Born from the deeply rooted American ideals of challenging political power and empowering personal expression, punk rock was an attempt to expose everything about society that was meant to be hidden. Punk rock’s sound and attitude was both a rebellion against the perceived homogenized cultural of the 1950s, and an anthem for the protest movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Counter-culture doesn’t begin to describe the crashing guitars, furious energy, and bile-spewing vocals coming from a garage-based musical movement intent on destroying everything that went before it.
Often cited as an influencer across the spectrum of today’s American music, Punk’s brashly defiant political and social impact has never faded from American culture.
Post-World War II American society in the early- to mid-1950s rode a wave of patriotism into a collective conformity centered on economic prosperity, social conformity, and the promise of security only a democratic world power could provide. The rise of television and the national reach of radio provided a scripted and safe cultural experience to be shared by old and young people alike.
However, not everyone of that time conformed to these cultural norms. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a cultural rebellion was brewing. Some writers, painters, film makers, reporters, and musicians went out of their way to challenge American complacency and purposefully shock the culture (White). Garage bands, hell bent on self-expression, used their music to scream their message. Punk rock was finding its voice.
As the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, extremes in American politics resulted in polarizing shifts in social norms, political unrest, and the meteoric rise in anti-establishment sentiment in American youth.
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Fueled by images of the violence of the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon’s fall from grace, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the growing threat of nuclear war, American youth had more access to, and more to say about, the world around them. 1970s youth were becoming a generation willing to wield the first amendment. The rise of the drug culture, the restrictive censure of artist by governments, and the melding of racial boundaries in the face of legal barriers drove an anti-government focused movement of unbridled sex, rampant drug use, explicit rock n’ roll, and very loud, public protests.
When asked about the 1967 Detroit Riots, MC5’s lead singer Rob Tyner said, “The air was full of smoke and sirens and gunfire. It was like a World War II army movie where you’re hearing all this in the background except it was real. These were streets that I grew up on and was raised and went to school, and these neighborhoods I knew all my life and now the entire order of daily life was turned upside down. It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time” (Hiatt).
Punk rock was not only a genre of fast, hard-driving, unapologetically offensive rock music, but a rebellion against the mainstream, more produced, and lyrically safe progressive rock music of the 1950s and early 1960s. Artists that pioneered this culture were “proto-punk” garage bands like The Sonics, MC5, Surfin’ Bird, and Iggy Pop’s The Iguanas. These were some of the earliest American bands to claim the punk label and attitude. Punk rock embodied the protest mentality of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lyrics were meant to be overtly offensive, outwardly sexual, and even violent.
Wayne Kramer, guitarist of MC5, was asked if he had any hesitation when it came time to drop the F-bomb when he uttered the immortal line, “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!” He responded, “None. Because my sense was that this was language of everyday usage in America. Everybody used that language, and it was a normal, everyday word. It was colorful and provocative and fit the criteria of a great rock ‘n’ roll song. You know, Elektra Records said that they agreed with us, that the Constitution was on our side, that this was free speech to use this language in an art form. But in the end, they decided against backing our play” (Harris). Punk rock was born.
Fashion has always been a way of sending a message, and the idea that punk rock culture was a rebellion was clearly shown in the counter-culture’s fashion. It was a backlash against the dainty late sixties ethos of flares, drapes, peace and love. In its place came ripped jeans, safety pins, tattered jackets, sweat, and anger. “Soft lines were replaced with sharp cuts; 15 minute progressive-rock jams struck down by two-minute distorted bursts” (Claire). Punk rock was a response to the perceived lack of substance and meaning in the music of the day; the flash of disco, the self-promotion of progressive rock, and the herd-mentality of stadium rock.
When asked if punk rock still has a reason to exist as much as it did back in the Reagan years, 1970s Punk icon Dead Kennedys’ bassist Klaus Flouride said, “Every bit as much, and I have to say that there are many forms and styles that can be described as ‘punk’. I try not to limit what I accept as punk rock and punk attitude. But there are still many social and political issues that still haven’t changed much from the Regan years, indeed some have gotten far far worse, a situation that is rather mind boggling” (punknews.org, 2012).
Punks influence can be found across the spectrum of American music. The definition of punk has morphed over the years, yet has maintained a certain rigid hold on the concepts of personal messaging and freedom of expression. Black Flag singer Henry Rollins explained punk rock like this, “Questioning anything and everything, to me, is punk rock.”
The Punk Revolution in 1950s. (2022, Apr 26). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/the-punk-revolution-in-1950s/
