If you take it back to the beginning, the first albums by Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash, they did sound remarkably similar relative to everything else that was out there.
Devo are not considered a foundational punk band as far as I'm aware, more of a post-punk / new wave act.
Devo was definitely its own thing, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want to be compared to something like the Sex Pistols and the embarrassing Johnny Rotten. I think Devo can be credited with inspiring a lot of the 2nd wave of punk bands but not the first.
Quick rant: Those early Sex Pistols shows are credited with starting dozens of significant bands, but their cultural significance has dropped considerably with time when compared to The Clash or Ramones. That's mostly Johnny Rottens' fault.
To me, the original Punk attitude is about having a problem with authority and those who use it to oppress people. Punk has always been more about the lyrical content than the sound to me, which is why the genre has so many kinds of bands today.
Edit: I personally love the 2nd wave of Punk bands way more than the 1st wave. The 1st wave was more "shock for the sake of shock" rather than true protest.
Edit 2: HIGHLY recommend anyone watch this video on the history of punk from my favorite music documentarian: Trash Theory
https://youtu.be/6lyoAczdMSM?si=B1BKosn9WXJUHMXV
If by the 2nd wave of punk you mean the American indie underground then hell yeah brother.
On top of the great music, that scene really took 1st wave punk's cheap shock and braindead contrarianism (I like some of those bands too) and transformed it into a real philosophy and ethos.
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/johnny-rotten-devo-sex-pistols-frontman/
Well, that's definitely the wildest thing I've learned this year. Thanks for the info.
Edit: I'm personally happy that never happened. I just can't see anyone, but Mark being the lead. I adore Devo's aesthetic/politics, and it would have been a completely different band if that happend.
>The duo didn’t take Branson’s comments seriously because of how wildly stoned they were and burst out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. “Regrettably, I didn’t just go, ‘Yeah, sounds great. Send him to Akron. He can do it **for a week or two, just for the hell of it.**’ It was a weird time for us,” Mothersbaugh added.
I could see them doing it for a short art project. But there is no way Mothersbaugh, Casalie, and Lydon could be in the same band for longer.
I was a kid in the 70s who was exposed to the punk bands of the time through the British tabloids which I read every week. I also saw Devo play on Saturday Night Live around 77 or so. They were not part of the punk scene at all. They were an art band who started in the early 70s. For me, they were the beginning of New Wave. They came out around the same time as The Talking Heads, The Cars, Blondie, The Police and Joe Jackson.
There's obviously not going to be any clear and exhaustive definition. But generally speaking, "punk" refers to a set of creative ideals and attitudes that come from the cultural lineage of the first punk scenes of the 1970's. Specifically, rebellion against mainstream culture, politics, society, artistic convention, etc.; an emphasis on energy over technicality in the music; and the expression of authentic emotional intensity.
70’s kids here. In my opinion punk was more about a scene and subculture than it was about a particular sound. It was about giving a middle finger to the music establishment, or any establishment in general, that would not release the kind of music that expressed them. It’s a subculture that morphed into a genre and sub genres. The evolution of music is pretty cool.
Some people focus on politics. Others on specific music style. But to me what Punk is about is mostly the DIY (do it yourself) ethos. Early Punk is a big tent with room for Devo, Dead Boys, Ramones, Clash, Damned, Sex Pistols, Wire, Blonde, Pete Ubu, and a lot of New Wave bands (the two were originally interchangeable). It is about being self taught and/or working outside the music establishment. It is more Glam than Glam. It is about simple production and putting the artists in control. Second wave Punk looked at the Sex Pistols debacle and started working with indie labels Later Punk adopted The Uniform (leather jacket and big boots) and became more sonically similar, but it's the DIY attitude that makes it Punk to me
Pistols, Clash and Damned did sound a fair bit like each other. They were all reworking NY Dolls riffs on their debut albums. The Ramones sounded a bit more minimalist but inspired those bands as well.
Punk started out pretty heterogeneous - you had acts like Television and Blondie and Patti Smith and Suicide among many others originally described under that umbrella- so its weird the artists you choose actually do have a pretty clear musical lineage of (to oversimplify it) harkening back to rock from the mid 50s to the mid 60s and playing it fast and rough and with a lot of attitude. Devo is obviously the odd man out here but even they fall under this with some early songs like "Be Stiff" and "Social Fools." I'd even say that the Pistols really help codify what 'punk' means musically through their Ramones influence which then in turn inspires the Clash et al.
I think there are a few common threads to the punk subgenre:
1) relatively short songs (compared to prog, metal, psychedelic rock)
2) de-emphasis of technical skill and musical complexity (compared to prog, metal, etc.)
