I searched the archives for this and couldn’t find it, so here it goes.
I consider myself a punk, and devote considerable time and effort to researching it. I feel qualified to talk about this. I’m also aware that we are never going to agree on one definition, or even one definitive history, because it’s the nature of the beast that there isn’t one. I’ll spare the detail at first in the interest of letting you guys have at it, but i’ll make the following points:
The first printed use of the word “punk” to describe rock ‘n’ roll music is totally irrelevant to the culture that sprang up decades later, so it doesn’t matter who was first actually described as punk.
Punk is American. The four most important forebears of punk were the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, the New York Dolls, and the Modern Lovers. English punk developed as a response (I say in imitation) to these proto-punk bands (ask Brian Eno), though it quickly assumed its own unique identity.
Punk is not, nor has it ever been, one discrete style of music as typified by the Ramones. The first punk band to play at CBGB was Television, and though they don’t fit the archetype that was later retroactively applied to the scene, they are, I believe, indisputably punk. In fact, relatively few of the bands playing in New York at punk/no wave’s height sounded anything like the Ramones.
Eh, The clash was O.K. Mostly, I knew a hot chick who loved Joe Strummer and B.A.D… had to take am interest. I danced with her and her boyfriend in a BAD Blowout in the nineties… had a lot of raw fun.
The fact that they sucked would be bad enough, but that they were “the only band that matters” at any point in time is just insulting to the music around them that was actually good.
There were Americans groups by the mid-1970s who were rebelling against/distinguishing themselves from the various music trends of the day: arena banks with long instrumental breaks; light, pleasant California sounds, singer/songwriters/country rock; complex progressive rock. They were loud, crude, and dirty, much like New York City was at a time when it was in decline. Admitted.
Punk still was an English attitude about English society as much as or more than it was a reaction to the music. It was music by people who had no place in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, music defined by class and outsiderness.
The equivalent in American music is not the bands you mention, who never spawned any coherent genre. It was hip hop. That’s why Americans didn’t get punk then or later. There wasn’t anything in majority suburban white culture that could be rebelled against in the same way. Americans didn’t need punk. Blacks needed hip hop. There were American punks, but for most it was a pose. For the Brits it was their life.
Between them, punk and hip hop killed off rock music, which seemed as though it was going to become something deep and wonderful as a genre, and substituted noise and attitude for ability and depth. (Though drugs probably would have done it anyway.)
“Purely British” would be an overstatement even if what you were saying was accurate.
Nevermind the fact that “punk” itself was a term coined by an American magazine, American punks were definitely reacting, just not necessarily to something as explicitly political as the Brits were (hence the “unique identity” bit). The earliest punks - that is, your VUs, Stooges, Modern Lovers, etc. - were reacting to the state of rock ‘n’ roll at the time, in large part the idea that in order to be considered a musician you needed to be a god. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s was a good example of what the original punks - in New York, a community largely made up of artists - were reacting to: bloated ostentatiousness and an inability to form a connection with the audience. (Not agreeing with that one way or the other; just saying.)
Arguably the band that turned punk into a cultural (and commercial) force in Britain - and this is “punk,” which as I’ve said has more to do with a time period and an attitude than any one style of music - was the Sex Pistols. The Pistols were a band managed by (read: controlled by) Malcolm McLaren, who was consciously trying to imitate one of the first New York punk bands, Richard Hell & the Voidoids. I’m not trying to say punk is American (the whole point is that it doesn’t belong to anyone), but it originated there.
British Punk was definitely about working class rebellion, at least at first. But punk itself never was.
This is correct and applies to the US also. Punk was an expression of people who didn’t belong, who listened to the music of the day and realized it wasn’t about them, didn’t describe their reality, it was someone else’s America.
This is too silly not to be a joke. If you really believe there are not a large number of white, poor, disaffected, and pissed of young people in America you live in a dream. “Minorities” don’t have an exclusive position of falling through the cracks of a society and being extremely upset about it.
Then you have to explain why metal rather than punk became the preferred music of most of that generation who wasn’t otherwise attracted to country music. That’s where your side’s argument always fails. Metal annoys parents but did nothing to affect the larger society.
If you want to talk about punk in America you have to explain why punk failed totally in America. I’m not talking about the “every person who bought a Velvet Underground album started a band” kind of success, but why 99% of kids in America at the time (outside certain areas of Manhattan) couldn’t name them or anyone else playing that music.
