What Is The Ethos Of Punk

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.

Attention Getter: Art can be used to express our innermost feelings and to convey ideas about anything such as society, economics, education, religion, and politics.

According to Mandel, art reminds us that we’re human. It is a subconscious human instinct, even “in the midst of catastrophe” (Knopf).

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.

     Art, in each and every form that it comes in, shows us who we are. Our

“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).

     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

When I go to the gym to exercise I always listen to music. I’ll normally listen to something fast paced, angry, or motivating. Punk rock is my go to genre for workout music. The fast tempo brings my focus to my breath and step. Another factor in my music choice is the message punk rock conveys to its listeners. Characteristic themes are usually perseverance through some kind of first world oppression (ie. parents, school, judgmental society), wanting to destroy something, or just in general hating things. All three of these pretty much sum up how I feel when working out. Personally, I find that the first ten minutes of a workout are usually the worst so I’ll listen to some of Furman’s “I Wanna Destroy Myself”, or Promise Everything’s

With the economic decline and availability of jobs with upward movement, a culture of youths formed in Britain that challenged the ideals and cultural norms of the generations that came before them. A consistent movement from traditional society through youth subcultures brings light through the eyes of the musicians that describe their generation’s feelings of homelessness in an era filled with unemployment, low wages, and violence. The insurgence of the counterculture movement, poor economic conditions, and the commercialization of previous Rock and Roll music in Britain directly led to the punk subculture because it allowed youths to speak up about their conditions and frustrations through an easily understood and accessible medium while maintaining a different stance than their predecessors.

artwork was to open the minds of the people who would look upon it. I never

The most important trait in defining art is its beauty. As complex as the term “art” can be, the term “beauty” is nearly just as complicated. In order to understand art more clearly it is important to understand beauty. “We label an object beautiful because it promotes an internal harmony or ‘free play’ of our mental faculties; we call something ‘beautiful’ when it elicits this pleasure.” (Freeland 8). As defined above, beauty is not a direct message. It is something that subconsciously allows man to feel good and pleasurable. There is “an internal harmony” when we observe something beautiful that allows us to take away a deeper understanding of a work of art regardless of it being “nice looking” or “ugly”.

For many people, the word punk brings to mind similar images of grungy looking teenagers who are wearing dark, ripped clothing held together with safety pins and chains which displays some sort of offensive symbol or saying. They are probably also wearing a leather jacket and Doc Martens, sporting an unconventional hairstyle such as a brightly colored Mohawk or spikes, and listening to loud music. For the most part, the images people think of as associated with the word punk are a pretty accurate representation of how people who were part of the punk movement looked. Though most people can describe what punks are supposed to look like, most cannot explain the purpose of the anti-fashion trend that most punks followed.

Art can be a thing of beauty that causes energy and excitement. Art is what caused

The punk subculture was one of the influential revolutions on the 20th century, which originated in in the 1970s and spread across countries that included the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia. This subculture was based on a loud, aggressive genre of music called punk rock, and it intended to gain individual freedom for the working class. This essay explains the journey from the evolution and widespread of the punk subculture in the UK in 1980s. As the title suggests, punk fashion has been ruptured, tweaked and re interpreted by individuals and fashion designers over and over again, and its style has been re adapted to juxtapose on contemporary trends.

The history of art dates back to ancient times. Artwork can be, and was, found around the world. What makes art interesting is that it can be created in any way, shape or form with any materials. It seems that the artwork can also tell us a lot about the artist. Art seems to be simply, a direct, visual reflection of the artist’s life. Therefore, one can assume that an artist’s life experiences and beliefs directly influence their art. If we look at examples from different periods of art we will be able to see the connection between the artist and the art.