out with two great songs (heck, if the Pistols just released “Holiday in the Sun” and “Bodies” as a double-sided single, then broken up, they’d be among my favorite one-hit wonders in history), before descending into utter crud. I always liked Mick Jones as much as I hated Joe Strummer, and often enjoyed the pop-oriented Clash songs.
But I never took punk seriously, for several reasons. First, by the time it came around, I was already reaching a cynical age. I’d come to realize that many of the art-rock and heavy metal bands I’d loved were… well, IDIOTS! Jon Anderson’s lyrics may have seemed profound, but once you hear him talk, you realize… this guy is a MORON! The music still sounded great, but once one grasps just how DUMB the poet is, the seemingly deep poetry starts to seem more like nonsense. It was poor Patti Smith’s misfortune to come along at a time when I was no longer quick to assume that complicated lyrics must be meaningful. In truth, Patti Smith struck me less as a mystical poetess than as… stupid. REALLY stupid. Jon Anderson stupid.
“Spinal Tap” was hilarious to guys my age, because we were old enough to laugh at people we’d once taken seriously. And today, we laugh hysterically at “The Osbournes” because it reminds us how silly we were to think Ozzy was genuinely evil or scary, when he was really just a dunce.
So, when we ex-metalheads hear an old Deep Purple, Ozzy, or Led Zeppelin song in a car commerical, do we care? Not really. We long ago quit taking the music and the musicians seriously. We figure Ozzy is just another guy in show biz, so we don’t mind seeing him make a buck or two.
Punk fans don’t seem to have grown up to the same extent. The fact that the Stranglers FINALLY got a chance to make a buck or two outrages them! As if the Stranglers CHOSE to have zero fans and sell zero records. As if they got into the music business in HOPES of spending their lives playing for a tiny cult audience, and living in poverty!
I mean, get real! NOBODY starts a rock and roll band in the hopes of dying poor and unnoticed. EVERY rock band, even the idealistic ones, hopes to become rich and famous… or at LEAST to make a living. It doesn’t bother me in the least to hear a Ramones song in a beer commercial, simply because I never thought the Ramones music was sacrosanct. Their best stuff was merely energetic and fun, with no artistic merit. Why SHOULDN’T the Ramones have “sold out,” if there were beer companies willing to pay them? And why begrudge the Stranglers a paycheck?
Hearing a punk song (or a 70s heavy metal song) in a commercial isn’t really a sign that the music is dead, merely that the kids who once loved it are now old enoughg and (presumably) affluent enough to be of interest to advertisers. The appropriate response isn’t anger… it’s “Gulp! Oh my God, am I really so old that advertisers think I’d be interested in a product like THAT???”
When you hear “Black Dog” in an Efferdent ad, or the Ramones’ “Glad to See You Go” in an Ex-lax commercial,
THAT will be the time to worry.
