how do you, personally, distinguish between genres [ugh] of punk / post-punk / new wave / etc.?

Post-punk is punk-influenced or obviously derived with more rhythmic variety, less to-the-point. That's reliant upon what you determine to be punk, since it could mean everything from the Pistols to Wire to Devo. New wave isn't necessarily a watered-down spin on post-punk, but it's more pop.

Or you could just say that new wave and post-punk are the same damn thing. Then again, I would cringe to think of Wang Chung as a post- punk band.

Joy Division: not very funny (in a good way).

Now, "New Wave" - that's a tricky one - because new wave to me is the new wave of proto-punk/pop - (like very early DEVO, Pere Ubu, Stiff Records and maybe reaching forward to early XTC types..) New wave pre-dated punk, although the only examples I can think of are local & unknown. Maybe Roxy Music, but not really. Maybe Can. It was the alternate path to what's now called "classic rock." The Velvet Underground disciples -vs- the Beatles/Stones.

Human League, Kaja GooGoo etc, is not really new wave to me - just synthpop. (or next wave.)

Stuff coming from the same place but with breathing room, rhythmic variation, openness to non-guitar instruments, etc. = post-punk.

Stuff retaining the power-chords forward-motion structure of punk but incorporating different rhythms and instruments and levels of aggression = early new wave.

That is so lazy, though. My apologies.

Subject: how do you, personally, distinguish between genres [ugh] of punk / post-punk / new wave / etc.?

I don't.

"Post-Punk" now seems like a very dated term, whereas "Punk" is still bandied about liberally.

But we shouldn't stick to historical definitions here. Otherwise "post-punk" would refer to the sexual activities of certain men after they've been released from jail...

"I believe "Post-Punk" meant anything recorded after the Punk heyday (`76-`78?) with obvious stylistic nods to said genre. That it later came to represent very specific bands/sounds is a bit more amorphous."

A common misconception based on the fact that the name *post*-punk is an extremely misleading misnomer, which was created *long* after the event in order to attempt to retrospectively rationalise things in order to by conveniently overlooking the fact that an enormous amount of the bands / artists / music who have been labelled "post-punk" actually existed at the same time as or in some cases (Devo, Pere Ubu) even *before* mainstream punk.

""Post-Punk" now seems like a very dated term, whereas "Punk" is still bandied about liberally."

Punk died sometime around '79 - ask anyone who was about at the time and they'll tell you.

There are still quite a few *former* punk bands still kicking about; the good ones generally have moved on stylistically and remained more true to the punk ethos by doing so; thare are also some crap ones making a mockery of themselves by playing the same tired old stuff for the nostalgia market; there are very few, if any, genuine old punk bands still making music which is recognisably "punk".

Any alleged "punk" bands who fomed after about '83 are in fact punk *revival* bands and therefore by definition (since the whole concept of a "revival" is completely alien to everything punk ever stood for) wankers.

Alex is absolutely OTM about the expression "New Wave" (the term was actually considered an insult by many punk bands).

“There are no new waves, there is only the ocean.”

What about the new wave?
Did you think it would change things?

Here we all are in the latest craze
Stick with the crowd,
Hope it´s not a passing phase
It´s the latest thing to be nowhere
You can turn into the wallpaper
But you know you were always there anyway
Without the new wave

What about the new wave?
Did you think it would change things?

It´s just safety in numbers

When it´s tricky, when it gets tough
When you need to feel that you´re good enough
All you pretty people who´ve been taken over
Had better start looking for your own answers
´Cause there´s no safety in numbers anyway
Or in a new wave

What about the new wave?
Did you think it would change things?

It´s just safety in numbers

I didn't say they were right to bandy it around today, just that they do.

Rock: Dead Boys, New Y. Dollz, Vibrators, etc. Also rock: pub-rock a la Nick Lowe and the Beesley Shorts, Dux Deluckse, etc. Big Star and all that supposedly "pre-punk" rock that did not sell.

New Wave: XTC, the Talkin' Heads, Deke MacManus and the Attractions, Fuck of Seagulls, ABC, Annie Lenox, Yaz, all that crap. Huey Lewis--hip to be square, wasn't that part of the whole new wave message? So, not too removed from Reaganomix/Yuppiedom?

It was over by 1979, I hear--when did "London Calling" come out, early '80s? That would be the definite point at which it was over, they turned into cockney Springsteen by then.

What the fuck do you mean by "maybe"?!?!?!??!? Richard Hell practically *INVENTED* Punk Rock!!!

Possibly the funniest thing ever written on ILM!

What the fuck do you mean by "maybe"?!?!?!??!? Richard Hell practically *INVENTED* Punk Rock!!!

