For a year or so in the late 70s, punk was an ideal, a genuinely creative cultural peak that allowed possibilities that had been previously considered “bad” or “wrong”. It was the gift of expressive freedom.
Since then; endless tedious arguments between self appointed “experts” about what constitutes “real punk” and what doesn’t.
What is now called “post punk” was the real inheritor of punk; punk itself was dead by 1978, killed by the fact that people insist on setting up a bunch of arbitrary rules and regulations for something that was all about the removal of such restrictions. Punk died when it became a uniform.
It is certainly possible to be inspired by the ideals of punk, but the last thing anyone who is so inspired wants to do is to put on a uniform and march in step with the rule-makers.
Punk is yet one more music genre in a long line of musical genres where musicians and their audience attempt to rebel against the system while the musicians simultaneously getting rich from it and their followers express their individuality and uniqueness by dressing and acting exactly like each other.
This is just not true. The Commercial Universe has tried to co-opt the Punk ethos and “Look” they have been largely unsuccessful. We call em’ “Posers”
I am sure you can provide examples and I can provide counters but we know who we are. We may grow up and get older but we went to see the Melvins last week.
Cheers, no insult intended but I would have spit on you 20 years ago
I would disagree with that. I’d say a band is punk until they’re co-opted by the Commercial Universe, or at least start courting it. The Police were still a punk band when Outlandos D’Amour dropped, and went commercial with Zenyatta Mendatta. Not that it was a bad album, it just wasn’t punk anymore. Usually, the turning points is stuff written after they sign with a label. The music released by the label but written when they were still hungry tends to be best.
To me, a lot of what made punk what it was is that the artist were short on musical talent and long on brains and attitude - so the Police were too good as musicians to stay punks anyway.
Let’s be honest. The Police ended being a punk band when Andy Summers replaced Henri Padovani.
Too old and too musically talented.
I agree with the discussion upthread that punk was the DIY plus the spirit of danger AND that 1977-1979 or so timeframe. As a kid in England, I was just starting school and the BBC was more or less my window on the world. So hearing The Sweet, Bay City Rollers, and Brotherhood of Man was music. I can remember that there were some bands that seemed a little dangerous - not beat you up in an alley dangerous, but a little subversive, like Roxy Music. But most was like Alvin Stardust.
Suddenly the Pistols come up, and they’re gobbing everywhere, cursing on telly, and bashing HRH on her silver jubilee! It was like someone hit a giant red reset button and all music was going to be colo(u)red by the Pistols and their ilk. A little like how Nirvana sort of reset music in 1991 - only it wasn’t as powerful and impressive if you ask me. I mean, fashion changed. One day people were wearing flares and platform shoes, and the next they were wearing safety pins in their noses and wore bright green mohawks. Gobbing, pissing off, not giving a shit about what anyone over the age of 23 thought was the order of the day.
I don’t know much about the US version of punk, but in Britain the Sex Pistols and The Clash were the standard bearers, and The Clash quickly outgrew punk. But a lot of other great bands like The Stranglers and 999 were there. Age-wise, punk was too aggro for a little kid but I definitely was a post-punk/New Wave fan of the 80s, which owed a lot to punk.
The DIY mentioned upthread is what defines punk, for me. It’s kids with instruments, desire, maybe some talent, no money, and really no clue about promotion/production. You promote by booking gigs at pubs & halls, sometimes by misrepresenting the sort of music you actually play; and you produce by playing into a microphone in someone’s basement or maybe scraping together enough cash for a relatively miniscule smidgen of studio time. Albums like Damned Damned Damned (recorded in like 10 days) and Living in Darkness (All tracks laid down in one day) are downright inspiring in a bang-for-the-buck kind of way. Young folks all know what Pink Floyd, Rush, and Steppenwolf sound like, and they also know such fame exists for them only in fevered dreams. But we can all sing passably like Deedee, smack guitar strings like Sid, and maybe know someone who can do a drum roll on a high school band snare drum. THAT’S accessible and relatable, and it empowers folks to express themselves through music because hey, it’s not impossible to get heard!
