A History of Punk
"Sex, drugs, and rock and roll" was the rallying cry for a movement that changed American culture forever. Rock and roll first startled the American scene in the mid-1950's, but no one then could have predicted the remarkable vitality and staying power of this new music. The early tradition of rock has gone through many transitions. Provocative and outlandish stage attire and behavior have been an important resource since the birth of rock and roll. Decades following the birth of rock and roll, many have witnessed a steady ever changing parade of hairstyles, costumes, gestures and props. As the level of tolerance and acceptance grew, rock stars adopted more bizarre and shocking images. It is in this context that "punk" rock, seen by some as a startling new direction in the late 1970's must be considered. Rock music achieved a new respectability and power at the same time (Ward, Stokes, Tucker, Rock of Ages, 547). Punk was rock's most notable attempt in the late 1970's to inject angry, rebellious, risk taking notations into the music. The musical style called punk rock developed in the United States out of raw and energetic music played by the garage bands of the mid-sixties. These bands were mainly teenagers playing basic guit
Once again, these new styles of punk made there way back to the British. As New York had the CBGBs, England had pubs. This pub rock influenced many artists. Elvis Costello expressed relationships, the insecurity, women, and politics. Costello was also influenced by the different styles of rock music in "Less Than Zero", he influenced pop rockabilly style, and with reggae in "Watching The Defectives." Costello began to move away from the pop rock into the new wave. his songs began to deal wiith powere struggles, in "(Whats So Funny' bout) Peace, Loce, and Understanding." He made songs about relationships such as "Baby Plays Around" but nevertheless still wrote about poltics in "Tramp the Dirt Down" and "Let Him Dangle". Other artists begain to be influenced by this change in music style. Around the late seventies, many rock fans began to fell that the music was getting old. Fans felt that their needed to be a new energy that was less violent and antiestablishment then punk music. Punks half beat pulse, monotone vocals, and emotional alienation's were adopted by groups that played within more mainstream popular rock styles and the term "new wave" began to be used to catorgize this music (Charlton, Rock Music, 213). Many of the bands formed during the mid to late seventies played with enough of the musical characteristics of punk or new wave to gain a population within those styles, even though much of their music did not really fit into the new wave genre. the group Blondie fit into this category. Chelsea expressed the anger of unemployment and the "Right To Work", Generation X in "Your Generation". X-Ray sex brought a violent feminist message to punk with the single "Oh Bondage Up Yours!". The Buzzcocks expressed youthful attitudes in "Breakdown" and "Boredom". The energy level and simplicity of punk soon spread beyond its original antigovernment and antisocially causes and themes. The Jam hammered away at a fast pulse similar to British punk groups. The Jam was in effect a group of latter-day mods who mixed a punk beat with music by earlier Mod groups, particularly Motown-stle soul. The Jam had a different look to them then the Sex Pistols. They wore conservative suits and ties and were openly supportive of the British Monarchy and government. When British punk bands toured the US, they struck a nerve in California and started a punk movement in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. Despite the American teenagers having jobs, food, and clothing readily available to them they did not keep the anger and violence out their music, However, they did have plenty to say about their ex-hippie parents and the government involvement in politics. Messages of song lyrics differed from one style to the other, with punk generally expressing multidirectional anger and new wave displaying a cool, modern, detached approach to life, unaffected by emotional concerns. Both styles were trimmed down from the grandiose rock styles of the seventies, which had created an unbridgeable distance performer and the audience. Punk was a way for teenagers to express their feelings through their music without having to have the technical proficiency to play. They were able to perform music that was meaningful to themselves and to their peers. As punk music has influenced others from its beginning garage band sound, nothing new had happened today, it still carries those same energetic pulses that in had in the past. Punk is still here; it has set the trend today with its historic style making it the norm of today. The dadaists, a group of artists from Switzerland, expressed their views of madness and chaos exemplified by World War I. The dadaists saw this kind of devastation and destruction of human life that took place during the War, and expressed their views by fashioning artwork out of trash or other material put together in a chaotic form. The same fear of the potential human animal had for violence, along with the awesome power of modern-day
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Approximate Word count = 3334
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)
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