Punk Music

Research Paper

The early 60's and 70's music industry tried its turn at the method of promoting trends over music. As most music genres, the consumers or the people who listened to the music believed whatever the music corporations told them. As more and more people began to realize what was happening, a change in the attitudes of people started to arise. Just as most movies end, a hero had to save the day. This hero was known as “Punk Rock”. Punk became an alternate to large money making corporations mass producing bands that would have a huge impact on the sales chart like they were coming off an assembly line.

Punk offered a new style of entertainment that was labeled as a “do-it-yourself” method. These bands generally had to do most of the management process themselves and brought obscure stage presence and angry messages against government and politics. The styles, methods, and lyrics of today’s so called punk bands are so outrageously disproportionate to their origins that they have diseased the genre of punk.

Punk music wasn’t necessarily about good musicians and great singers. Punk was about differences among people. The lyrics are what mattered most. Punk music was often about rioting against those who oppress their music. Punk bands were seen as non-conformists who speak out for those who are neglected. It’s kind of seen as an alternative too the glam rock life that most people are used to. Hebdige said, “The lyrics and lifestyles of these groups became progressively more disengaged from the concerns of everyday life and adolescence.”(Bleached Roots, 62)

Punk music derived from rock and roll. Bands wanted to separate from the publicity and music labels that were taking over. They just wanted to play music and send a message to music listeners. Punk bands started out as locals playing at the local bars and hangouts for anyone to come and listen. They didn’t care about making millions of dollars like most bands do today. Punk offered an alternative to the cliques that seem to form around other music. Punk allows you to be an individual and escape the peer pressure. Hebdige said, the safety pin is a resemblance of punk music in that they didn’t care what their cloths looked like. The had patches and holes in there clothes that they held together with safety pins. They had to make their own clothes because there wasn’t any that would fit their style. This clothing trend caught on and now everyone who was rebelling against something was wearing their clothes this way.

One band who probably played the most important role in punk music was the Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols were created by the legend Malcolm McLaren. They were the first band to basically not care what others thought about them. They were the first to set the style of clothing that would be recognized as punk. Although they never made a huge dent in the charts with their albums, they inspired thousands of bands to play loud and fast.(Goshert) When England banned them from playing they came to the United States and unleashed a nation wide trend for bands to come. England said they were to violent and dangerous to play in the United Kingdom. Their songs such as “God Save the Queen” were some of their controversial aspects that were thought of as hostile significance that was unacceptable in their culture at that time.

When the Sex Pistols broke up in 1978, the continuing influence of punk on culture and the music industry became one of the most crucial points in punk history. In other words, when punk becomes popular culture, it ceases to be punk; thus remains to be argued as whether there or not the bands can be defined and described as punk.(Goshert) Postmodernism arrived in rock and roll when punk lost its momentum around 1981, with the advent of New Pop posers such as hair bands and a new cable channel reliant on their videos, MTV.(Nehring XXVI) In the 80's, record companies such as Dischord Records and Lookout rose out of the scene of independent labels. These labels helped punk bands that still wanted remain mostly in control of their music. These labels also showed more support towards there music rather than the concern for profit such as the corporate industries did. Although these two labels were prominent in the 80's, the larger corporate companies seemed to take over and thus led into the 90's and as we see them today. These companies may have caused the downfall of punk music. In the late 80's, punk even became a child’s play-thing. A band called Old Skull was made up of two ten year olds and an eight year old. Their music was said to be insightful and unpolluted.(Pop) Their songs ranged from “Kick Ass” to “Aids” and “Homeless.” Old Skull wasn’t caught up in money making and publicity, but that could have been because they