Fake Punk Rock Loser

The perpetual growth of what is defined as music and musical genres is likened to that of a living organism, with new musical genres and subgenres being born due to societal shifts and desires for a specific sound/movement. The musical genre of Punk rock music began its infancy as a response to the disdain felt towards the rising mainstream mannerisms of Rock & Roll and the hyper-capitalistic economy surrounding the music industry, as well as an outlet to express societal dissatisfactions. This essay will argue that the global phenomenon of Punk Rock Music and its subsequent sub-genres took hold in the mid-1970s, as a rebellious and counter-cultural movement, with a deep ethos of counter-establishment and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) attitudes. Punk rock emerged as the answer for the lost youth stuck between the idealistic political battles of the Cold War and the emerging hyper consumeristic cultural media, as an outlet to rebel against those in power, such as President Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. Through its DIY ethos and radical views, the Punk Rock music scene, which began as counter culture, reached mass cultural mainstream as the lyrics and raw energy in such a politically turbulent time garnered great popularity worldwide.

The origins of Punk rock music are still highly contentious, as many people believe its origins are inherently British in nature. Despite the truth in those beliefs in the genesis of punk rock music, the societal landscape of post World War 2 Britain and America led to differing societal norms of rebellion. Music historian Gerfried Ambrosch highlights how post WWII America was obsessed with representing the idealogical suburban life, expanding on this incessant desire for ideological self-adulation due to being heralded as the emerging world power post war, where the world is full of hedonistic leisure and salient hyper consumption. Further, expanding on his point by accentuating this newfound shift in the teenage mythology in white, middle-class life after 1945, with now the perception of having an abundance of entertainment and capitalistic options as the intrinsic American teenage dream, this emerging American lifestyle of hyper consumerism is seen as the correct answer to the looming threat of communism. Simply put, the newfound Americana that would sweep the world during the Cold War, with the white suburban teenager rebellion, came along as the integral breeding ground in the inception of American Punk.

With the emerging threat of communism in the world due the rise of Russia as a new worldwide power, with the French, Germans, and British all losing their historically constant power due to the utter destruction of WWII, the U.S. and their allies would turn towards post-war conservatism as the answer towards communism, becoming the antithesis of what you fear. Which in turn gave way for Punk rockers to create a community of opposing conservative ideology, being the most represented during the Ronald Reagan era, as the most hyper conservative and war hungry time in the Cold War, with Reagan being antithetical to everything that Punk stood for. The rise of what is now known as proto-punk is dispersed throughout the 1960s, with bands such as The Doors inspiring giants of the music industry, such as Iggy Pop, the frontman of The Stooges, who came to be one of the most influential and prominent founders of Punk rock music.

Iggy Pop recalls that when he was young, he was skeptical of The Doors due to their musical approach being “so different from the Detroit rock approach,” but when he saw The Doors play live, he realized he had more in common with their music, than that of The Beatles, becoming greatly inspired by the antagonistic relationship that Jim Morrison would impose on the audience. Such antagonistic and performative acts towards the audience became an iconic staple of Iggy Pop and The Stooges, as Clegg asserts that Iggy Pop almost singlehandedly shaped punk’s confrontational style of music. Creating an antagonistic relationship became paramount in punk music, as Iggy is credited an early creator of the stage dive, as well as creating the dynamic relationship between audience and performer in punk shows, as Iggy would gyrate his body and go as far as harming himself for the entertainment of the audience. Punk rock, as all musical genres come from an incredibly diverse list of influences and predecessors, but a pivotal aspect of how Punk music’s style and interaction with the much larger, non-punk public was heavily shaped by the rise of performative art in the 1960s, with the raw, unapologetic, and community driven movement, it would ensure the criticism of the “art establishment” in the process.

Sub-urbanism as the American dream, as aforementioned, influenced the American punk movement as the genesis of inception, with the home of many punk founders, now known as proto-punkers, heralding from Detroit, Michigan, such as MC5 and The Stooges, who played in the late 1960s. With Detroit being the perfect breeding ground for such a countercultural movement as punk to take hold, due to the great economic hardships the once vibrant and electric city, was enduring in the 1960s, and 1970s, through great deindustrialization and white flight, exasperating the great fear of the American conservative dream of a white-middle class suburban riddled America, leaving once great cities to rot and decay. The politically radical proto-punk band MC5 is heralded as being the catalyst for the term ‘punk’ reaching mainstream prominence, as Rock journalist Lester Bang’s in 1969 visited Detroit and reviewed the band for the Rolling Stone magazine. Bang’s dolled out a scathingly negative review of the band’s first album Kick Out the Jams, calling it the “works of punks on a meth power trip,” in which they were being intentionally crude, pretentious, and overbearing, going as far as claiming the music is pandering to fictional teens from the film Wild in the Streets (1968). Once Bang’s saw the band playing live to fervent crowds at local venue the Grande Ballroom iconic for fostering community, it was one of the many blossoming areas of the countercultural scene in Detroit, he realized just how important the band was in the local “scene” and just how energetic and radical such music was live, how the scene was giving life towards a tightly blossoming homegrown culture, having to retract his scathing criticisms.

