Explain the asthetics of Punk

I think that it's fair to say that Punk was an angry attempt to reverse the increasingly "corporate" or commercial character that began to dominate rock music after the '60's, when business realized that there was real gold in them thar hills.

Marty

PS - Jaybo & Hodu, Sebastian's point re: Fleetwood Mac is taken. For the record (pardon the pun), cue up "Come" from Fleetwood Mac's "Say You Will". None of the punk bands mentioned here has (to my knowledge) recorded anything with the seething anger and crazed intensity of that track. Lindsey Buckingham is absolutely deranged - and I say that with the greatest respect and admiration. I also think that he doesn't like Stevie Nicks very much.

One more thought: Fleetwood Mac has got to be THE most misundertood band in the world. People think of Christine and Stevie when they should think LB. "Tusk" was a purer rejection of commercial interests (it ain't Rumors II, and from almost anyone else, you can bet that it would have been) than anything from the Punks, because Fleetwood Mac put REAL MONEY at risk by delivering quirky, challenging music when no one wanted it. For me, Tusk is on the very short list of truly great RnR records.

Marty

it was a response to corporations deciding what 'the message' would be. the germs, the adverts, the buzzcocks, penetration, stiff little fingers the only ones, and on and on and on....thousands of bands. as is always the case, the corporations now package it as nostagia in TV commercials, etc(and censor like everything else). For the uninitiated, start with the clash-london calling, and buzzcocks-singles going steady....if they don't 'knock you out' no harm done, and go back to Fleetwood Mac(sorry to use them as an example..I love them too). Its all poetry at this point anyway......Anarchy In The UK by the pistols is the ultimate loudspeaker 'killer'. It will destroy any speaker not up to the task of rock music....try it.

Punk was not an 'asthetic', it was an attitude. An essential punk primer is the Ramones documentary "End of the Century".

I too was into Punk music in my college years and did a lot of reading after the movement died down in the mid to late 80's before bands like Nirvana started to show a strong punk influence in the early 90's.

The typical historical time line that you read about started in the 60's with bands like the Velvet Underground however it was the Detroit area bands that are even more influencial like Iggy Pop who is considered the Godfather of punk and the MC5. Then the New York scene popped up with the very important Ramones (high energy, simple 3 cord progressions). The Ramone then were suppose to have played in England and sparked bands like the Pistols, Clash, The Damned, etc. Soon after the Hard Core scene popped up around the country, first in LA (Black Flag, Minutemen, Circle Jerks, Germs), and then in San Francisco (Dead Kennedys, Fear) and my favorite, DC with Minor Threat. Of course there were bands all around the country and in Canada. I was lucky to have seen many of them.

This was all very underground at the time but at some point punk went commerical with bands like Green Day, the Offspring, etc. Good bands but a big part of the punk movement was the underground nature of it.

Of course years have gone by and my tastes are much more tame now, but it was a fun time then. Sorry to ramble on, just an interesting topic.