-- Alex in NYC

Did he? I listened to his shit on the Stiff box set the other day, and "Blank Generation" struck me as some kind of bad nite-club jazz riff w/standard-issue "we're a new, fucked-up generation" lyrics...I didn't think it was very good. It seemed like bad sloganeering, "blank generation." Not that punk was supposed to be good but still it didn't move me. Very annoying vocally and not in a good way--at least Tom Verlaine had all that guitar wankery to fall back on. I don't mean to put you down for saying that Richard Hell invented punk, but didn't the Ramones invent it? Richard Hell seems like more of that "alienated poet" bullshit punk-rock was supposed to have mad obsolete.

I do like one song of R.H.'s, though, from the '80s--"Kid With the Replaceable Head" w/ R. Quine.

"Blank Generation" was the blueprint Malcolm McLaren cribbed notes from and projected onto the Pistols ("Pretty Vacant" was basically the `Pistols response to McLaren's orders to come up with their own version of "Blank Generation".)

"I didn't think it was very good. It seemed like bad sloganeering"

Well, there's nothing I can do about that, although personaly speaking I think it's a pretty brilliant (and -- for its time -- unique) statement.

"Not that punk was supposed to be good but still it didn't move me."

'Good' is a relative term.

"didn't the Ramones invent it?"

Fair point, which is why I said Hell *PRACTICALLY* invented -- i.e. not necessarily on his own. But, Hell can also be accused of the being the first n'erdowell to rip his clothes, cut his hair short and jab safety-pins everywhere.....and McLaren was certainly paying attention.

"Richard Hell seems like more of that 'alienated poet' bullshit....."

A fair characterization, although I'd sooner brand Patti Smith with that tag.

"...punk-rock was supposed to have mad[e] obsolete."

I think Punk Rock -- in both the US and the UK -- sought to render boorish ART rock ala Pink Floyd and Emerson Lake & Palmer, Corporate rock ala Boston, Toto and Foreigner obsolete....not necessarily the artier 'alienated poet' aspects.

That's because it was a direct parody (musically and lyrically) of an old Rod McKuen song called "The Beat Generation" (which was a parody of the beat generation).

But seriously...no, I wasn't aware of the McKuen-Hell connection. So "Blank Generation" is really like a comedy routine. Makes sense now. Richard Hell seems to take himself so seriously somehow.

Hey, thanks, Jody Beth, will listen to "Beat Generation" mp3 tomorrow!

post-punk = simple, stark, depressing album covers

new-wave = simple, stylish, neon album covers.

As a convenient little box to put them in stylistically I guess "New Wave" is as good as anything, but again this clearly demonstrates the fallacy in the theory that New Wave followed on afterwards / as a consequence to punk!

".... when did "London Calling" come out, early '80s?"

'79 over here, '80 in the US

"As with all births there was growth and maturity this led to sonic transformations which fundamentalists would argue do not hold true to the raw gritty edge of Punk but even the John Lydon -leftfield collaboration cannot hide it's procrastinators punk roots.the fluid morphing of musical styles continues to progress."

Absolutely right David - and it's here were so many people seem to come up against the perennial confusion between "punk" as it originally meant to the people who created it ("punk" as attitude if you really must) and the media invention of "punk" (let's call this "punk rock" for now so we can differentiate between the two) as a musical genre, based on the sounds of a relatively small - but relatively conspicuous / vociferous / high-profile - section of the bands within that scene (Ramones, Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned, Heartbreakers etc.).

The bands / musicians with real "punk" attitude frequently didn't want to stand still stylistically - and they certainly didn't want to be associated with this homogenised and neutered new media product called "punk-rock"; so they changed their sound.

By 1980 not even the (former) Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned or indeed Richard Hell sounded like "punk rock" any more (Blondie, Devo, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Television, and in the UK The Banshees, Buzzcocks, Fall, Joy Division, Magazine, Slits, XTC, Wire etc. etc. etc. never really had to start with).

The bands who were left (still) playing "punk rock", in general (ramones excepted, obv., although even they tried other things cf. Road To Ruin!) generally were not punks and ended up as "Oi!", "hardcore" etc.

The latter, of course.... it just happened to be a dischordant mass consciousness of which a significant part had spent a significant amont of time listening to The MC5, Stooges and Velvet Underground. ;~)

Right--it was not a consequence. Declan McM. was into Randy Newman while he was doing his dayjob. All those pub-rockers--Brinsley Schwarz wanted to sound like the Band, but Nick Lowe's lyrics were already in '72 almost as dismissive of all that hippie piety as stuff five/six years later. If you count "power-pop" among new-wave styles, then you had Big Star playing new wave in 1971.
So yeah, I think there was obviously a continuum... So, "revision of canon" for new wave; "fuck the canon" for punk.

