Punk music, or was it more of a movement?

{ February 3, 2009 @ 8:46 pm } · { Uncategorized }

In the 1970′s punk music went into full swing because of many teens that were tired of the “artists that compromised their integrity” as Dylan Clark said in the article “The Death and Life of Punk, The Last Subculture”. Many of those teens were the influential generation that consumed punk music in its prime. Was the appeal of something controversial intriguing to these teens, or the idea of something less mainstream and more their “own” the main appeal? The beginning of punk was the beginning of a new “subculture”.
In the movie, “American Hardcore”, influential bands of the time are interviewed and help us understand where punk music originated from, and why. For many teens, anger is a common feelings whether it is toward the world, parents or society, it is there. Those teens were the ones that needed an outlet from the world, that punk music eventually gave them. Punk music was their alternate source of entertainment to what was being produced mainstream.
Punk music had a DIY mentality that led to its popularity. The idea of this being the alternative scene that angered teens could be a part of was enticing. This was the outlet that many parents probably feared because they simply did not understand it. I feel that there is a certain appreciation that goes along with anything that has a “DIY” mentality, and punk music is no exception. Was the idea that these bands were self-proclaimed even more appealing to teens because they were dealing with their own hardships?
I am not a personal fan of the music that I heard on the movie, but the whole idea of promoting yourself on your own was awesome. I felt that it was part of the idea of punk as a whole too because it was something that was different, and promoting yourself was not something that was commonly done at that time. Now-a-days we have Myspace which enables people to promote themselves and become “overnight” celebrities, if you will, but this was not something that was available to these bands at the time.
As a result, punk became more of a movement than just a type of music because of what it represented. But, has it really a “dead” movement, or are there bands that still embody the same message and style that the original punk rockers had?

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