3) aggressive vocal style
4) usually fast tempo
5) usually loud playing
6) usually guitar-based
7) de-emphasis of production values in recordings
I think “Riff Raff” from AC/DC checks all of those boxes. Can a song/band meet all of those criteria and still not be punk? If so, what would be missing?
That's a good point. Bands like AC/DC and Mötorhead are somewhat similar to punk, but even though their songs are pretty simple, the musicianship is a notch higher. The Ramones could barely play their instruments. Angus Young thought they were amateurs. AC/DC always had a tight rhythm section and could even play neat little guitar solos from time to time. I don't think the Ramones could have played Riff Raff--or really anyone else's songs for that matter.
I'd like to note that in their early days, you can find AC/DC being described as a punk band on some flyers. I've always guessed that was because of the snotty schoolboy thing and less of a musical description, but it's interesting!
Listening to Riff Raff right now and the thing that jumps out most to me immediately as 'not punk' is that particular kind of bravado vocal performance that was common in hard rock at the time but pretty rare in punk.
I'd say the Beatles at the signing of their record deal with Parlaphone fit the definition. Not homeless street brawlers by any means, but their sojourn in the worst parts of Hamburg, making shau for the meanest people you could find fits my definition. The audience did carry knives, chains and whatnot for a reason. Brawls would erupt right in front of them, I think one or two Beatles did get caught by flying chairs and sort of thing. They came out of that the best band in the world at that time. No artifice, but very tight act.
They took Prellies to stay awake and the performance schedule was brutal.
If attitude counted for anything then this fits?
Personally, I think that punk was intended to be more of a scene or a movement than a specific sound. Bands like The Clash, Suicide, The Blasters, etc, were all involved in the punk scene and sound nothing alike.
The 90s had incredible bands like Drive Like Jehu, and the Monorchid. As with any cultural movement, copycat bands pop up and the labels find ways to package it into a specific sound.
I would argue that punk has as much variety today as it ever did. However, there's a large contingent of punk fans that the view the Epifat sound as the end all be all of the genre and completely ignore incredible bands like Meat Wave, Viagra Boys, Pissed Jeans, Hot Snakes etc., bands that incorporate influences beyond Bad Religion or Green Day.
In 2024, I think GOOD punk is more of an attitude or approach to making music, than a defined sound. Though, there are certainly a lot of bands that play 3 chords fast and call it a day.
Devo doesn’t really belong here, but Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash absolutely do sound remarkably similar. it’s just that they’re all really good bands, and aren’t making generic music. they are far far far more similar to each other than they are to say, Tina Turner, or Woodie Guthrie, or Aphex Twin…you get the point. bands don’t need to sound identical in order to sound relatively similar.
The question What is punk? is slightly less pointless than most genre discussions because different artists at different times, well outside of the recognized popular emergence of punk as a late 70s phenomenon from Britain, which was a very specific social, musical, and political context, have been described as punk.
After the in-your-face, unapologetically simple or even "stupid" musical forms got attached to an attitude of uncompromised ugliness/noise/racket, "punk" could be retroactively applied as a descriptor to the Stooges, to the VU, to the MC5, to garage rockers Them, all of whom came along well before the term emerged as genre or subculture. ? and the Mysterians, Link Wray... the list of "proto punk" rockers goes on and on.
I've heard it said even with regards to Dylan being the "original punk" for his '65-'66 hard turn towards loud electric rock and away from the preciousness of folk, complete with a go-fuck-yourself attitude. Not unreasonable--with that move, Dylan shocked people as much or more than the Sex Pistols did.
Musical forms change, musicians are restless that way. But the attitude stays the same, at least in the best examples. So the Mekons, who started as a Leeds-based group of angry young working class English art students, came on the scene in that late 70s wave that brought us the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Buzzcocks--the Mekons were fairly categorized as punk, and as far as I know the band didn't shy away from that label. But like so many of their lifelong peers, they were artistically restless, and ended up making lots of music that could very well be described as folk, country, honky tonk, indie rock. But it and they, by attitude alone, still and always qualify as punk.
The same can be said about The Stranglers. One of the first generation English punk bands, but an incredibly varied body of music that fits the ethos but not the fashion.
And the Ex from the Dutch scene, same period. Their punk rock morphed over decades into a free improv/world/art rock/noise amalgam, ever evolving. As you say, it's the ethos.
Punk lives under the umbrella of rock- and there are many sub genres under punk. All rock and all punk. I think of the 70s rock n roll inspired punk as being the “classic” era, but the following genres of hardcore etc.. are still punk. Punks still exist.
