I want to know what you think dopers.
Punk Rock: Relevant musical genre or mindless drivel?
Personally, I think it’s both, but that’s another thread for another board…
I think punk is a relevant music genre, but just like any music genre, there are punk bands that put out mindless drivel.
The Clash, Gang of Four, New Model Army, Fugazi, Rites of Spring, Husker Du, The Minutemen, Social Distortion, etc. etc.
Whatever Punk Rock is, it’s clearly not mindless drivel
All musical genre’s walk a fine line between relevence and mindlessness (except maybe country… oops!) Compare your Public Enemy to your Puff Daddy; Beatles to Hermans Hermits; The Clash to Blink 182; Not to say that mindless music can’t be entertaining, but in any genre there can be relevence or mindlessness.
But, of course, in any genre of music, there will be the crappy, mindless drivel, jump on the bandwagon, bands.
I think the only good thing to emerge from punk was brilliant band names like “The Mommyheads,” “Dead Kennedys” and “The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black.”
I may not look like it now, but I’m an old punk from the days of “London Calling”. I guess you could figure out how I’d vote 
Keith
Anarchy in U.K. What a great song. Punk’s been around so long, Sex Pistols, Echo and the Bunnymen (weren’t they punk?). Music is strange. So many different kinds, and so many different opinions of what’s good. Country music to me is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Makes my head hurt, can’t concentrate, makes me want say “STOP THAT GOD-DAMN WHINING AND DEAL WITH IT!!” Meanwhile, someone overhears my Heavy Metal and says “how can you listen to that crap”.
I’m not a huge fan of Punk, but I think it’s a valid form of music. I think ANYTHING that comes along and kicks complacency in the ass is valid just for that, if for nothing else.
New Punk isn’t that terrific. The fact that Blink 182 counts as punk kills me. And though I enjoy thier self-serving “oh, my daddy left us, I’ve never gotten over it” brand of music, I think Everclear handed in thier punk card when they did a Gap commerical.
But to say bands like The Cure (they were more of a socially punky, not musically punky band, though) and Social D are drivel is as ignorant as saying that opera is boring. It might not be your cup of tea, but it isn’t without merit.
Punk is my favorite genre of music. And, as with every genre of music, there are different types of punk. There’s punk rock (Which I consider Social D and The Offspring to be examples of), there’s ska/punk (Operation Ivy and Suicide Machines), hardcore punk (Guttermouth), and trendy punk (Do you really need examples?). It is a significant genre, although many of the newer punk bands have no talent whatsoever and give the rest of the punk genre a bad image.
Yep, I have liked punk music for a loong time.
The Ramones are generally known as being one of the Best bands, punk or not around.
like it or not (I do), it’s a valid genre.
it seems to me that the Sex Pistols’ philosophy was specifically to produce mindless drivel (to throw in the face of the mainstream music industry)
Eve, you left out the best punk band name of all. REO Speedealer. It just doesn’t get any better than that. And on the OP, punk contains both. Much punk these days is mindless drivel, and the punk community is too exclusionary. But, whatever. Everything changes with time.
sigh…
Anyone remember,
The Angelic Upstarts
Stiff Little Fingers
Sham 69
Subway Sect
Lots of Punk was awful if you weren’t there but I have an excellent collection of 70’s ‘concept rock’ vinyl which is equally unlistenable and at least punk gave it all a kick up its collective, complacent ass.
Aaaaah fond days.
I have a question…two questions, actually.
Any of you guys familiar with the old compilation album, NUGGETS? It was chock-full of great weird headbanging stuff from the “First Psychedelic Era,” as the cover said…things like The Standells’ “Dirty Water,” and Mouse’s “A Public Execution.”
Now, these garage-band classics came out a good ten years before the advent of Punk, yet they contain much of the feeling and raw emotion (and low standards of musicianship).
- What made Punk, which started around 1975 or 1976, any different than that sort of low-rent 1960s stuff? Was it all Marketing?
Next: classic 1970s Punk supposedly was a reaction to overblown, arty, corporate Rock. Overblown, arty, corporate Rock had a shelflife of about five years, say 1971-76. Punk has been around for the past 25 years.
- How do people get off saying “I’m cutting-edge! I’m a no-bullshit hep cat! I am a PUNK!” when they’re identifying with a movement that is THAT fucking old? (No shit, the above is almost a direct quote from some jerk, George Tabb or somebody, in the NY PRESS, the organ that presents Unca Cecil here in the Apple.) Sorry, mate, you’re just another 45-year-old asshole.
Actually George Taubb is, like, 22 or something. Well maybe 25 or something. And cute. And yes, probably an asshole. By being a punk he probably wouldn’t mind being called that.
What? '71 to '76? Rock is a lot less arty but even more corporate and overblown now. So if the idea of punk is that you don’t need corporate sponsorship for it to happen, that you can do it yourself (Televison {the band not that thing in the living room} not only decided they could be on the stage, but when they didn’t have one they literally built one. At CBGB’s.) that those celebrities are just jerks like you and you don’t have to whorship them, that stadiums are dumb places to listen to music…then it’s as relavent as it ever was. (Not to say it lives up to those ideals, particularly now, when it’s just another nitch market. Well, that’s not totally true, real punk still happens, too.)
And the beauty of getting all these assholes up on stage thinking they can be a band is some of them are going to come up with something really amazing. (the thousand-monkeys-and-a-gutiar theory of music)
Maybe all all it is is I think I had a lot more fun when I was 15 seeing five bands for $5 at some 100 person club than my friends did lining up for $60 Who tickets (to update fill in, oh, Kid Rock or one of the big name “punk” bands). And isn’t that the point of Rock’n’roll? Yes it is.
casdave: Stiff Little Fingers! Aternative Ulster! Brilliant!
