Over the course of decades the music scene has evolved dramatically and the branching out of music genre’s has flourished since the likes of The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppellin to new sounds and styles. One of the big movements that happened during the reign of Led Zeppellin was the dirty, angry and hungover Punk Rock movement of the 70′s. A genre that was quick to get shit from every critic and band that had anything to say during the time period where long guitar solo’s and happy lyrics ruled the radio. Punk was more of a label given to bands that wore tons of leather, drank alot and mostly sang about being middle to lower class and hating the social norms of their culture. Sex Pistols of England were the most notorious for this considering they took on the Punk name with pride by being more angry and violent at every show they ever performed. The band was so punk rock that their bass player was so lit up on alcohol and drugs during sets they sometimes would turn off his speaker and let him just run wild thinking he was playing on stage and have the guitars overtake the sound of the song. The bass player notoriously being known as Sid Vicious was the icon of the Punk Rock scene and a huge punk himself, with his spikey greased up hair, scars on his chest from cutting himself on stage, chronic substance abuse and masochistic relationship with long time girlfriend Nancy. The band was notorious in the punk rock scene and couldn’t even stay together long enough to release more then 1 album which today is still an iconic album in all genre’s.
Another band in England had a much better success rate and may not of been as punk rock as the Sex Pistols but still could only be classified into that genre, of course I’m talking about the self proclaimed “the only band that matters” The Clash. The Clash’s self titled debut was their most punk rock album and had legendary tracks such as “White Riot” and “I Fought The Law” but is probably not their most recognized album. The follow up and best album by far they ever released was London Calling which had huge tracks such as the album track, “Brand New Cadillac”, “Death or Glory” and “Train In Vain” The band had huge success in both the UK and US and lasted for several albums but unfortunately met their end by the late 80′s.
The first mainstream and popular Punk Rock band from the United States was around the same time as their UK counterparts and it was New York’s Ramones who had probably the longest running success and several huge breakthrough albums that set the standards for US punk rock. With huge songs such as “I Wanna Be Sedated”, “Rockaway Beach”, “Rock n Roll High School”, “Bird Is The Word”, “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “Beat on the Brat” just to name a few. The band toured for over 20 years but unfortunately most of the members have died and most importantly the lead singer Joey whose singing style was iconic for the Punk Rock scene.
Punk had evolved into different forms by the mid 80′s and most notoriously the style of music that has gained the most popularity and evolved into what is now considered Post Hardcore or “Emo”. I’m talking about the American Punk movement which was given the name Hardcore Punk due to it’s “fast as I can play” style and screaming lyrics and aggressive stage performances. The movement factioned almost gang like with territories of the country claiming to be the foundation of Hardcore. New York had icons such as the Cro-Mag’s who were huge linebacker looking guy’s pretty much living in poverty writing some of the earlier hardcore songs. Where Washington D.C. had the all black legendary band in Bad Brain’s who every hardcore band wanted to mimic and play with on stage. California had Black Flag who recruited D.C. native Henry Rollins to put out their most influential albums and almost controversial albums considering they broke from the norm and played long drawn out hardcore songs as opposed to the traditional short but “sweet” hardcore style that was more prominent. Other bands were also popular around the country such as Minor Threat, The Misfits, Circle Jerks, Murphy’s Law, Gang Green and Jerry’s Kid’s. This style of music became the backbone for music today after many of these band’s broke up and formed newer bands with a slightly different approach.
After the hardcore scene started to die out and the angry teenagers of the 80′s started to grow up the lyrics and style of these new bands was slightly different lyrically. The music was still fast and strong for the most part but it was more technical like Black Flag was and more honest lyric wise. The lyrics started to be more emotionally driven and coming from the heart about things that weren’t sung before and this label became known as the Post Hardcore movement and nicknamed “Emo” for the tough guy image turning more sensitive. The scene has since taken over to pretty much every genre today and the “Emo” sound has produced bands such as Green Day, The Offspring and Blink 182 to influence bands like Fall Out Boy, Every Time I Die and Between The Buried And Me to name a few different types of bands. Today music has changed dramatically from the original Sex Pistols and Ramone’s sound but it’s interesting to see how music evolves, especially a music genre that went from Ramones to Between The Buried And Me which is a mix of Pink Floyd and Black Flag. If your into any type of hard rock music I suggest listening to some old Clash and Black Flag because the bands were pioneers for the time and have put out some decent work, even if your not so heart on your sleeve “Emo”. This was just a crash course in the history of a major genre but some really interesting documentaries and movies have been made. Below are a few I enjoyed recently.
End of The Century: The Story of the Ramones
Syd and Nancy (Sex Pistols movie starring Gary Oldman)
Punk’s Not Dead
American Hardcore