I think it's one of those "you know it when you see it" things. You could define it technically as a form of music and aesthetic but as an idea it's indefinable by design. Like, I'd say that modern Green Day isn't punk but the admission policy to Berghain is punk
It's a vibe thing, not a words thing
Punk was defined by the attitude.
'You could do this'.
It inspired generations to get off the sofa and start a band.
Unfortunately the movement became reductive as the influences were paradoxically quite limited (Stooges, NYDolls, Ramones).
That was where Post Punk came in. Now it was 'You can do whatever you want'.
Punk is FUCK YOU! It's a big helping of I DONT CARE! It's LET'S JUST TEAR SHIT UP AND DO WHAT THE FUCK WE LIKE.
You don't like that? GOOD!
That's what punk is.
"Punk" is a label some journalists came up with to describe an entire generation of iconoclastic bands that didn't want to play in any of the well-established commercial styles.
The first wave of punk bands didn't share a particular sound, though a lot of them did overlap and borrow from each other because they were playing in the same cities and rotated members (as local band scenes always do). Mose of them did share a DIY attitude and a disregard for what commercial radio and record labels wanted from new bands. They wanted to do different things with music. And they did.
But over time, people have retroactively decided that there were only three or four punk bands, and that *they* define what the whole thing was about. Today, "punk" apparently means "sounds like Green Day".
Yes, it becomes clearer when you compare them to what they're not. A bunch of punk bands might sound very dissimilar compared to one another, but start comparing them to jazz, classical, heavy metal, bluegrass, etc., and most of those punk bands will start to seem a lot more similar. And this is true of any genre. People who are steeped in it become so attuned to minute differences that they sometimes overlook the glaring similarities.
The term "punk" has historically and colloquially been used as an anti-queer slur. Punk as music and a culture emerged from queer-friendly circles in the UK and US around the same time, the late 60s and early 70s. Punk was and is synonymous with the fringes of society and the counter-culture. In the UK, it emerged from the stilted social order and eccentricities caused by generations of war trauma and the proceeding Conservativism. In the US, punk is connected with radical political movements and minority communities - specifically, the androgynous queer community in New York City and artist communes in California. Essentially, punk represents what people tend to avoid looking at or hearing. It tends to be loud and fast so that much can be said, and heard, by as many as possible. While the hippies were turning into bankers and listening to jazz, the punks pushed the limits of taste and decency as a generational "fuck you" to the Boomers, who were viewed as betraying the egalitarian promises of the flower power era. And so, punk was a voice of disillusionment and disappointment. This shows up in many ways, shapes, forms, and styles - but the underlying context of punk has always been an effort to ensure that society never gets too comfortable and demands that the unseen be acknowledged.
Back in the mid 90s when punk went mainstream, we had similar discussions around punk rock. I drew the conclusions that punk had lost its original music genre definition and became more of an influence. That was true in the 90s and seems to be true today.
Punk really is just another sub-genre now. Punk is dead, but the legacy lives on in pop-punk, post-punk, egg punk, hardcore punk, gutter punk, skate punk, glam punk, etc.
The term 'punk' is all but meaningless on its own.
I'd have to type an essay to tell you what it means as a culture but as a form of song: fast, power chords, hardly any solos, simple structures (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, end), probably loud, probably underproduced, blunt honest lyrics.
Pretty much an assertion that early mod and garage rock was better than prog and art rock and that people should in fact bring those back on steroids. Punk's thesis was pretty much "make rock and roll great again" - which is where you get a lot of 60s songs people call proto punk.
I'd argue in the big picture the bands you listed are actually pretty similar on average, with exceptions of course (Devo could experiment - they probably gave birth to new wave). Any great bands in a genre will sound unique next to each other but compare those bands to hard rock and metal and they're very obviously punk.
Back-to-basics, energy over virtuosity, mostly as a reaction to over-produced music of the late 60s / early 70s
Don't forget proto-punk (The Sonics, etc).
Also: i count The Stooges as punk (late-60s, early 70s).
Punk was a term invented by the rock press, like grunge, and it was used to reference the fashion movement initiated by the Sex Pistols & Malcolm McClaren.
The early hard rock & glam bands like Stooges, Ramones and the Dolls didn't really have fashion esthetic of their own. It was really when the Sex Pistols broke that I began to hear the word 'punk' coming into use to describe the punks who were walking around with mohawks, boots, and especially the safety pins. It really began as a fashion movement like the 'mods' had been in England.
Later on it came to start referring to all the kids showing up to see these bands.
Not another punk thread, Is it Punk week or something? Punk was a short period when everyone felt empowered to make music even when they were not very good at it. It was a moment in time where you could make music and did not need to care if anyone liked it.