As for mid 70s London v. New York, I think those are just different labels on the same ageless vintage. The unconnected punks are still out there gleefully banging away, ignorant of the nuanced differences between specific studios around the globe, unfettered by Labels who may or may not think certain lyrics, subjects, attitudes, or other aspects of artistic fidelity are “a good fit” for their images. And some have gotten quite good in spite of themselves (Black Lips).
if you want to listen to what happens when a punk band gets signed on a major label see if you can find greg graffins/bad religion’s rants/interviews about the albums they did for columbia on you tube …
Yep, Classic rock IS curiously devoid of hotel room annihilation, Alamo statue micturition, drugs, abuse of spouses, bandmates, and/or fans, and grisly suicides. Hrm…
It’s not Punk, ace, it’s narcissism and impulse control issues–stuff that makes and breaks the best in nearly every endeavor within the human experience.
Mosh pits today are pretty safe excepting certain acts in hardcore punk and metal (and even then they are usually safe.) People watch out for each other and stop the pit when someone falls down. Now, of course they are not antiseptic but they’re certainly safer than driving (then again, what isn’t?)
What who is about depends on who is getting the press. The Sex pistols were admittedly about sociopolitical anarchy and in your face obscenity and shock, and that sells so they got the press. But they weren’t the first Brit punks to cut vinyl or tour the US. Siouxsie Sioux was (and remains) so far above everyone intellectually that she was (and is) not readily understood and so was (and is) largely ignored. Mostly in the 70s punk scene I see a lot of humanism which defied social class structure and the “born to be X” fate/entitlement one received simply by being born to the right or wrong parents. Very much a demand to be heard. New York was, not exactly vapid, but more innocent–just young adults wanting to be young adults and live on their own terms and make their own mistakes. A comparable act today would be Bleached. Sort of like GoGo’s on drugs and a strong desire to honestly speak their minds. I think their defining lyric would be, “The past ain’t kind and the future scares me.” I think most people today can relate to that, I certainly can. And they are absolutely thunderous in a good way live.
I remember the Sex Pistols version of God Save the Queen.
Barry Manilow and Rod Stewart were on mainstream radio.
Talk about a contrast in music :eek: None of our local radio played punk. We had to ask for the records at the store. Or catch it late at night on a clear channel station from somewhere else across the country.
What defines punk? Nothing, really. It sure isn’t a sound (The Ramones sounded nothing like the Clash, the Sex Pistols sounded nothing like the Police). Nor is it politics (many punks leaned left, but many leaned right and many more were apolitical). Nor was punk ever “the voice of the street” (few leading punks were truly working class- there were more rich and middle class art school wankers in punk than blue collar kids). Nor is it simplicity or a “back to basic rock” movement to counter the alleged excesses of of rock (anyone REALLY wanna pretend Talking Heads and Television were all about simplicity and lack of pretentiousness?).
To me, punk never meant much except “Crap that critics like.”
At what point does the “dilution” occur? Sex Pistols? The Clash? The Ramones? Talking Heads? Green Day? Blink 182?
I kind of feel like punk has become one of those genres where people get all “that’s not REAL punk” because people other than unemployable British heroin addicts in 1976 listen to it.
I wasn’t old enough at the time to be aware of Punk. But listening to those who were and watching the documentaries, the image that springs to my mind is Sid Vicious unslinging his bass and hitting a guy in the audience over the head.
There was a PBS documentary where Siouxsie Sioux talked about a club where typically the audience was crowding toward the stage, trying to get close to the band. But when the Sex Pistols played there, the audience was actually backing away.
We can call the Kinks punk if we can call the Doors goth. Is it a small llama or a big alpaca? Is it surreal or magic realism?
The Cramps considered themselves primarily Rock n Roll–be true to yourself, guide your own creation–but they get called punk even though they never really rebelled against anything so much as just refused to accept the premise of social norms applying to them in the first place. The discussion comes, I think, from trying to stick an invented label on something natural.
Is it a small llama or a big alpaca? Is it surreal or magic realism?