Huey Lewis listened to David Byrne and took it seriously--that's great!! It's horrible, but Huey Lewis says "1980s" more than just about any other American pop musician...I can't stomach either one these days but I think Huey Lewis was more honest, actually.

.... were not only kicking about BEFORE punk but were if anything an influence ON punk rather than influenced BY it.

Byrne and Lewis = only punk when they're on Patrick Bateman's Walkman!

Sure.
The Talking Heads--I saw them back on that "Stop Making Sense" tour and they put on a darned good show--were fine as a take on the funk music of the '70s. They could play it all right and they had good taste in it--"Bohannon, Bohannon," they used Bernie Worrell, etc. But what I find insufferable now is David Byrne, those fucking vocals, and I am about half-serious when I say that their political "message" really is just like Huey Lewis', "hip to be square." How the Talking Heads proclaiming that the world moves on a woman's hips and Huey waxing poetic about the power of love is fundamentally different, perhaps someone could explain to me? Again, I'm being half-serious here, but I kinda do think that something just obviously stupid and pop like Huey Lewis is more honest than something like the T. Heads. And no, I am no believer in the Chuck Eddy school of revisionism either. I've just listened to a whole lot of funk and soul music and I don't find the T.H.s all that compelling compared to the original stuff. I would've liked the whole T.H. thing better if they'd gotten Johnnie Taylor to sing with them and all the songs were like something Johnnie Taylor used to do...so I'm old-fashioned in that way I guess...and while I'm an Eno fan, Eno's pronouncements on the nature of music, and his claims to be doing something mysterious or new in the production of his or other people's music, strikes me as a buncha bullshit too...

-- o. nate

Yeah, I hear you, but I myself find quite a bit of "irony" in Johnnie Taylor's "Who's Making Love," so what do I know.

Shut up. Fuck you. You're Wrong. And an idiot. blah blah blah. you know the routine.

I got into some kind of ridiculous "discussion" with this guy from England who kept telling me that the Velvet Underground "started punk." Well, I tried to change the subject--basketball, politics, Macs vs. PCs, but he kept on it...he was convinced he was right about it. What about the Seeds, Bobby Fuller? The Troggs? (pulling out all the stops in the Bangs get-back-down-to-American-basics routine). Nope, he was having none of it. It was an ugly moment and our respective girlfriends were looking at each other, these geeks we're saddled with...

A lot like this guy, also from the old country, who argued with me for an hour about rockabilly--that Tennessee Ernie Ford was really the father of rockabilly, not Elvis or Perkins. Hillbilly boogie=rockabilly in his equation, just as "repetition=punk" in V.U. argument. Not realizing that no one with a mustache has ever successfully played rockabilly... and didn't some of the V.U. have facial hair?

So--where do the more enlightened folks here at ILM think it --punk--"started"? I vote the first Ramones album.

The rest, the ones that dressed up and used a lot of synths, are synthpop or new romantics, not new wave.

Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and Boomtown Rats on the other hand were all already gigging / touring.

'Watching The Detectives' skanks kinda

Bimble has a blog.

http://windyweather-bimble.blogspot.com/

Punk - Couldn't tune their guitars.
Post-Punk - Could tune their guitars. Didn't.

I'd rather say the postpunkers tuned their guitars out-of-tune on purpose just to create a particular mood. Just like Velvet Underground and Roxy Music had done before them in the 60s and early 70s.

i'm goth

nice bimble

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvJFUmejsik

Fantastic video, Catsup.

Watch it, Wheelie. :)

Bimble loves you

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2008/04/dragon-blue-hades-park-cd-1998-japan.html

^ dark, sample-laden free-jazz tinged post punk

Bagpipes grooving over free jazz drumming and a Joy Divison bassline right now

you know, I have that Weeds single, as well as another Weeds single from NZ and untill now I didn't realize they were different bands. I got them at the same time and never paid attention.

Punk - boring luddite shit
Postpunk - slightly more interesting and less luddite shit
New Wave - pop with eyeliner

Nick wins

new wave is the best because it has keyboards and beats. post-punk is good too because they ripped off fusion and krautrock sometimes. punk is just awful

-- ethan, Wednesday, October 3, 2001 5:00 PM (Wednesday, October 3, 2001 5:00 PM) Bookmark Link

I don't think punk is awful, but it has a short shelf-life with me...it's really fun and exciting for about an hour and then...

And I think it's interesting that normally we think of New Wave as having keyboards...I mean it's not like it's written in stone, I've seen writers saying bands with no keyboards are New Wave, but yeah that's the general impression you get with that term, isn't it?