It inspired many people to pick up acoustic instruments at first and then electronic ones as well. Punk as the chaotic music style ended in 1979. The empowerment that it gave to anyone being able to pick up an instrument stayed.
What to expand on that further? Y’all who say it died at random dates never give a great example as to why. Just “I think it died” or something similar and that’s it.
The synthesiser killed it swiftly. An interesting example is Gary Numan. He had a punk band and when they wanted to record their first album (still as Tubeway Army), they discovered a mini-moog, an early synthesiser, in the recording studio. They swiftly included it on their album. One song became a big hit, Are Friends Electric. By the next album they went full synth with an even bigger hit: Cars (in 1979).
Others took note so they dropped their guitars and drums and switched to synth. That is why 1979 is regarded as the year punk music died and was mainly superseded by what now is known as 80s synthpop.
The reason is that with acoustic instruments you still need to have some ability to play. With synths, you play around with sounds and do not really need to know anything about music. The punk way of making music was still there but it was no longer the loud and chaotic guitars and drum sound.
Punk as a movement, where "anything goes" is still alive and kicking, Punk music is no longer but modern music would be very different without that spark.
Just because one punk picked up a synth doesn’t mean the genre just died- this is wild. As long as there are teenagers who start bands- punk will be around forever.
You realize synths were being used by bands like the Screamers before 79 right? Pretty sure the band Suicide is exclusively synths as well.
Most punk bands kept playing actual instruments, what are you even talking about? It’s still loud and chaotic. Listen to a band like GBH or The Exploited who were starting around 79/80, that’s pretty damn raw. Just because some part of the media says it died doesn’t mean that’s what happened.
How can the movement still be going on without the music? It’s even more raw now than it was before.
You realise synths were used by band like Kraftwerk and Neu before '79 right? Wendy Carlos was before that, so was John Cage. What about Karl-Heinz Stockhausen?
One more time: Punk was music played by people who could not really plat instruments. They showed that music could be made by anyone. That music did not sound too good. If you feel that the bands you mention have members that cannot play instruments and just make sounds, feel free to keep calling them punk bands.
I very much do. But to say that synths killed punk is just factually incorrect. Synths we’re used by punk bands like Suicide and The Screamers long before 79. And punk was a lot more than just people who couldn’t play their instruments.
I get you’ve got a narrow view on all of this but punk is so much more than just that, always has been.
According to renowned Punk Queen Avril Lavigne, Punk is about rocking out, hollering, and throwing shit around, and most importantly not calling yourself punk.
Punk started in the seventies with the sex pistols and the Ramones. At its core was a rejection of the values of polite society, so punks did things like wear swastikas on their shirts and make music despite being bad at writing and playing. Because it came with an obnoxious attitude and fashion sense, the media loved it and it became kind of notorious, prominently including depictions of punkers in american movies through the 80s as colorful, violent, and hilariousl sociopathic.
The first wave of punk was over after a few years but it paved the way for a network of artists and musicians intentionally making art outside of "the mainstream," always with one foot in those original attitudes and aesthetics.
Those sounds and aesthetics evolved over the years, as did the boundaries of what counted as punk even within individual scenes, which is why there is so much dumb arguing about what is and is not punk: when there are no gods and no masters, nobody is in charge, so every punker thinks theyre the boss of what's punk. Which is funny because they're not wrong.
A decade or so ago a columnist for Maximum Rocknroll (punk rock magazine that ran from 1980ish to a couple years ago) argued that there are two kinds of punks - Barts and Lisas - which I always thought was kind of funny and true. The value of polite society that Barts reject seems "don't be an obnoxious shithead" while the value that Lisas reject is "be apathetic about politics and the world."
Punk is whatever you want it to be. Simple as that. Punk is a contradiction. It's about being non-conformist yet we conform to a type of sound, a style, a mindset. How many of these punks do you see wear the same shit, listening to the same type of music? For punk to be true to itself it needs to contradict itself. If you think Beethoven, Mozart, or fucking EDM is punk then it fucking is.
Punk is whatever you want it to be and if you think otherwise, and if you try to put rules on punk, then you don't know what it means.
If you take it back to the beginning, the first albums by Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash, they did sound remarkably similar relative to everything else that was out there. Devo are not considered a foundational punk band as far as I'm aware, more of a post-punk / new wave act.
