Punk's Not Dead, It's in Witness Protection (Part 1 of 2)

Well, now that I’ve got my own little corner of the internet to spout off about whatever tickles my fancy, I thought I’d do a blog about something that I’ve written about before in my Livejournal, in papers for my undergrad classes, even in a poem. After spouting off about this informally for a while, I figured I’d put it down on wax here for everyone to read.

As those who know me are aware of, I’ve been a punk fan for quite a long time. The music and the culture drew me in when I was a teenager and I was trying to impress a girl who was really into the music. It amazes me how far the music has come since its humble origins in 1976.1 A small club in New York city, originally designed for country, bluegrass and blues music, started a small music scene where the artists played something so radically different, it shifted the entire direction of music for the next 30 some odd years. Every major musical movement since then has been directly influenced by punk: post-punk, new wave, alternative and indie-rock all have a direct relationship with punk rock. Even heavy metal, which is often seen as punk’s opposite or arch nemesis, has been heavily influenced by punk over the past three decades. Essentially, punk was the restart button for rock music, virtually erasing the prog-rock bands that immediately proceeded them, resetting rock music to the place it had started at in the 1950’s only, now, it had a bit more edge to it.

The earliest definition of punk was restrictively simplistic: three chord songs that are two minutes long, played with a lot of distortion. Clearly, an entire genre could not be born out of a definition as limiting as that. Obviously, the definition was not held to very strictly, as this definition would exclude the 8-minute long opuses of Flipper or guitar-less acts like Suicide or The Screamers, all of which are referred to as punk rock with little debate. Additionally, the early punk bands were all composed of members who were not raised on punk, considering how recently the genre had developed, but had other musical influences which they, of course, incorporated into their styles. Thus, we had punk mixed with rockabilly in the band X, punk mixed with British invasion style rock in The Jam, punk mixed with 50’s style girl group music in Blondie, and punk mixed with everything from reggae to blues to early hip-hop in The Clash. These innovations made for a genre that was diverse and creative and had the ability to evolve far past the boundaries of its original definition.

Therefore, if we can’t abide by the original definition of punk rock, what kind of definition can we propose for it? I would suggest a much looser version of the original definition: chord based rock music, usually played on the guitar, which is often characterized by a loud, abrasive, and confrontational sound. This definition leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but rightfully so. For a genre to have survived for over thirty years, as punk rock has, it would need to have a definition broad enough to allow for innovation and experimentation. Essentially, punk has been abiding by this definition for most of its life, even as many punk fans claim that the original definition still applies.

Recently, for class, I’ve been reading Jason Mittell’s Genre and Television, one of the few texts ever written on genre theory in television. It makes me wish that such an in-depth genre theory study could be done with rock music, especially since, unlike television, rock music creates distinct fan cultures and customs around different genres which would be fascinating to study. Unfortunately, while television has clearly defined genre lines that are used to categorize shows in TV Guide, rock music has blurry genre lines that are subject to much heated and, at times, vicious debates amongst the fan communities.

It’s these arguments over genre distinctions that have gotten the punk rock genre, and community, into trouble. Traditionalist punk fans argue for the purity of punk rock with the famous slogan “Punk’s Not Dead.” Normally, when they invoke this slogan, they are referring to the continued existence of traditional punk bands, which abide by the original definition of the genre or, at least, come as close as possible to that original definition. This, for traditionalists, is what punk should be, and anything that does not fit into that original definition is ruining the purity of the genre. Unfortunately, it seems that these traditionalists have taken control of the genre definitions.

For a genre to evolve, it would, inevitably, need to take on new characteristics. Punk has certainly done this but, because of a desire by traditionalists to keep the genre “pure,” bands who have introduced radical innovations have been labeled as something other than punk. This is despite the fact that these new bands do fit into the broader definition of punk that I have proposed and which, as I’ve stated, punk has essentially been abiding by since its inception. Thus, when I used to tell people that, in my opinion, The Blood Brothers were the best punk band of the 21st century, I would be met with laughter by traditionalists who told me that The Blood Brothers were not a punk band. When I asked what genre they should be categorized under, I heard responses like “hardcore”2 or “post-hardcore” (whatever that is). Yet, The Blood Brothers were a chord based rock band with a distinctly abrasive style of music, which was, arguably, even more abrasive than the original punk bands of the 1970’s. This has been the situation for a lot of bands that have a punk sound that sounds different than the traditional norm, such as At the Drive-In or Pretty Girls Make Graves. Some are relegated to the genre of “hardcore,” while some are placed into the virtually definition-less genre of “indie rock.”

A few of these innovative bands that don’t fit into the usual definition of punk rock have tried to take control of their own genre categorizations by refusing to refer to themselves as anything other than punk. To give two specific examples, I want to next take a look at experimental feminist band Le Tigre, as well as the multiple bands of Dennis Lyxzén.

To be continued...



1 There is much debate as to when punk officially started. For simplicity’s sake, I usually refer to it as having started with the release of The Ramones’ self-titled album in 1976.
2 I find this genre name particularly confusing and problematic since there are already three existing genres which contain the word “hardcore” in their name—hardcore punk, hardcore rap, and hardcore techno—and all three are often referred to as simply “hardcore” for short. Thus, having a genre that is known simply as “hardcore” is particularly confusing.