The Historical Perspectives of the Punk Culture - Case Study Example

History of Punk Culture - ENC 102 (Writing Research Paper) It has been seen in historical times that a culture usually adapts an aspect of another culture; however it would not be sealed and practiced in actuality with similar mannerisms and ways. They are in essence identically given only a handful of years to be promoted in the new civilization. This is a reality in the perspective of this paper that we find out about America being a prime example of the same viewpoint and notion. During historical times but not less than three to four decades, people were known as the melting pot of each and every heritage, as each immigrant more or less held on tight to his or her individual culture. Even though this usually happened over two hundred years back, American nation really has not changed quite as yet in harmony with the diversification of different cultures from left, right and center. This paper discusses the historical perspectives of the Punk culture. Punk culture has its base way back in the 1970s when a movement started that was more or less against certain styles related with that of music that used to exist at that very time. These included Prog Rock as well as Heavy Metal, most noteworthy of which were their stars that were seen as being out of touch with their fans all the same. Thus it would not be wrong here to state that Punk Rock credits its basis in the United States that took place more or less in the late 1960s and towards the early parts of 1970s and for that matter took a lot of influence from pre-punk bands that hailed from Europe as well as that of North America in a similar manner. With the passage of time, the devotees and followers of punk culture started to carve in their own unique styles as well as dystopian forms that were in close unison with music and symphony and which were in an original form composed of different ballads and reggaes like the underground, minimalist rock and roll and so on and so forth. Thus Punk culture indeed was a distinct form of a message towards the society as a whole that there were certain problems within it and everything needed to be changed as all was not well. On its part however the punk style as well as fashion identifies its roots more visibly in England and more specifically with the connection that was present among the mohawk in the punk style. The Sex Pistols and The Ramones are some of the very well known examples that one can relate with Punk rock bands of epoch we are talking about here in this paper. Also, the effects, though direct as well as indirect of The New York Dolls are seen in a number of different and varied punk bands with the passage of time. Similarly, as time moved on, punk started to become quite distinct in its own unique self as well as a bit less minimalist where one can see the emergence of such bands like The Clash that incorporated with a number of other underground musical inspirations that entailed the ska and rockabilly as well as the hip-hop in a mixture with their music. At this juncture however, the message of the music more or less did not change and it remained constant during all this while. The same was seen as being quite subversive, capable of being remarked as a rebel at the best of times and not to forget the trademark of the same as a politically incorrect statement which was anarchist from the very onset. The punk rock used to deal with a number of ever changing subjects that took into notice quite a few problems like that of facing the society, the suppression of the lower classes as well as a host of other issues that were cropping up every now and then. Adding further to the discussion of the punk culture and its history, we find out that the influence and connection of the Mohawk in essence stemmed from the movie Taxi Driver that featured Robert DeNiro sporting one in the movie. Also, hair dye was an English approach that was aimed towards the hair-style more or less. More than that, a similar inspiration in the same vein was of the punk hair that was Richard Hell, who in reality cut his hair and thus put to foundation the typical punk look. The same was thus formed, without a shadow of a doubt. It was seen since the beginning of punk that a number of significant and noteworthy label record companies did their utmost at trying to earn profits from underground punk culture that was doing its best to come to some form of a shape. Thus it would not be wrong here to state that for the most part this was met with a lot of resistance due to the different morals and customs related with the punk culture of musical genius and sensitivity that punks often felt quite threatened by these record label companies in the name of maximizing their profits all the same while. In England, punk culture started to spread and then it paved its way towards North America in the late 1980s and the starting of 1990s when the locals experienced a different form of a culture that began to make waves every where they went to or the places where they usually enjoyed music with their friends and family. This was the time when these people developed their own sense of a distinct musical style which was remarked as the hardcore that was being perceived as being faster and quite a bit aggressive than the ones that were already present and making waves in Europe. Apart from that, the other styles also shaped up from the punk culture and the same was labeled as a wholly new genre that in essence comprised of skate punk, emo as well as the straight edge. It was towards the commencement of the 1980s decade that the punk music of the Pacific Northwest located in the United States came to be known as the grunge. These included a number of different and famous grunge bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam which demonstrated quite a heavy inspiration with regards to the punk culture and indeed the related music in their acts and songs. The music of Nirvana and Pearl Jam thus marked the beginning of the early days of commercial success and then it moved on from there towards an entirely different style related with punk that was termed as being successful and much more upbeat in the mainsteam, labeled as the power-pop or pop-punk. The latter had a number of different examples in the form of bands and solo acts like Simple Plan, Good Charlotte and Sum 41. It is a fact that with the passage of time, a lot many people have started to opine about the related commercizlization of the punk culture and the music that comes in harmony with it. These people of the original punk subculture discern that commercialization