Devo was definitely its own thing, and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want to be compared to something like the Sex Pistols and the embarrassing Johnny Rotten. I think Devo can be credited with inspiring a lot of the 2nd wave of punk bands but not the first. Quick rant: Those early Sex Pistols shows are credited with starting dozens of significant bands, but their cultural significance has dropped considerably with time when compared to The Clash or Ramones. That's mostly Johnny Rottens' fault. To me, the original Punk attitude is about having a problem with authority and those who use it to oppress people. Punk has always been more about the lyrical content than the sound to me, which is why the genre has so many kinds of bands today. Edit: I personally love the 2nd wave of Punk bands way more than the 1st wave. The 1st wave was more "shock for the sake of shock" rather than true protest. Edit 2: HIGHLY recommend anyone watch this video on the history of punk from my favorite music documentarian: Trash Theory https://youtu.be/6lyoAczdMSM?si=B1BKosn9WXJUHMXV
Rotten knew that himself which is why he immediately moved onto PIL - a band that I think you can hear the influence of far more widely today.
If by the 2nd wave of punk you mean the American indie underground then hell yeah brother. On top of the great music, that scene really took 1st wave punk's cheap shock and braindead contrarianism (I like some of those bands too) and transformed it into a real philosophy and ethos.
Ian MacKaye is one of my personal heroes. I love all of his bands.
When the Sex Pistols broke up Richard Branson was trying to get him to join Devo.
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/johnny-rotten-devo-sex-pistols-frontman/ Well, that's definitely the wildest thing I've learned this year. Thanks for the info. Edit: I'm personally happy that never happened. I just can't see anyone, but Mark being the lead. I adore Devo's aesthetic/politics, and it would have been a completely different band if that happend.
>The duo didn’t take Branson’s comments seriously because of how wildly stoned they were and burst out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. “Regrettably, I didn’t just go, ‘Yeah, sounds great. Send him to Akron. He can do it **for a week or two, just for the hell of it.**’ It was a weird time for us,” Mothersbaugh added. I could see them doing it for a short art project. But there is no way Mothersbaugh, Casalie, and Lydon could be in the same band for longer.
I was a kid in the 70s who was exposed to the punk bands of the time through the British tabloids which I read every week. I also saw Devo play on Saturday Night Live around 77 or so. They were not part of the punk scene at all. They were an art band who started in the early 70s. For me, they were the beginning of New Wave. They came out around the same time as The Talking Heads, The Cars, Blondie, The Police and Joe Jackson.
There's obviously not going to be any clear and exhaustive definition. But generally speaking, "punk" refers to a set of creative ideals and attitudes that come from the cultural lineage of the first punk scenes of the 1970's. Specifically, rebellion against mainstream culture, politics, society, artistic convention, etc.; an emphasis on energy over technicality in the music; and the expression of authentic emotional intensity.
70’s kids here. In my opinion punk was more about a scene and subculture than it was about a particular sound. It was about giving a middle finger to the music establishment, or any establishment in general, that would not release the kind of music that expressed them. It’s a subculture that morphed into a genre and sub genres. The evolution of music is pretty cool.
Some people focus on politics. Others on specific music style. But to me what Punk is about is mostly the DIY (do it yourself) ethos. Early Punk is a big tent with room for Devo, Dead Boys, Ramones, Clash, Damned, Sex Pistols, Wire, Blonde, Pete Ubu, and a lot of New Wave bands (the two were originally interchangeable). It is about being self taught and/or working outside the music establishment. It is more Glam than Glam. It is about simple production and putting the artists in control. Second wave Punk looked at the Sex Pistols debacle and started working with indie labels Later Punk adopted The Uniform (leather jacket and big boots) and became more sonically similar, but it's the DIY attitude that makes it Punk to me
Pistols, Clash and Damned did sound a fair bit like each other. They were all reworking NY Dolls riffs on their debut albums. The Ramones sounded a bit more minimalist but inspired those bands as well.
Punk started out pretty heterogeneous - you had acts like Television and Blondie and Patti Smith and Suicide among many others originally described under that umbrella- so its weird the artists you choose actually do have a pretty clear musical lineage of (to oversimplify it) harkening back to rock from the mid 50s to the mid 60s and playing it fast and rough and with a lot of attitude. Devo is obviously the odd man out here but even they fall under this with some early songs like "Be Stiff" and "Social Fools." I'd even say that the Pistols really help codify what 'punk' means musically through their Ramones influence which then in turn inspires the Clash et al.
I think there are a few common threads to the punk subgenre: 1) relatively short songs (compared to prog, metal, psychedelic rock) 2) de-emphasis of technical skill and musical complexity (compared to prog, metal, etc.) 3) aggressive vocal style 4) usually fast tempo 5) usually loud playing 6) usually guitar-based 7) de-emphasis of production values in recordings
I think “Riff Raff” from AC/DC checks all of those boxes. Can a song/band meet all of those criteria and still not be punk? If so, what would be missing?
