Was punk necessary?

Was punk necessary?


  • Total voters
    53

Foxhound

retired
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Posts
3,584
Reaction score
8
Location
Toronto, Canada
Starman said:
Bands like the Sex Pistols were Nihilistic by intentional design. The Sex Pistols were nothing less than a commercially contrived poster child for the Punk Rock fashion world. They were so high profile because of their directed novel outrageousness.... Some were, like the Sex Pistols, The Damned, etc. were just there to give the movement this snotty cheese cake edge for appearance and depravity.

Those bands are precisely what I think of as being archetypical punk e.g. Stooges, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Damned, Dead Boys, Vibrators, Eddie & the Hot Rods, Teenage Head, Viletones, B-Girls, etc. They epitomized uncompromising dedication to the pure mindless rock which they embodied in their two minute records. Anything more involved/elaborate such as political posturing just diluted the spirit of hardcore punk in my book.

:bonk:
 
Last edited:

ComfortablyNumb

Unquestionable Presence
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Posts
3,919
Reaction score
17
Location
Serving Time In The Middle Of Nowhere
1. Do you not agree that one of the tenets of punk rock is that "Less is more"? The less is more mindset isn't consistent with being political; it is consistent with nihilism.

2. You seem to have agreed that the punk rockers were reacting against the whole hippie flower child movement. How then is taking the left wing political stance of the Clash rebelling against hippie flower children? The Clash just lumped themselves in with Arlo Guthrie, Joni Mitchell and Country Joe & the Fish when they did that. Would you have me believe that Country Joe & the Fish were a punk band as well?

This picture encompasses the sum total of the political beliefs of an unrepentant, uncompromising punk band:

They rebelled against the SOUND.

The Sex Pistols were very political but poked fun at both sides with a **** you attitude. So if we use your logic they are not a punk band.

Again Fox you are trying to oversimplify a genre by saying a punk band that talks about politics is not a punk band. Wrong. Punk Rock is musical freedom that is kept simple. No outlandish 20 minute jam sessions, no ridiculous stage shows with props.
 

ComfortablyNumb

Unquestionable Presence
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Posts
3,919
Reaction score
17
Location
Serving Time In The Middle Of Nowhere
Those bands are precisely what I think of as being archetypical punk e.g. Stooges, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Damned, Dead Boys, Vibrators, Eddie & the Hot Rods, Teenage Head, Viletones, B-Girls, etc. They epitomized uncompromising dedication to the pure mindless rock which they embodied in their two minute records. Anything more involved/elaborate such as political posturing just diluted the spirit of hardcore punk in my book.

:bonk:

They should be considered hardcore punk then if we use your book. They were political. Very political.
 

Foxhound

retired
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Posts
3,584
Reaction score
8
Location
Toronto, Canada
They rebelled against the SOUND.

Punk Rock is musical freedom that is kept simple. No outlandish 20 minute jam sessions, no ridiculous stage shows with props.

Okay. We're certainly in agreement that they rebelled against the excesses that had crept into rock music.

:rock:

But I disagree that punk rockers were rebelling only against the sound. They were rebelling against the whole flower child ethos of their older siblings. Why do you think short hair eventually became such a defining badge of punk rockers?

:pirate:
 

ComfortablyNumb

Unquestionable Presence
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Posts
3,919
Reaction score
17
Location
Serving Time In The Middle Of Nowhere
Okay. We're certainly in agreement that they rebelled against the excesses that had crept into rock music.

:rock:

But I disagree that punk rockers were rebelling only against the sound. They were rebelling against the whole flower child ethos of their older siblings. Why do you think short hair eventually became such a defining badge of punk rockers?

:pirate:

Ah ok I see what you are saying. IDK man I have to say they rebelled against the look and sound, but not the leftist ideas. That is just me. I associate punk with the left wing more then the right wing (even though there are extremely racist bands out there). I also grew up more on hardcore punk bands. I listened to the Pistols and the Clash obviously, but I grew up on Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Reagan Youth, Zero Boys, Wipers (who wrote about angst, thoughts of suicide, they were extremely dark but they were amazing), Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Crass, DRI, MDC. So idk I think that is why our thoughts differ.

I do think The Stooges and Dead Boys were the ones who rebelled against everything they stood for, so did Sabbath though haha. But you also have the MC5 who helped punk they were very very very political, associated with the White Panthers.

Then you have The Descendents, who IMO were amazing, wrote about really what ever they wanted with the punk rock attitude but used catchy riffs and actually sang.

That is why I think it is so hard to categorize punk specifically.
 

Foxhound

retired
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Posts
3,584
Reaction score
8
Location
Toronto, Canada
...but I grew up on Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Reagan Youth, Zero Boys, Wipers (who wrote about angst, thoughts of suicide, they were extremely dark but they were amazing), Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Crass, DRI, MDC.

I agree that those eighties punk bands that you mention had evolved away from the ones of the seventies. The ones in the seventies just seemed to be out to shock both the straights and the hippies but the ones in the eighties seemed a lot angrier overall. The Circle Jerks though were an eighties punk band that was more closely akin to the ones from the punk movement of the seventies.

But I've always thought that by the eighties the bands that at one time may have been thought of as punk were all proclaiming themselves to be new wave.

:guitar:
 

ComfortablyNumb

Unquestionable Presence
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Posts
3,919
Reaction score
17
Location
Serving Time In The Middle Of Nowhere
I agree that those eighties punk bands that you mention had evolved away from the ones of the seventies. The ones in the seventies just seemed to be out to shock both the straights and the hippies but the ones in the eighties seemed a lot angrier overall. The Circle Jerks though were an eighties punk band that was more closely akin to the ones from the punk movement of the seventies.

But I've always thought that by the eighties the bands that at one time may have been thought of as punk were all proclaiming themselves to be new wave.

:guitar:
I don't think new wave is anything really. Hardcore Punk bands I do not think said they were ever New Wave because a lot of them (Dead Kennedys for example, Pull My Strings pokes fun at the Knack and New Wave) hated new wave. I think the best genre is No Wave IMO kind of pokes fun at New Wave. Grunge was honestly, well Nirvana, Mudhoney, and The Fluid, punk in Seattle to me honestly. They shared nothing in common with Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, etc.

Genres are starting to get ridiculous now.
 
Last edited:

Sox

Avoiding The Swan Song
Joined
Jan 29, 2010
Posts
10,103
Reaction score
31
Location
Derbyshire, England
It had to happen just like the cats from the early rock n`roll era. I look at it like this rock and roll was a fresh direction away from the jazz standards using basic chord progressions that stomped. In the 70`s those that couldn`t deal with the elevated direction of progressive rock gave us again basic stuff that stomped. For me I dig the lot and a world without The Stranglers and The Ramones would be a sadder place.
 
Last edited:

Find member

Forum statistics

Threads
30,658
Posts
1,064,862
Members
6,353
Latest member
edmerka

Members online

Top