Genre story · Punk
Punk Rock
A short, loud answer to rock's growing distance from the people who wanted to play it.
Punk rock became a recognizable international force during the mid-1970s, drawing on garage Rock, the New York underground, British working-class frustration and several earlier currents in rock and art. The Ramones helped codify a stripped-back musical attack in New York. The Sex Pistols and the Clash made a different set of political and cultural arguments in Britain. The Saints were building their own fast, abrasive sound in Brisbane. These stories developed through overlapping influences rather than one city handing the movement to another.
Three chords and many other things
Early punk often favored brisk rhythms, rough guitar sounds and immediate singing over extended solos and polished arrangements. The songs could be funny, furious or sharply observant. That apparent simplicity changed who could participate, and the networks of independent labels, small clubs and self-produced writing became inseparable from the music. Yet punk was never one fixed set of rules. Its earliest groups varied greatly in sound, politics and ambition.
What it set in motion
Hardcore intensified punk's speed and attack. Post-Punk took its willingness to reject established rock conventions into new rhythmic and experimental territory. Pop-punk developed another approach by placing melody and concise hooks in the foreground. These histories intersect, but none should erase the range of the original movement.
Essential recordings
- 1976RamonesRamonesDirect, rapid songs with almost no waste.
- 1977The Saints(I'm) StrandedAn Australian account of punk's early force.
- 1977The ClashThe ClashFast rock songs made inseparable from urban politics and social observation.