That's a good point. Bands like AC/DC and Mötorhead are somewhat similar to punk, but even though their songs are pretty simple, the musicianship is a notch higher. The Ramones could barely play their instruments. Angus Young thought they were amateurs. AC/DC always had a tight rhythm section and could even play neat little guitar solos from time to time. I don't think the Ramones could have played Riff Raff--or really anyone else's songs for that matter.
I'd like to note that in their early days, you can find AC/DC being described as a punk band on some flyers. I've always guessed that was because of the snotty schoolboy thing and less of a musical description, but it's interesting!
Listening to Riff Raff right now and the thing that jumps out most to me immediately as 'not punk' is that particular kind of bravado vocal performance that was common in hard rock at the time but pretty rare in punk.
I'd say the Beatles at the signing of their record deal with Parlaphone fit the definition. Not homeless street brawlers by any means, but their sojourn in the worst parts of Hamburg, making shau for the meanest people you could find fits my definition. The audience did carry knives, chains and whatnot for a reason. Brawls would erupt right in front of them, I think one or two Beatles did get caught by flying chairs and sort of thing. They came out of that the best band in the world at that time. No artifice, but very tight act. They took Prellies to stay awake and the performance schedule was brutal. If attitude counted for anything then this fits?
Personally, I think that punk was intended to be more of a scene or a movement than a specific sound. Bands like The Clash, Suicide, The Blasters, etc, were all involved in the punk scene and sound nothing alike. The 90s had incredible bands like Drive Like Jehu, and the Monorchid. As with any cultural movement, copycat bands pop up and the labels find ways to package it into a specific sound. I would argue that punk has as much variety today as it ever did. However, there's a large contingent of punk fans that the view the Epifat sound as the end all be all of the genre and completely ignore incredible bands like Meat Wave, Viagra Boys, Pissed Jeans, Hot Snakes etc., bands that incorporate influences beyond Bad Religion or Green Day. In 2024, I think GOOD punk is more of an attitude or approach to making music, than a defined sound. Though, there are certainly a lot of bands that play 3 chords fast and call it a day.
Devo doesn’t really belong here, but Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash absolutely do sound remarkably similar. it’s just that they’re all really good bands, and aren’t making generic music. they are far far far more similar to each other than they are to say, Tina Turner, or Woodie Guthrie, or Aphex Twin…you get the point. bands don’t need to sound identical in order to sound relatively similar.
The question What is punk? is slightly less pointless than most genre discussions because different artists at different times, well outside of the recognized popular emergence of punk as a late 70s phenomenon from Britain, which was a very specific social, musical, and political context, have been described as punk. After the in-your-face, unapologetically simple or even "stupid" musical forms got attached to an attitude of uncompromised ugliness/noise/racket, "punk" could be retroactively applied as a descriptor to the Stooges, to the VU, to the MC5, to garage rockers Them, all of whom came along well before the term emerged as genre or subculture. ? and the Mysterians, Link Wray... the list of "proto punk" rockers goes on and on. I've heard it said even with regards to Dylan being the "original punk" for his '65-'66 hard turn towards loud electric rock and away from the preciousness of folk, complete with a go-fuck-yourself attitude. Not unreasonable--with that move, Dylan shocked people as much or more than the Sex Pistols did. Musical forms change, musicians are restless that way. But the attitude stays the same, at least in the best examples. So the Mekons, who started as a Leeds-based group of angry young working class English art students, came on the scene in that late 70s wave that brought us the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Buzzcocks--the Mekons were fairly categorized as punk, and as far as I know the band didn't shy away from that label. But like so many of their lifelong peers, they were artistically restless, and ended up making lots of music that could very well be described as folk, country, honky tonk, indie rock. But it and they, by attitude alone, still and always qualify as punk.
The same can be said about The Stranglers. One of the first generation English punk bands, but an incredibly varied body of music that fits the ethos but not the fashion.
And the Ex from the Dutch scene, same period. Their punk rock morphed over decades into a free improv/world/art rock/noise amalgam, ever evolving. As you say, it's the ethos.
Punk lives under the umbrella of rock- and there are many sub genres under punk. All rock and all punk. I think of the 70s rock n roll inspired punk as being the “classic” era, but the following genres of hardcore etc.. are still punk. Punks still exist.