To answer your first question, I have never heard of the compilation you speak of, but I am familiar with the music. Quoting from the liner notes of Ramones: All the Stuff (and More!)
“With Ramones, Punk Rock was born. Certainly there were the forebears, like the Stooges, MC5, and Patti Smith, but the Ramones hoisted the banner, declaring themselves punks and their followers punk rockers. All subsequent punk bands, from the Sex Pistols down, owed allegiance to the Ramones.”
The difference between early punk bands is most likely in name only. Punk has evolved into so many sub-genres over time, when a band says they’re punk, you almost just have ot take their word for it. The same goes for the older groups. If they had called it punk, so would we.
In Britain, punk was all about marketing. Fashion impresario Malcolm McLaren invented the Sex Pistols much like a record produce creates a “boy-band” today. He had two bona fide musicians, a complete asshole who couldn’t play, and a manic frontman who cared less about how well he performed than how many people he could offend. In the early 80’s, this so-called “fashion-punk” was discarded. The new punks, such as Discharge and GBH, called the original UK punks fakes, and created a genre of music that was akin to the first wave style in name only. Sounding like Motorhead playing Ramones covers, these new punk bands pulled punk out of the mainstream and back into the streets. These bands saved punk rock.
I could go on forever about the history and speculation surrounding the evolution of punk into Pop-Punk, Anarcho-Punk, Hardcore, and the million other styles of the punk landscape. I think that’s what sets punk apart, and why it’s been going for so many years with little or no mainstream support. It doesn’t matter what you play, you just make the music you want to make, and sweat the details later. As far as your second question I think Tim Armstrong(Operation Ivy guitarist and founding member of Rancid) answered it best in Big Brother Magazine.
BB: Is it hard to be punk in 1998?
TA: No, dude, punk rock is still alive in America. It’ll Never Fuckin’ die. I hear Mike Ness (Social Distortion) always saying, “Today’s not punk, what’s going on today.” How’s he know about some 16-year-old in New York City right now, who just shot some speed in his fuckin’ arm, went home to alcoholic child-beaters? How’s he know their life isn’t punk rock? I totally believe that punk is not dead and will never die as long as America’s fucked-up.
This was a long post, sorry if you read it and feel like you wasted your time, but I only get my chances to share once in a blue moon.
Like in all musical genres, there is good and bad and bad always outnumbers good. And usually gets more attention.
But punk still lives. NOFX, Bad Religion, Pennywise, No Use for a Name, Lagwagon, SNFU, and of course, the Dickies…
I turned to punk when I couldn’t handle anymore love songs.
May Steve Perry rot in heck.
Okay, this is my first post on SDMB, so howdy to all - it’s been fun lurking, but I had to respond to this topic. I apologise if anyone knows my opinions already from the snopes message board.
Firstly a very brief summation of punk rock history. In the mid sixties a bunch of groups in suburban USA got inspired by the sounds of the Beatles and Stones and started an entirely new rock and roll revolution, which has since become known as garage rock or sixties punk rock. It first got referred to as punk in about 1969 by journalists like Lester Bangs and Greg Shaw. This is the music that is on the great ‘Nuggets’ record (now a 4CD box set). Suddenly, in 1969, a record came out that pointed backwards to the garage rock of the sixties and forwards to the wilder, anti-social ‘real punk’ of the 1970’s - The Stooges. Using the rule that no song has more than 25 words, Iggy Pop created the first ‘I’m so f**ked up’ noisy punk songs, such as ‘No Fun’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ and ‘Not Right’.
Even more influntial than the songs, was the stage act of Iggy, where he became the first stage diver (landing flat on his face in NY because, well, NY people didn’t believe in catching someone jumping off a stage), crowd surfer (walking OVER the crowd in 1970 on a televised rock festival), and self mutilator (stabbing himself with glass/drumsticks). Many people who saw the Stooges at this point were inspired to start bands, including the group I believe to be the first self-aware punk group - Suicide. A duo with only a cheap keyboard, amplified and distorted beyond the pain threshold, and a singer who would abuse the audience, Suicide advertised a show they put on in December 1970 as a ‘punk rock mass’. Their first record only came out in 1977, but when they toured Europe supporting Elvis Costello, they caused riots, out-punking the punkers, if you like.
There were two traditions which were to create the two branches of punk - US punk, which was the more musically inventive, and held precursors like the Velvet Underground and the Kinks in high regard, and UK punk, which was trying to blow away the old music. Both of them had similar fashions (ripped jeans, shirts, spiky short hair to make them stand out from the post-hippy long hairs that were everywhere), and at times similar music. But they each went their separate ways fairly early on. It is nonsense that the Ramones had much influence at all on the Sex Pistols, but they did influence plenty of UK bands later, just as the SP’s influence lots of US punk bands in the late seventies.
To look at the original post, you can idealise any music period and think it was better than now, but if you read any fanzines from the late seventies (about 1979), there are endless complaints about the large number of terrible records being released by talentless copyists of the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. The same goes for today - there are quite a few punk bands going now who are terrible (unfortunately these are often the ones you see on the charts), but there’s a lot to be excited about, such as the ONYAs (Australia) and a bunch of Scandinavian maniacs whose names escape me. I don’t think most of the bands at any stage of punk wanted to be junk, they just wanted to play music they were able to perform, and have some fun doing it, without having to spend years practising.
Thanks for making it this far - and remember, I consider the history part as much IMHO as the last part.
That’s just not true. It is common knowledge that Sid Vicious worshipped the Ramones. John Lydon has mentioned this fact on television and in print.