Punk Rock Revolution

In this essay, I will be discussing about a social group that took fashion to the next level and create a huge impact in British history were the punks culture during the late nineteen seventies. The punk cultures were to rebel against the government during the great depression and were all about the attitude of the younger generations. During the late nineteen seventies was the time of unemployment and social unrest, a lot of the young white kids felt outcast from the British culture, foreseeing their lives with little prospect and so called “no future”. It was also a DIY “Do it yourself” movement. Younger generation that adopted the punk look often create their own garment by wearing safety pins,

Punk rock music has been used for decades to express dissatisfaction with society, government, or any idea common in mainstream media. Yet punk rock is not simply a tangent of the mainstream, it is a dynamic and fluid genre with many distinct songs. Don Letts, a mainstay in the London punk scene during the 70’s and 80’s, went as far to say that hip-hop was essentially “black” punk. While punk and hip-hop music are stylistically different, the fundamental tone of the two genres is the same. Even throughout the decades, hip-hop has sang the same issues as punk, including the plight of the lower class, police brutality, and gang violence.

There were many more punks in Britain and it was acceptable to be a punk. During the time of the cold war, punk rock was used to inform people of political conflicts happening throughout the world and did it through music (1). Punk rock bands also sang about the economic problems during the cold war. Before the cold war though swing, jazz, blues, and the big band were very popular (6). Like punk rock during

The attitude common in the subculture is the resistance to selling out, which means abandoning one’s values and changing in musical style toward pop to embrace anything that’s mainstream capitalist culture in the exchange for money, status, or power. Punk rocks’ common thinking wasn’t only anti-authoritarism, and not selling out but also non-conformity, direct action, and a DIY ethic. The DIY attitude was pointed towards stepping forward and speaking without any restraint. To fight with warrior qualities to achieve what you were striving for. The kind of thinking and motives for punk rock subjects was to not settle for what society made acceptable and standard but to think and work outside of the box that was holding them in.

“He [Pearson’s father] would freak out when he read the song titles to the cassettes that my friends and I would shoplift from the mall…He was certain that I’d become a Junkie if I listened to that kind of music. But with an alcoholic wife-beater father who didn’t give a shit about his son I was bound to avoid the cliched, nihilist aspects of punk culture” (Pearson 12).

Music, in the past, has often spelled bad news to society at large. It can challenge norms and invoke a sense of hype in places that modern culture may be uncomfortable with, such as sex, sexuality, and drugs. Personally, when I think of punk music, I see a genre that stands to be individualistic, aggressive, and rebellious. Phrases such as ‘anti-establishment’ also come up. This notion comes from many aspects of punk subculture, including dress, music, performance, and my interpretations.

     The punk subculture is often seen as a rebellious group of misguided youngsters who often come from lower class dwellings and haven’t gotten the attention that they needed so they dye their hair, dress differently, and act differently. In Facing The Music edited by Simon Frith, Mary Harron reduced the meaning of punk to “the spectacle of middle-class children dressing up in a fantasy of proletarian aggression and lying desperately about their backgrounds” (History). The flipside to that is that maybe these youths are expressing their individualism and choose to stray away from

Most of the original rebellion was directed towards the British class structure. They wanted to express their disapproval of the structure that governed their country. In The Jam’s “Eton Rifles”, the band sarcastically attacks the upper class, calling them arrogant and preaching to them that rugby is the only thing making them strong (Punk 68). The Sex Pistols’ album “God Save The Queen” portrays the Queen of England with a safety pin through her nose on their cover. The reaction to this outburst of shocking rebellion from the mainstream society was a strong, displeased one. American writer Greil Marcus defined punk as, “…refusing the future society has planned for you.” Thousands of social misfits attempted just that. Through the many causes for this rebellious political expression: communism, anarchy, feminism, etc., the punks of England had a focus and a reason. It was this that made the “punk” a valid, yet undesired member of society, and the British public got to see this sociological change first hand (Chamberlain par.8). Although this movement was short lived, its impact was a phenomenon, and its effects were long- lasting, which distinguished this group from previous generations.