of punk is one that disillusions than anything else in the realm of truth. Apart from this notion, these people also fathom that punk is indeed the unpopular form and they view pop punk as being a contradiction and thus the same should be the way to go about the whole discussion as to a distinct provision of a much needed challenge towards the mainstream culture. It was with the passage of time that the superstars of punk music and indeed the fathers of the culture itself started to bend towards the attraction of the commercial world. They adopted the much hyped corporate rock world that entailed of the commercial media including the Rolling Stone, Sex Pistols and The Clash as being the only lawful representations of punk. Members of these bands went on to the more commercial dance- club success in the form of Public Image Ltd. as well as the Big Audio Dynamite. Indeed the basis of the word punk comes from the fact that it made its initial appearance in music journalism in a 1970 essay that was titled as the "The Punk Muse: The True Story of Protopathic Spiff Including the Lowdown on the Trouble-Making Five-Percent of Americas Youth" and penned down by Nick Tosches in Fusion. Nick did his best at giving a description of a kind of unique music that was a "visionary expiation, a cry into the abyss of ones own mordant bullshit," as he continued that the poetry of punk music was “puked, not plotted." The same year, in 1970, Lester Bangs wrote a novella which was called the Drug Punk as it was more or less an inspiration of William Burroughs book called the Junky, in which there was a line, "Fucking punks think it is a joke. They would not think it is so funny when they are doing five twenty nine on the island." Moving further ahead, Dave Marsh was quick to remark in the same vein by penning a phrase "punk rock" in his Looney Tunes column in the year 1971. Tosches, Bangs, Marsh, Richard Meltzer, Greg Shaw and Lenny Kaye used the same term in order to describe a standard related with the proto punk bands that in essence comprised of the Velvets, Stooges, MC5, the Modern Lovers and the New York Dolls to name a few. As luck would have it, the band that in reality inspired the magazine called Punk owes its basis from the upstate city of New York, which was indeed a pack full of leather jacketed wise guys and who was remarked as The Dictators. It was also the time when Singer Handsome Dick Manitoba finished the image with a pro-wrestling star personality. Joey Ramone also attended a number of different Dictators performances. In the truest sense, the word punk sounds more like as summing up the threat that surrounds everything that the people who follow it and are a part of the whole related culture are as it echoes well with their likes, dislikes, their urge to drink at all possible times as well as being loathsome and smart but not pompous. It showed their mental conditions like being meaningless, funny, tongue in cheek as well as things that in all fairness targeted towards the darker side of certain things to say the least. In the year 1990, different people started to have quite varied thoughts about the punk culture as they claimed that it was dead and not prevalent anymore. More so, a lot many hold the view that the culture is still dying and is in the related process. Many have discarded the theory that rock and roll exists anymore in the times much like today. But one should take into perspective that these people have learned one thing or the other from this whole persona concerned with the punk culture and its diversified fields. They have learned to adopt the same unsighted cynicism that of late has been the root cause of a number of bands forming up and then abandoning their unified acts. The same is also quite evident in the music world of today. In the face of the wide variety of modern and up to date elements related with punk, it is agreed by one and all that punk culture started to shape up in England in the years between 1976 and 1981, where one can witness that the initial and indeed the simplest from of punk music commenced and then ended as well. Hence one could see that there was quite a dominant form of a change in the kind of music that was being developed and done in this epoch in England. Indeed this development resulted in the inspiration of the punk culture in a number of other areas where it could never have been imagined playing a superior role bringing it back from where it all started. This talks about its birth, the growing times and the eventual death. Punk music was thus seen as being a clear reaction against the affectation of the more established and renowned bands of the mid seventies and also the progressive rock bands that had songs which were so lenient as well as unreachable to the youth of Britain that one could comprehend a sort of a blatant slit in the culture exhibited by the youth. In England, there was seen a new wave that started to make rounds in the punk music circles which had an abundant talent related with talent that was not really talent in the truest sense of the word as well as comprised of a number of characterless punk bands which more often than not brought to the table releases that could be remarked as being mediocre than anything else. Even as there was witnessed the death of the old punks, one could see the signaling of the mediocrity in the form of bands like the UK Subs and the Clashs less popular second effort and not to forget the presence of such new bands like the Undertones who released the perpetual classic Teenage Kicks and thus did their bit at adding pop to punk. Joy Division was also active during this while who carved their way in with simple punk as nonentities Warsaw and were signed to Factory records at the same time. In the year 1979, punk culture started to witness a decline within England as there was a death from a heroin overdose of Sid Vicious, which indeed marked the very end of the opening punk impetus, if there was any. Bibliography Daspit, Toby. Popular Culture and Critical Pedagogy: Reading, Constructing, Connecting. Garland, 2000 Inge, M Thomas. Handbook of American Popular Culture. Greenwood Press, 1989 Sabin, Roger. Punk Rock, So What? The Cultural Legacy of Punk. Routledge, 1999 Daugherty, Rebecca. The Spirit of ’77: Punk and the Girl Revolution. Women & Music, 2002 Goshert, John Charles. "Punk" After the Pistols: American Music, Economics, and Politics in the 1980s and 1990s. Popular Music and Society, Vol. 24, 2000 Sandhu, Sukhdev. Another Time. New Statesman, Vol. 134, 2005 Johnson, Phil. Blank Generation. New Statesman, Vol. 129, 2000 Word Count: 2,286 Read More