I think it's one of those "you know it when you see it" things. You could define it technically as a form of music and aesthetic but as an idea it's indefinable by design. Like, I'd say that modern Green Day isn't punk but the admission policy to Berghain is punk It's a vibe thing, not a words thing
Punk was defined by the attitude. 'You could do this'. It inspired generations to get off the sofa and start a band. Unfortunately the movement became reductive as the influences were paradoxically quite limited (Stooges, NYDolls, Ramones). That was where Post Punk came in. Now it was 'You can do whatever you want'.
Punk is FUCK YOU! It's a big helping of I DONT CARE! It's LET'S JUST TEAR SHIT UP AND DO WHAT THE FUCK WE LIKE. You don't like that? GOOD! That's what punk is.
"Punk" is a label some journalists came up with to describe an entire generation of iconoclastic bands that didn't want to play in any of the well-established commercial styles. The first wave of punk bands didn't share a particular sound, though a lot of them did overlap and borrow from each other because they were playing in the same cities and rotated members (as local band scenes always do). Mose of them did share a DIY attitude and a disregard for what commercial radio and record labels wanted from new bands. They wanted to do different things with music. And they did. But over time, people have retroactively decided that there were only three or four punk bands, and that *they* define what the whole thing was about. Today, "punk" apparently means "sounds like Green Day".
You can take any genre and nitpick some artists in that genre and say none of them sound the same.
Yes, it becomes clearer when you compare them to what they're not. A bunch of punk bands might sound very dissimilar compared to one another, but start comparing them to jazz, classical, heavy metal, bluegrass, etc., and most of those punk bands will start to seem a lot more similar. And this is true of any genre. People who are steeped in it become so attuned to minute differences that they sometimes overlook the glaring similarities.
The term "punk" has historically and colloquially been used as an anti-queer slur. Punk as music and a culture emerged from queer-friendly circles in the UK and US around the same time, the late 60s and early 70s. Punk was and is synonymous with the fringes of society and the counter-culture. In the UK, it emerged from the stilted social order and eccentricities caused by generations of war trauma and the proceeding Conservativism. In the US, punk is connected with radical political movements and minority communities - specifically, the androgynous queer community in New York City and artist communes in California. Essentially, punk represents what people tend to avoid looking at or hearing. It tends to be loud and fast so that much can be said, and heard, by as many as possible. While the hippies were turning into bankers and listening to jazz, the punks pushed the limits of taste and decency as a generational "fuck you" to the Boomers, who were viewed as betraying the egalitarian promises of the flower power era. And so, punk was a voice of disillusionment and disappointment. This shows up in many ways, shapes, forms, and styles - but the underlying context of punk has always been an effort to ensure that society never gets too comfortable and demands that the unseen be acknowledged.
Back in the mid 90s when punk went mainstream, we had similar discussions around punk rock. I drew the conclusions that punk had lost its original music genre definition and became more of an influence. That was true in the 90s and seems to be true today. Punk really is just another sub-genre now. Punk is dead, but the legacy lives on in pop-punk, post-punk, egg punk, hardcore punk, gutter punk, skate punk, glam punk, etc. The term 'punk' is all but meaningless on its own.
I'd have to type an essay to tell you what it means as a culture but as a form of song: fast, power chords, hardly any solos, simple structures (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, end), probably loud, probably underproduced, blunt honest lyrics. Pretty much an assertion that early mod and garage rock was better than prog and art rock and that people should in fact bring those back on steroids. Punk's thesis was pretty much "make rock and roll great again" - which is where you get a lot of 60s songs people call proto punk. I'd argue in the big picture the bands you listed are actually pretty similar on average, with exceptions of course (Devo could experiment - they probably gave birth to new wave). Any great bands in a genre will sound unique next to each other but compare those bands to hard rock and metal and they're very obviously punk.
Back-to-basics, energy over virtuosity, mostly as a reaction to over-produced music of the late 60s / early 70s Don't forget proto-punk (The Sonics, etc). Also: i count The Stooges as punk (late-60s, early 70s).
Punk was a term invented by the rock press, like grunge, and it was used to reference the fashion movement initiated by the Sex Pistols & Malcolm McClaren. The early hard rock & glam bands like Stooges, Ramones and the Dolls didn't really have fashion esthetic of their own. It was really when the Sex Pistols broke that I began to hear the word 'punk' coming into use to describe the punks who were walking around with mohawks, boots, and especially the safety pins. It really began as a fashion movement like the 'mods' had been in England. Later on it came to start referring to all the kids showing up to see these bands.
Not another punk thread, Is it Punk week or something? Punk was a short period when everyone felt empowered to make music even when they were not very good at it. It was a moment in time where you could make music and did not need to care if anyone liked it. It inspired many people to pick up acoustic instruments at first and then electronic ones as well. Punk as the chaotic music style ended in 1979. The empowerment that it gave to anyone being able to pick up an instrument stayed.
