Punk Rock: C or D?

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Okay, being the cheeky bastard I am, I tried to think of the most devisive question possible. The closest I could come was this; I assume that, for *the majority* of us, our listening habits are informed to some degree by punk rock, even if it's because we listen to music which sprang up in its wake or predicted it. So, punk rock: regressive musical menace or liberating three-chord theology? Has its legacy been one of good or ill? Would the world be a markedly different place if it never happened at all? Have at it, youse.

― Jess, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When done correctly, classic. When you are one of many countless imitators, dud.

― Jeff, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

How is it "done correctly"? Does it even have an "it" to imitate?

My answer is Classic, but I wonder what exactly is being pinned down. I won't contribute to the discussion; I know it when I hear it.

― Sean, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Playing something that sounds like 77 now certainly wouldn't be punk rock, would it? For a long time, I always figured punk was That Which Was Good. So: Key Lime Pie was punk rock. DC hardcore was not. Etc etc. But really, it waas just a brief phase, and now, 30 years on, there's loads of good music, both stripped-down and overblown, and often by folks who draw nothing whatsoever from punk rock.

So, to answer your question more directly, if someone was playing something now that sounded like the Dead Kennedys, it wouldn't necessarily be either "regressive musical menace" or "liberating three- chord theology". I don't think it'd excite me much, but if the songs were good, maybe.

― Mr. Mark Lerner, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Creative democracy; classic. The music, the dogma, general content; on the whole, dud.

― matthew james, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The late Tim Yohannon used to butt heads with people all the time because he considered punk a sound... and people used to find Maximum RocknRoll narrow-minded and dogmatic (which it was) because they couldn't see that Tiger Trap or Huggy Bear was just as punk even if it was weak and girly and apolitical. So which is it: a sound, snarling and raging and energetic, or a lifestyle/attitude, inclusive of even the most gentle sounds as long as it's DIY? Is Blink 182 punk?

― Andy, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Debates about Punk nearly invariably turn into the MR&R letters page. Punk discourse these days is the saddest rock discourse extant. Blink 182 might as well be Punk, for all I care, and they're certainly a better band than nearly anyone else laying claim to the legacy of punk. Punk revivalist fashion kicks the ass of mod revivalist fashion.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm all for digging up Tim Yohannon, lacquering the corpse and putting it somewhere where punk dogmatists can be paraded by. Adding the inscription 'this is what happens to you if you have no sense of humor' would be even more entertaining.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, he wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs...

― Andy, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

[actually there is somewhere another thread on EXACTLY this topic: to which I kept promising the DEFINITIVE answer and not delivering... as if 25 yrs ain't enuff time for me to make my mind up pah]

― mark s, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

So.
Ere it is.
Again.
12XU!!!!

― mark s, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

goddammit. i knew it. i just knew it. sigh. well, i was mostly looking forward to hearing mark's and the others opinions on this anyway, so i guess its not so bad...

― Jess, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Bryce from popped.com has a good screed on this topics over at rockcritics, where he reviews Blink 182's Rock Show.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 17 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

what is this punk music you talk of?

― Geoff, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you are 15 and in a cold city , you pick up a guitar and just start pissing. You get a few hall show gigs , pure safe agression. punk classic !

― anthony, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If punk is a musical genre we have to be talking about a sound, right? The "punk attitude" is something totally different. Punks didn't invent musical DIY, Charles Mingus did, so maybe we should call these kids in studded leather jackets "Jazz kids."

Sometimes I'll say to somebody, "I don't really like punk" and they'll say "Well PE was totally punk!" to which I'll reply "Well I guess I do like punk, then!"

I like punk music when it's good pop music, other than that, its nothing special to me. Punk lost its utility as a vehicle for expressing rage when music moved on. There is more intense music out there for expressing rage than punk.

― Mark, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Punks didn't invent musical DIY, Charles Mingus did": when, Mark? How? (No diss to Mingus , who I like, but I can't reach out and find what the"i-for-it" is that you're saying he invented...)

PE are prog, of course. All hiphop is prog.

― mark s, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark -- I was thinking of him starting Debut as a way to do it himself, get away from "The industry." He seemed an early pioneer in terms of controlling all aspects of what he did.

― Mark, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

OH!! Yeah, musician runs own label: yes, not sure I can cap that at all. Though maybe at least one of the wave of proto-R&B indie labels in the 40s (indies were called "mongrel" labels in the industry then), I dunno, there was a lot of them.

Actually Ra's Saturn might be co-eval with Debut (I'm guessing) and more "punky".

But punk got the run-yr-own label idea from the Beatles and Apple, as anyone knows.

― mark s, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Punk changed the way you think about any event in pop culture whether you like it or not (this is documented fairly well on Greil Marcus' book on the subject). That is its lasting effect. To answer the question, like any cultural event, it will have positive and negative aspects, and yes, it did change things. For better or for worse, it did.

― Julio Desouza, Saturday, 18 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I always expected punk to sound like metal, and metal to sound like...not music, actually. Imagine my disappointment when I actually heard punk rock! Still, my current ability level is in the three- chord range....

As for ideologically, I find it silly, but at least interesting.

― Lyra, Monday, 20 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

five years pass...

PUNK!

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 10 July 2007 23:40 (eighteen years ago)

It boggles my mind that this has never been revived before (not that there's any good reason to revive it).

― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 10 July 2007 23:44 (eighteen years ago)

Oh please -- it's over. Let's let it go.

― Alex in NYC, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 00:05 (eighteen years ago)

B-but I'm reading "Please Kill Me" for the first time!

― lukas, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 00:10 (eighteen years ago)

As well you should be.

― Alex in NYC, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 00:13 (eighteen years ago)

the most devisive question possible

http://www.dowahdiddy.com/kitchen/ronco.jpg http://www.worth1000.com/entries/87500/87903KQsO_w.jpg http://www.geocities.com/heartland/plains/8145/ronco_food_dehydrator.jpg

― Tim Ellison, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 00:17 (eighteen years ago)

I mean, "classic" obviously --- but it's dead, dead, dead (by a loooooong shot) in 2007. No matter what these girls might try to tell you.

― Alex in NYC, Wednesday, 11 July 2007 00:18 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

THESE OUR STREETS
THIS OUR TOWN
THESE OUR LIVES
AND THIS OUR SOUND
NO ONE IS
GONNA TAKE THAT AWAY FROM MEEEEEEEE

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 28 May 2009 03:38 (sixteen years ago)

so there's a new rancid album coming out...

― ian, Thursday, 28 May 2009 04:04 (sixteen years ago)

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