Punks.com

Punk music has been around for over three decades now, starting with the famous punk rock bands the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, who blew up on either side of the Atlantic with furies of power chords and rebel attitude beginning in 1974. The most popular wave of punk bands came about in the year of 1977, when the Ramones were gaining stardom in the punk community and soon to be legendary punk bands like The Cramps, The Damned, and The Misfits had began to take form.

Towards the end of the ‘70s and into the early ‘80s, punk rock had begun to make major changes. Firstly, punks had begun to have their own style of punk clothing, consisting of leather jackets, studs, patches, and slim-fitting pants. This included their own punk hairstyles, typically dying them wild, bright colors and/or shaving their heads into Mohawks or spikes. This led to a division between the punk community and mainstream culture. Punk clothing had become a way to find like minded people who were against the status quo. The second thing that arose was the division of punk rock into sub genres. Post-punk became evolved into a more experimental musical experience forwarded by bands like Joy Division and the Cure, while the hardcore punk scene drove the music louder and faster and even more chaotic. Hardcore became the defining sound of punk in the ‘80s, led by punk bands like the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, and Crass, spreading the anarcho-punk message.

Over time however, some of the hardcore bands grew more melodic, based more on the style of some of the Ramones’ old pop songs, and this grew into what is now the most popular genre of punk to rise: Pop-punk. While early hardcore bands like the Descendants and Bad Religion were the forerunners, the genre gave way to bands without any hardcore influence in them. By the early ‘90s, bands such as the Vandals, Green Day, and NOFX began playing songs with catchier hooks than some songs played on the radio.

These days, punk clothing has become so mainstream that it no longer contains the shock value it had just two decades earlier. Bands like Blink-182 and Rise Against brought punk rock to the masses, to the critic of some older punk devotees. While some of punk has become just more pop culture, some of these devotees continue to push on. Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys and Iggy Pop continue to tour as long as there is a crowd to sing to. Older bands like Bad Religion have even changed their style to adapt to the changing ways of the punk genre as a whole. New punk bands like TAT, Dirty Pretty Things, and Defiance, Ohio continue to pop up and carry the punk banner. As we start the new decade, punk continues to strive for social change with wailing guitars and pounding drums.