History of Punk
The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle
I've been waiting to finally write an essay about something that generally interests me and at the same time, would still find a way to present itself as a challenge to grasp the full concept of. Despite it's a word that my friends and I would frequently throw around, sometimes seriously while other times just being quite utterly ridiculous and to mock one another. But seriously, what is the real definition of punk anyway? And what do most people who aren't myself think when they hear it, or just someone who has absolutely no affiliation with the word. I frequently think of what outsiders and the majority of society even associates “punk” with, and what their meanings of the word are. These are probably questions I couldn't answer myself, and most people would have their own opinions, but that does not mean some descriptions and definitions are more common than others and would be accessible by anyone to fully understand, this including myself.
The Sound
“Punk Rock (noun): rock music marked by extreme and often deliberately offensive expressions of alienation and social discontent” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). While this being a very accurate description there's more to it as well. The term was coined in the early to mid 1970s for a new kind of musical movement that became popular throughout the United States, the United Kingdom and even parts of Australia.
Having it's roots in garage rock and other forms of what is now called “protopunk”, punk rock bands avoided the mass of mainstream 1970s rock. Punk bands created fast, hard-edged music with typically short songs, very basic or poor musicianship, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic in which many bands self-produced their recordings and distributed them through informal methods.
The term use of "punk" was first utilized to describe some rock music by American critics in the early 1970s, to describe garage bands and
I've been waiting to finally write an essay about something that generally interests me and at the same time, would still find a way to present itself as a challenge to grasp the full concept of. Despite it's a word that my friends and I would frequently throw around, sometimes seriously while other times just being quite utterly ridiculous and to mock one another. But seriously, what is the real definition of punk anyway? And what do most people who aren't myself think when they hear it, or just someone who has absolutely no affiliation with the word. I frequently think of what outsiders and the majority of society even associates “punk” with, and what their meanings of the word are. These are probably questions I couldn't answer myself, and most people would have their own opinions, but that does not mean some descriptions and definitions are more common than others and would be accessible by anyone to fully understand, this including myself.
The Sound
“Punk Rock (noun): rock music marked by extreme and often deliberately offensive expressions of alienation and social discontent” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). While this being a very accurate description there's more to it as well. The term was coined in the early to mid 1970s for a new kind of musical movement that became popular throughout the United States, the United Kingdom and even parts of Australia.
Having it's roots in garage rock and other forms of what is now called “protopunk”, punk rock bands avoided the mass of mainstream 1970s rock. Punk bands created fast, hard-edged music with typically short songs, very basic or poor musicianship, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic in which many bands self-produced their recordings and distributed them through informal methods.
The term use of "punk" was first utilized to describe some rock music by American critics in the early 1970s, to describe garage bands and