The Sex Pistols are a very important topic to bring to attention because they were such an influential band. Even though they only lasted two years, they “never really faded away.” (Dougan 413) According to Dougan, they are always present “when the words punk-rock are uttered” (413). The Sex Pistols not only instilled a love of punk rock, but also imagined a world where “a crud could become a king.” (Dougan 414-415). Hence, the Sex Pistols advocated for the English working class, and had a revolutionary impact against the norms

In order to understand the topic that is to be discussed in this essay, one must first understand two seemingly unrelated topics. Those topics are feminism and punk rock. These two social movements spawned the love child that has come to be known as the riot grrrl movement. The history of the riot grrrl movement is deep and intensely intertwined with themes of monumental social change, musical evolution, and the previously unseen all-encompassing nature that is unique to third wave feminism.

The theme of teenage rebellion is prominent among early rock ‘n’ roll historians, who imposed the language and social consciousness of the late-1960s onto their interpretations. According to them, rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s enabled teenagers to protest against the conformity of the era and also their parents’ music. Arnold Shaw in The Rockin’ 50s considered teens’ rejection of pop music an outcry against Cold War acquiescence.[3] Carl Belz claimed rock ‘n’ roll was folk art that functioned as a voice of the people, namely teenagers. Like Shaw, Belz saw rock ‘n’ roll as a “protest art” against prevailing popular music.[4] Rock ‘n’ roll also displayed that it was folk art because its audience was drawn to it instinctively, rather than through sophisticated aesthetic standards for judging the music; the dance beat was more important than musical technicalities.[5]

In regards to Cohen’s theoretical assumptions regarding societal panic the aforementioned genre of anrcho-punk can be used as an example of how a misunderstood sub-culture within a popular music genre can be demonised and seen as the cause of the moral and socio-political problems within society. During the emergence of the punk movement those involved in the culture were perceived by the media as being dangerous and violent thugs who threatened the established moral system within civilized societies through lyrical content that directly challenged the status quo. This is evident for example in the lyrics of

A style of music and culture based around DIY and the garage band the punk movement grew out of a reaction against tendencies found in 1970’s popular music and culture. Particularly, punk was a rejection of disco music, ‘arena rock’, and a youth driven rejection of hippie culture. The beginning roots of punk can be traced back to late 1960’s and early 1970’s scene in New York City surrounding Andy Warhol’s Factory and its many members. This foundational influence is outlined in Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s text Please Kill Me, The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. In the early 70’s era of the visual artist Andy Warhol and the member of his studio titled The Factory had begun to shift mediums and began working in theatre, as well as managing

This was a style that proceeded on the legacy of the 1960s yet with a more excited and harder style. Overwhelming guitar riffs and more decibels stimulated the general population who were still irritates about existing conditions in the nation. The Ramones are reliably implied as the primary punk band. This band contained a party of relatives that assemble their photograph with respect to The Beatles yet their music was much harder. On the rundowns that rate the best shake totals ever, The Ramones are as regularly as could reasonably be expected recorded as #2, behind basically The Beatles at #1. Their tune "I Wanna Be Sedated" changed into a generational song of devotion portraying the inclination that society is messed up to the point that the best way to deal with cross nearness with your target soundness is to be quieted for the whole experience. The Sex Pistols in like way esteemed a brief accomplishment as a punk rock band of the 1970s. Band individuals unequivocally utilized medications and liquor which finally actuated their separating not long after in the wake of limiting, however not before discharging two hit gatherings, "God Save the Queen" and "Don't push over it the Bullocks", that made a surge of disobedience all through the United States and the UK. New Wave, like punk music however more radio chivalrous and with an electronic imperativeness, also made in the late seventies and continued to wind up a psyche boggling gathering in the following decade. Bundles like The Cars and Blondie straddled the line between punk rock and new wave music and began passing on hits in the late 1970s. Some surely understood punk and new wave packs from the seventies united the New York Dolls, The Clash, Generation X, Talking Heads, David Bowie, and Patti Smith.-

Martinez seems to feel that “the nature of the punk movements [sic] anti-authoritarian, anti-market stance raises a stronger possibility for how popular music can become a platform to challenge oppressive socioeconomic systems and politically fraught environments”. He gives the example of the Sex Pistols, a British punk band that exploded in popularity as well as provoked public ire with their outrageousness in the late 1970’s. For example, the band’s drummer, Steve Jones, was infamously rude and swore several times during a television interview in December 1976. However, these sort of incidents turned into publicity stunts that attracted immense popularity to the band and brought them fame, deserved or not, all over the United Kingdom, making them a household name and not an underground, anti-populist group in any form. They became pop music and therefore became irrelevant both in the main part of the United Kingdom as well as in Northern Ireland insofar as the desire to run against the status quo was