Watching an advert tonight for a newly-released punk compilation, I wondered how half of the listed bands qualified as punk. I always saw groups like The Undertones and The Buzzcocks as New Wave rock, and The Ramones as almost pop-rock (and I mean that in a non-disparaging sense).
I always understood The Sex Pistols to be the archetypal punk band, and they certainly seemed to fit the bill for alienation, anger and offensiveness. So where do these other ‘punk’ bands fit?
Questions:
Am I just being too inflexible with the term, and has ‘punk’ changed and evolved into something different?
Have I missed the genuinely ‘punk rock’ songs and albums of bands like The Ramones and The Undertones? Am I misjudging them based on their hits?
Who is labelling the current round of ‘nu-metal’ (or whatever) bands as punk and why? Or is there nothing wrong with what seems to be an altogether more mundane level of alienation (“my parents/girlfriend/friends just don’t get it”) passing as punk in the place of the Pistols’ more fervent and political rants?
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Punk doesn’t seem to mean what I thought it did. Am I wrong, has the meaning changed, or is it just another musical bandwagon now?
As soon as it was “defined as a genre” it became just another musical bandwagon.
To quote Mike Watt: “Punk happened. Note past tense.”
I find it highly amusing that many “rock critics” embraced punk rock as the music that was going to kill off disco and what was seen as the boringness that was hard rock.
Well, more than 25 years later, hard rock and disco/dance are very much alive and kicking and “punk” only seems to rear its unwanted head every 9 years or so, when it is procalimed as “Punks big breakthrough,” never minding that punk was supposed ot have been breaking thru for the past 25 odd years. It doesn’t say much about a musical genre if it keeps failing in it’s attempts to break thru, now does it?
Here’s what I hope may be a helpful illustration of punk. Maybe not so much specifically as a musical genre.
The Punk Rock Card Trick Get a deck of cards. Spread them in your hands and hold them out in front of you.
You: Pick a card, any card… The ‘target’ picks a card
You: Now look at the card, but don’t tell me what it is. Picture the card in your mind. Guess a random card
You: Is it the 6 of Diamonds?
‘Target’: Nope.
You: FUCK YOU!!! Fling the whole deck at the ‘target.’
A special on rock that PBS ran several years back explained
punk music as a return to short simple songs. Just what
you would hear from the Sex Pistols or the Ramones. Much
like 60’s garage in sound.
Eventually some of the groups that were labeled “punk” began playing more than the simple two chord songs of the orginators.
It would appear to me that the label either changed or became
meaningless.
Punk rock is, quite simply, music that punk rockers listen to. The Ramones are punk rock because the people that listen to the Ramones are punk rockers. It is all a little circular, but what isn’t?
Punk rock does cover a lot of ground, but so do a lot of other lables. Look at the vast teritory that a term like “heavy metal” covers. Punk is divided into countless subgenres (pop-punk, thrash, hardcore, oi, skater, old school, emo, ska-influenced…the list goes on and on). Some of these genres blend into other genres. Some of them streach the reaches of punk rock. But something doesn’t have to fit in a tightly sealed catagory to be valid. If anything this variation allows punk rock to evolve and tread new ground, as opposed to tirelessly retreading the past.
And…umm…I won’t say your subculture is dead if you don’t say mine is, okay?
I think punk has a bit more cohesion than all that. Punk is, to me, defined by driving, obvious beats and no solos. Ever. Songs tend to be short and loud, vocals tend to be loud and uncomplicated, and guitars figure heavily. It can be as ugly as the emo subgenre or as pretty/poppy as Blink-182, but it never sounds like an acid rock raga or an easy-listening tune.
Punk shares historical roots with a lot of musical styles: Early Jamaican dance music from the 1940s and '50s, for example, and the pub music of London’s East End in the 1960s and '70s. Punk, in its earliest scenes, was biracial (two-tone skinhead, for example, which predates the racist skins), and most punks enjoy being evil towards moronic racists.
Ska and reggae share roots with punk and owe some of their style to punk (in fact, pre-dub reggae (reggae without marijuana and Rastafariansim) is one of punk’s direct ancestors). Many of punk’s relatives share the beat-driven style and the lack of solos, and are quite listenable (at least to me :)).
I suppose that it says that it doesn’t really appeal to most people. Punks have been around the whole past 25 years, and they seem to have no trouble finding both new and old music to listen to. I have little problem trying to find punk bands performing around town, if I want to see one. So, apparently, punk music seems to please its fans, who are still around in respectable numbers, as far as I can tell (many of them don’t really try to blend in).
