Taking a Look at Punk Rock

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.

Differences in beliefs and values from what the “norm” considers the right way makes you a subculture, but what makes them unique are the instruments they use to make their voice heard. While most people have taken for granted their language, beliefs and values there are some who within their subculture use their music to escape forms of oppression and lack of freedom. Hip Hop and Punk are two large subcultures that are well known through out the world. There are many differences between Hip Hop and Punk and several contributing factors that shape these subcultures but ultimately each one’s existence

What is punk rock? How many people know the real definition? Punk rocks values, attitude, and ideologies? Punk rock isn’t just a style or a scene but a way of life. It all started in the late 1970s, originating from the working class angst and frustrations many youth were feeling about the economic inequality. One of punks’ main oppositions was rejection of mainstream, corporate mass culture and its values. It continued to evolve its ideology of anti-racist and anti-sexist belief systems as the movement spread from its origins in England and New York to Northern America.

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.

Nevertheless, punk shouldn’t be held to such high standards of influence. It’s influential; it’s something that made misfits feel as though they had a place, but not something to be held to the unattainably high standards. All things considered, it did do something positive, it provided a home and inclusive environment for those who were frustrated and just plain angry.

Our world is full of propaganda and unique activities of every sort. There are countless methods of entertainment pushed towards us in an effort to capture our undivided attention. These forms of entertainment are available through the freedoms Americans have - the freedoms derived from our Constitution. Americans enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” more than arguably every other country; moreover, they will be the first to say so. Americans have little restrictions on expressions and, therefore, many groups feel the need to do just that – express themselves. However, these expressions by such a plethora of actors also is the very reason none of them succeed in holding one’s attention for great lengths. When analyzing “punk” rock as an expression or propaganda, it actually is one of the few which has been able to capture the attention and live through the people for a long period of time – over 30 years.

Punk rock is a unique and changing musical genre that was born in both England and the United States in the late 1970s. A largely underground music scene with a reliance on a rejection of societies norms, dismissal of capitalism and consumption, heavy reliance on community, and a strong attitude of do-it-yourself and self-empowerment, punk continues to have a large influence on the contemporary music scene. Punk rock, however, has faced issues when dealing with concepts of sex and gender. Bands within the scene are usually composed of males, women are objectified in song lyrics, and masculine values like aggressiveness and violence are often glamorized, especially in sub-genres of punk such as hardcore punk. But women have managed,

Punk has always been about more than just the sound of the music people were making during that era, although the sound was a huge factor and played an interwoven part of the entire ordeal. Punk split itself from the traditional rock of its time, sonically, by deciding that clean guitar riffs, processed vocals, and any sound product that didn’t come straight out of the instrument/artist wasn’t “real enough”. Hanner stated in “Unpopular Culture…”: “Musically, punk and hardcore are characterized by short, strident, up-tempo songs performed with consistent, straightforward instrumentation, meaning a lack of synthesizers, guitar effects, or post-production audio modification.“ As a result Punk became the gritty, noisy, dirty and unique sound that everyone can instantly recognize. Punk was also an ideology. It was something people lived by and something that had a very blatant and in your face message of being anti-government, anti-establishment, and basically anti-authority all together. This exact sentiment is described in the same article by Nathan Hanner in “Unpopular Culture…”:

As a teenager growing up in 1970s Washington D.C. one might rise out of bed in the morning, squeeze into their bell bottoms and skin-tight t-shirts, not expecting that that would be the day they ran into a group of kids dawned in black with clothes pins in their shirts, who called themselves punks and were looking to make a change in DC music history. In a time where the country was divided by political beliefs, a raging war, and racial tensions, smack dab in the center of Washington D.C. came the punk scene. It was said that the hippie scene majorly influenced the punk scene, some would say that the hippies were “the real punks”(Punk: Attitude, 3:12). The punk scene consisted of kids who opposed hippies, so in retrospect the hippies are what

Punk is one of the most written and talked about music and political movements of the twentieth century. What perhaps makes punk special is the way a generation incorporated the attitudes and practices of the music into an entire subculture. In her book Punks: A Guide to an American Subculture, author Sharon M .Hannon argues that "there is no universally accepted definition for punk ."To some, punk mean rebellions against conformity or against parents, school, work, and society at large"(2).Punk means different things to different people depending on whom you ask. One thing that everyone can agree on is that the punk subculture was not just about the music, it was a way of self-expression and undoubtedly a way of life. Punks used their bodies as a way of self-expression. They shaved and styled their hair in unnatural ways. Clothing was often ripped and many used patches of their favorite bands to adorn it. Most were also tattooed and had various facial piercings. Perhaps one of the most significant things in the punk subculture was punk rock, which mostly consisted of loud instruments, hard vocals, and political lyrics.

1. a. By a show of hands I would like to see how many of you listen to Punk Rock.

In the UK punk subculture was associated with working class and anti-political movement. In the US the punk was more of a counter-culture than a subculture. Which one of the transatlantic punks was better? A great deal of punk subculture was music.

Punk in England has political and economic roots where as American punk scenes were all about bands rebelling against the boring, generic songs they heard on the radio everyday. The economy in the United Kingdom was in a terrible shape and unemployment was at an all-time high. England's younger population were angry, unruly and jobless.

Punk music and its surrounding counterculture were characterized by a revolutionary spirit, a desire to upend the conventions of society beginning with the trends in the existing music scene and practices within the music industry. Considering the idiom “If you want something done right, do it yourself,” it makes sense that the D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) ethos of Punk truly defined the genre as a movement. Punks were fed up with popular rock music of the times, corporate music practices, corrupt governments, and conservative popular culture that was not conducive to social change. In order to meet their desires for revolution, Punks took action and brought matters into their own hands, rather than wait for society to agree with their alternative ideology, especially in the field of music.

Punk rock is a unique and changing musical genre that was born in both England and the United States in the late 1970s. A great music scene with a reliance on rejecting the norms of societies, defiance of capitalism and consumption, heavy reliance on community, and a strong attitude of do-it-yourself and self-empowerment, punk continues to have a large influence on the contemporary music scene. Punk rock, however, has faced problems when dealing with the ideals of sex and gender. Bands within the scene are usually composed of males, women are objectified in song lyrics, and masculine values like aggressiveness and violence are often glamorized, especially in sub-genres of punk such as hardcore punk. But women have managed, especially through the Riot Grrrl movement, to stake out their own patch of punk rock territory. They have used punk rock to redefine concepts of gender and sexuality in such as way that empowers them and gives them choices in life, rather than having values being forced upon them.