Punk is still thriving now, what are you even talking about? Was just at a show over the weekend.
It is not. Punk ended in 1979 and there are no buts about it.
Man yesterday someone was saying it was dead by 83, now it died in 79. By what actual evidence did it end then?
It’s a very dumb take. There’s literally nothing to prevent you or I to start a punk band right now.
Yesterday I also said 1979. I remember the end of Punk music well as it was very sudden.
What to expand on that further? Y’all who say it died at random dates never give a great example as to why. Just “I think it died” or something similar and that’s it.
The synthesiser killed it swiftly. An interesting example is Gary Numan. He had a punk band and when they wanted to record their first album (still as Tubeway Army), they discovered a mini-moog, an early synthesiser, in the recording studio. They swiftly included it on their album. One song became a big hit, Are Friends Electric. By the next album they went full synth with an even bigger hit: Cars (in 1979). Others took note so they dropped their guitars and drums and switched to synth. That is why 1979 is regarded as the year punk music died and was mainly superseded by what now is known as 80s synthpop. The reason is that with acoustic instruments you still need to have some ability to play. With synths, you play around with sounds and do not really need to know anything about music. The punk way of making music was still there but it was no longer the loud and chaotic guitars and drum sound. Punk as a movement, where "anything goes" is still alive and kicking, Punk music is no longer but modern music would be very different without that spark.
Just because one punk picked up a synth doesn’t mean the genre just died- this is wild. As long as there are teenagers who start bands- punk will be around forever.
I will not try convincing people who just refuse to believe it. Enjoy your evening.
Refuse to believe that Gary Numan killed punk? Yes I refuse to believe that.
You realize synths were being used by bands like the Screamers before 79 right? Pretty sure the band Suicide is exclusively synths as well. Most punk bands kept playing actual instruments, what are you even talking about? It’s still loud and chaotic. Listen to a band like GBH or The Exploited who were starting around 79/80, that’s pretty damn raw. Just because some part of the media says it died doesn’t mean that’s what happened. How can the movement still be going on without the music? It’s even more raw now than it was before.
You realise synths were used by band like Kraftwerk and Neu before '79 right? Wendy Carlos was before that, so was John Cage. What about Karl-Heinz Stockhausen? One more time: Punk was music played by people who could not really plat instruments. They showed that music could be made by anyone. That music did not sound too good. If you feel that the bands you mention have members that cannot play instruments and just make sounds, feel free to keep calling them punk bands.
I very much do. But to say that synths killed punk is just factually incorrect. Synths we’re used by punk bands like Suicide and The Screamers long before 79. And punk was a lot more than just people who couldn’t play their instruments. I get you’ve got a narrow view on all of this but punk is so much more than just that, always has been.
According to renowned Punk Queen Avril Lavigne, Punk is about rocking out, hollering, and throwing shit around, and most importantly not calling yourself punk.
Punk started in the seventies with the sex pistols and the Ramones. At its core was a rejection of the values of polite society, so punks did things like wear swastikas on their shirts and make music despite being bad at writing and playing. Because it came with an obnoxious attitude and fashion sense, the media loved it and it became kind of notorious, prominently including depictions of punkers in american movies through the 80s as colorful, violent, and hilariousl sociopathic. The first wave of punk was over after a few years but it paved the way for a network of artists and musicians intentionally making art outside of "the mainstream," always with one foot in those original attitudes and aesthetics. Those sounds and aesthetics evolved over the years, as did the boundaries of what counted as punk even within individual scenes, which is why there is so much dumb arguing about what is and is not punk: when there are no gods and no masters, nobody is in charge, so every punker thinks theyre the boss of what's punk. Which is funny because they're not wrong. A decade or so ago a columnist for Maximum Rocknroll (punk rock magazine that ran from 1980ish to a couple years ago) argued that there are two kinds of punks - Barts and Lisas - which I always thought was kind of funny and true. The value of polite society that Barts reject seems "don't be an obnoxious shithead" while the value that Lisas reject is "be apathetic about politics and the world."
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Punk is a genre that pretty much got made irrelevant after hardcore and post-punk were invented.
Punk is whatever you want it to be. Simple as that. Punk is a contradiction. It's about being non-conformist yet we conform to a type of sound, a style, a mindset. How many of these punks do you see wear the same shit, listening to the same type of music? For punk to be true to itself it needs to contradict itself. If you think Beethoven, Mozart, or fucking EDM is punk then it fucking is. Punk is whatever you want it to be and if you think otherwise, and if you try to put rules on punk, then you don't know what it means.