Having the seeds sown of community connected with raw discontent towards society, politics, and the state of the world allowed for the most prominent of Punk bands such as The Ramones from New York and The Sex Pistols from England to have inspiration, as they both admired their predecessors like The Stooges, who opened the way for their sound to arrive. Having both of the aforementioned bands break through with commercial success, further paved the way for punk and punk adjacent music to make its impact, despite the numerous amount of pushback and censorship the music would receive from prominent music labels and magazines, giving credence for the creation of independently owned musical labels and zines, independent music labels such as A Squared which had released MC5’s first musical singles. Through commercial success and the creation of community in being rebellious, with the DIY aesthetic that both The Ramones shared in their post ironic look of dirty Americana pastiche, and the dystopian, futuristic, and sexually perverse aesthetic that The Sex Pistols represented, led the way for community in sharing a counter cultural form of dressing and expressing oneself.

Just as the birth of Punk rock music arrived incredibly fast, so did the sub-genres of punk, as it became a musical movement that would be cultivated and grown locally, as the punk scenes would be geographically dependent, but all shared the common goal of rebellion through community, with a raw and unapologetic attitude. Evidenced by the different prominent cities, states, or countries in which there were specific punks scenes, with the two most prominent being that of New York and London, with the Southern Californian punk scene making a radical political presence. The great political focus in Punk music can be traced to the Southern California scene, with prominent punk and eventually labeled hardcore band’s such as The Dead Kennedys, whose name alone excoriates the American dream, as it highlights the death of the proverbial American suburban dream, fulled of capitalism, whilst highlighting the death of the former democratic President John F. Kennedy. With the creation of more independent music labels such as Frontier Records in 1979, came the ability to help promote these bands who did not have an outlet to promote their music, with the surge of independent music labels cropping up in remote areas of the country, such as K Records in Olympia, Washington, underscoring the rise of punk music in mainstream culture, even if through independent means.

The real commercial success of Punk rock music in the mainstream, came way through the popularity of MTV music, as having music being played on MTV gave way for a band to reach a global audience, as it was the most prominent mainstream media that would promote more underground forms of music. Through the rise of MTV and other music medias shining more light on punk adjacent music, then came along the first band to truly take punk music mainstream, by way of the Seattle based ‘grunge’ band Nirvana, with their hit album Nevermind in 1991. The success of Nirvana and their ‘grunge’ punk attitude, spread the punk ethos to the mainstream media, and introduced younger audiences to their predecessors such as The Ramones and The Sex Pistols, whilst also having lyrics that were incredibly raw and vulnerable, speaking on suicidal thoughts, and bouts of depression and anxiety, such raw emotions that stayed true towards the punk ethos. Following Nirvana, the punk band Greenday broke into the mainstream, now that Nirvana had paved the way for such a thing to be possible.

In Summation, the evolution of Punk rock music, from its rebellious roots in the post WWII era, to its global mainstream success through bands such as Nirvana, highlights how music is an ever evolving thing, that will always find an audience due to social discontent and cultural movement or in this case counter-movements. Created out of rejection to the hyper capitalistic, conservative, suburban Cold War American dream, Punk music’s ethos of DIY, anti establishment sentiments, and raw unfiltered emotional expression, made way for community to be created. Despite originally being a rejection of Rock & Roll and the mainstream manner of it all, this genre never ceased to adapt and evolve, with prominent sub-genres such as grunge, hardcore, heavy metal, and more flourished in different regions of the world. Ultimately, underscoring Punk musics historical impact on shaping global popular culture, despite being a rejection of mainstream culture, it challenged societal norms and politics, whilst allowing for social movements to be intertwined with how the public engages with music.

Bibliography

Ambrosch, Gerfried. "American Punk: The Relations between Punk Rock, Hardcore, and American Culture." Amerikastudien / American Studies 60, no. 2/3 (2015): 215-33. JSTOR.

Ambrosch, Gerfried. The Poetry of Punk: The Meaning Behind Punk Rock and Hardcore Lyrics. New York: Routledge, 2018. Taylor & Francis.

Bennett, Andy. "Punk's Not Dead: The Continuing Significance of Punk Rock for an Older Generation of Fans." Sociology 40, no. 2 (2006): 219-35. JSTOR.

Clegg, Mindy. Punk Rock: Music Is the Currency of Life. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2022. DOI.

Mattson, Kevin. We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and the Real Culture War of 1980s America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. EBSCO.