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

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After Blondie put out their first album, Blondie, it put the group on the commercial outskirts of new wave, but their music had even less characteristics of this style (Charlton, Rock Music, 215). The Sex Pistols evoked disgust every where they went. The albums title was Reed’s anthem to amphetamines. X-Ray sex brought a violent feminist message to punk with the single “Oh Bondage Up Yours!”. CBGB’s was the starting place for many New York bands, including Television, The Patti Smith Group, and the Ramones. It was here that McLauren recognized they highly visible, widely energetic and ant-social punk was the heir apparent for the youth of the UK. Televisions’ music combined a Velvet Underground - influenced punk sensibility with melodic lead guitar lines and psychedelic - style wandering improvisations (Charlston, Rock Music, 207). Reed combined controversial common places with a profound cynicism to yield music. As New York had the CBGBs, England had pubs. True to the Style of the dada artists of the past, Maureen Tucker sometimes added trashcan lids to her drum set (Charlton, Rock Music, 205). Smith also had a new version of the song “My Generation” in which she shouted obscenities, making it clear to every one that her generation was new and angrier. ” The Velvet Underground’s first efforts influenced the development of punk as a musical style. John Cale also produced The Patti Smith Group debut album, Horses, which combined the musical simplicity of the Velvet Underground’s with Smith’s gusty and energetic vocals and a pounding punk beat. The Ramones’ very simple, fast high-energy music and monotone vocals became a prototype for much punk rock to follow (Charlton, Rock Music. Hynde soon formed The Pretenders which had a heavy strong backbeat and heavy-metal-influenced guitar lines in ehich gave The Pretenders a hard rock sound that was new wave beacuse of Hynde’s vocals were generally void af any sort of tender emotion.

Approximate Word count = 3334
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)

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