No more than the statement that “punk is American” and in exactly the same way.
To repeat, I didn’t say punk was American, but it started here.
Metal was popular in the 80s, but remember Nirvana? They wouldn’t have existed without punk music (not without metal, either, but the community they came from had its roots in punk). Punk did not fail totally in America - New Wave music dominated the airwaves in the 80s, and that term was coined because of the stigma that had become attached to punk. Meanwhile, underground, punk bands on both sides of the ocean were developing the indie/alternative scene that would come to dominance with the 90s, and again now.
I don’t have a great, comprehensive definition. Some elements of the Punk musical ethos include stripped-down Do It Yourself simplicity, an emphasis of visceral emotion over musical virtuosity, and (at least in England) a rootedness in Jamaican Ska. Punk fashion embraced poverty/mental patient chic and rejected aesthetics based on wealth and luxury. That’s a tiny piece of the puzzle, but I stand by it. I remember being real confused when advertisers used punk rockers to sell Camaros back in the early 80s.
You’ve actually provided a pretty good starting point, I’d say, except that I don’t know if I agree with the Jamaican ska part. It definitely had an influence, especially in Britain, but I think the roots of punk itself are a little more generalized than that.
If this is not intended as a joke then it qualifies as the most annoying comment I have read in a long time. The fact it is being made by one of my favorite posters on the SDMB just makes it that much more painful.
Punk is neither American nor British. Where and when it started is not something that can be pinned down to a moment, a place or an exact time. Legs McNeil started Punk magazine in 1975 basically to write about The Dictators debut album and so he and his buddies could hang out with the band. The term then began being applied to bands that started playing at CBGB and getting touted by McNeil. Suicide first played at the Mercer Arts Center in Greenwich Village on October 19, 1972. They described it as an evening of “Punk, Funk and Sewer Music by Suicide.” There are a number of other examples where the term punk was applied to bands well predating anything remotely equivalent in England but I wouldn’t ever use those facts to make the claim that punk is indisputably American.
I’ve heard this point made before and it doesn’t make any more sense to me now than it has in the past. You seriously don’t recognize any commonalities between the relevant American groups and the English punks? Both saw themselves as outsiders and were in rebellion against the prevailing class structures. The fact that it resonated with a larger segment of young people and became more commercially successful in England isn’t a valid reason to dismiss the bands in the New York punk/CBGB scene. Most of the English punks have acknowledged the strong influence bands like Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids and particularly the Ramones had on them. I always think it’s weird when the “punk is English” folks want to ignore this.
Also let’s not forget that Bruce Springsteen and the Bay City Rollers were referred to as punks in the 70s, too. It was never really intended to cohere into one movement; in the words of James Chance, “I HATE movements!”
Oops. Nothing I can say to that. I would correct the OP to say “Punk started in the US” rather than “Punk is American.” The latter statement is not in the punk spirit anyway.
No they weren’t. Bruce escaped the “Next Dylan” curse to make his mark with high energy rock & roll–the supreme bar band with excellent lyrics. Nobody with a brain on this side of the Atlantic gave a flying fuck about the Bay City Rollers.
I thought some of the guys in your Classic Rock screed in the Pit were, indeed a bit too slick; others were & are great. One problem with “Classic Rock” radio (for the few who still actually listen to radio) is that lots of the good stuff from those days is ignored.
Lots of Punk was a refreshing response to the excesses of the more pompous Stadium Rock. Today, Punk is just another flavor of nostalgia.
I only meant they were referred to that way, not that anyone seriously conceived of them as punks. The Bay City Rollers had a feature in Punk magazine, for goodness’ sake.
I think there are forward thinking punks out there now - I’m not a huge fan of Fucked Up, but at least they’re trying something different. You’re right about classic rock radio - I have just as much of a problem with not liking the music as I do with the fact that it’s always the same songs.
Wait, what? My little baby sister was the only person I know of that listened to the Bay City Rollers, and even she was a bit embarassed by it. Neither Bruce nor the BCR were considered in any way, shape, or form, to be punk when I was growing up. In fact, if you had said that about BCR to my friends, they would probably still be laughing to this day. The closest modern equivalent to the way we thought of them would be that YouTube kid who sings that abhorrent song about “Friday.” Nina Hagen, on the other hand, was more typical of what we considered punk in those days.