I suppose that punk is also more inclined than most genres to be hostile to “sellouts”. Or at least that punks are oppose to that. From what I see, the patches sewn on to the studded leather jackets tend not to be Blink 182 or Green Day.
isn’t punk more of an ethic? It’s a do it yourself style. The sex pistols certainly couldn’t play or write music before they started. It was just a protest movement by the musically ignorant
But I have to agree with Even Sven, punk rockers define punk rock. It’s to do with the sincerity of what they do - which is why there are no boybandstyle punk bands (if that make sense, it does to me), it has to be written by the band and so on. Which is why the Prodigy is often called punk (and not just for the dancer).
I hate to diagree with all of you (except for ThreeSarahBirds. I agree with ThreeSarahBirds) but, while punk has, sadly, degerated into a genre, I thought what it really was, was- DIY.
The orignal punk rockers from CBGB’s were pretty diverse, and strayed even farther from the “punk rock” genre than the Ramones- The Talking Heads? Television? Patti Smith? All they had in common was the idea they wanted to make music rather than wait for Wings’s next release.
Then there’s the trope (punk rock trope?) about how only 100 people saw the first Sex Pistols show but they all went out and formed their own bands. Actually I think that was said about the Velvet Underground first, but nonetheless- the point of punk rock is, it caused a lot of people to decide to make their own music, publish their own magazines (or photocopy, anyway), try and put out their own records, instead of waiting around to be entertained by the offical ROCKSTARS™.
When I was in high school I had a local college station (this before they were formated and the dj’s played what they liked), a local 'zine, and a small local club that regularly featured “name” (name to us anyway) touring bands and (a lot of good) local original music, much of which wouldn’t fit the genre “punk rock”. But that’s what it came out of.
Punk didn’t invent that artistic vitality. It just is what inspired it in the 70’s-80’s.
And then there’s the idea that punk is an extention of the dadaist movement (Sarah?) a concept I’m also quite fond of.
No problem with me. I’m not trying to slate it at all (even if my tastes lean a little more to the New Wave side of punk) but wondered how the current record companies are getting away with grouping such a mixed bag of artists under one label. I do like your circular definition of it, though - that certainly makes sense. Ta.
In my opinion punk is more a way of life than a musical genre.
I once heard a documentary on Dutch radio about early punk in The Netherlands and one piece describes punk nicely I think. “You don’t die your hair purple because you want to be punk, you die your hair purple because you want purple hair. Punk is standing up for what you believe in, even if that means you’re going to get hurt doing so.”
I think this was said by Jesus, from Jesus and the Gospelfuckers.
Punk is too evolved to simply define nowdays. It is punk because of the subcultures that surround it just as much as the subcultures are there because of punk music.
Nowdays there is the political punk , pop punk , hardcore punk , oldschool punk , Oi , RAC , drunk punk , nerd punk , chaos punk…the list goes on.
Basically the music is changed depending on what group the musicians and their friends identify with. Essentially it is fast , loud , abrasive music that is not very sophisticated , played by people who want to have fun.
“dont worry about it so much…I mean shit…its just punk music.”
The Sex Pistols are usually referred to as the quintessential “Punk” band. As rebellious and angry as they were, they were put together by Malcom McLaren as a paying business proposition. Johnny Rotten went on to do a “Jackass”-type show on VH1. And Paul Cook and Steve Jones attempted a Hollywood movie career (short-lived though it may have been). That being said, besides The Ramones, they were probably the biggest influence on the Punk scene.
The Ramones pretty much have to be included in the ranks of the Punk bands, since they kind of invented the genre. BTW, Don’t judge their music as pop after hearing “Sedated” on the radio. You have to have seen them live.
In any musical genre, you’re going to have a handfull of defining artists, and a whole s**tload of people who decide that following them will lead to fame, money, and/or sex. Take Rancid and Blink 182 (as blatant rips of The Clash and The Vandals) as prime examples. I just love the concept of radio-friendly, pop punk that ends up competing with N*Sync in the music awards.
I gotta disagree with the concept that punks allow you to “be who you are”. I think the reason I fell out of the scene is my realization that, to be a punk you still need to take your cues from society and the mainstream. Just 'cause you’re doing the opposite doesn’t mean that “The Man” isn’t telling you exactly what to do.
JonTheHasher, I couldn’t agree more with your last point. If you want to count yourself a member of a group, you surrender, to some extent, individuality. Rebelling against what you consider to be an oppressive society means being ruled by that society, doing what it doesn’t.
Thanks Jon, I think your last paragraph articulated some of what I’m thinking. I see bands claiming to be punk that are very blatantly happy to be in their current position. That’s their right and I don’t begrudge them the money, fame etc; I just don’t see it as the punk ‘ethic’ that was pushed in the late 1970s that I’m familiar with. Although, as you say, the Pistols were just as commercial in intent as anyone else, maybe they just hid it better.
