Jason Snow      Student no. s0032614

2:48 PM          10/05/2007  

PUNK ROCK IN THE 70’s

‘Punk’, what is it? What brought about the punk revolution? How did punk rock affect progressive/art rock? How did punk influence girls? This article will analyse the following areas of a punks’ life; the characteristics of punk rock, the musical, technological and sociological reasons behind the two styles of music in the 70’s.

PUNK WHAT IS IT?

‘Punk’, is a term used for the subculture of youth that resonated from the American avant-garde and the British sub cultural roots during the mid to late 1970’s. It is difficult to generalise the ground meaning of being a punk, due to the contradictions involved in this subculture. Punks’ are against everything that progressive/art rock represents. It is these contradictions that laid the foundations which produced the organised chaos in punk. This adolescent subculture had rampant publicity.  Through their style of music ‘Punk Rock’ and their extreme fashion statements, these punks’ were fighting against the politics of boredom using radical extremes to gain social action. Punks’ believed that normal everyday people were unchallenged. Punks’ speculated that this boredom was a type of social control that hindered massive rebellion by crafting a consensus around the orderly and anticipated. Punks’ described this ‘rebellion against boredom’ as “No Future” and their beyond argument assumptions were indispensable to reinvigorate the ailing British state and the pitiable U.S culture.  

Fashion in the mid to late ‘70’s took a dramatic plunge from the glamour rock era (late 60’s – early 70’s). From suits and gowns to torn jeans and shirts, and marvellous make-up to tattoos and safety pin body piercings. Punks’ weren’t the most pleasingly aesthetic group to socialise with! Along with their ragged dress style, punks’ flaunted their behaviour to go with their shocking visual appearance. Parents considered punks’ to be an undesirable influence on their children due to the latent violence, explicit music, sexual attitudes, drug habits and the way punks’ presented themselves both visually and musically.

Musically punks’ were very inexperienced. Punks had a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) attitude which basically encouraged the youth to start a band even if they couldn’t play their instruments. Most band members had only been playing their instruments for a few months before they started. (Johansen, D.). “Hell, anybody can do this.” (Please Kill Me, n.d. p.118). Punk rock brought rock ‘n’ roll back to its bare essentials; four chord songs but strummed a lot faster to create a chainsaw buzz. This buzz created a head nodding action in both the crowd and the band members, sometimes around 240 times a minute. Nearly all concerts were drug fuelled and bands presented loud chaotic performances. The majority of punk songs were about the way the youth felt about their political stance in society. This resulted in indecipherable and non-intelligent lyrics.

Join now!

Now, let’s go back in time to where ‘punk’ originated from.

WHAT BROUGHT ABOUT THE PUNK REVOLUTION?

I will touch on two styles of rock from the late 60’s – early 70’s, Art/Progressive Rock and Glam Rock. A summary of key features is tabulated below:

The ‘big bang’ of progressive/art rock was birthed through the poetry of Bob Dylan, conceptually unified albums like The Mothers of Inventions, Freak Out, The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. These albums suggested that rock should be taken more seriously as an art form. Progressive began to emerge from ...

This is a preview of the whole essay