Punk Rock History : An in Depth Explanation on The Style, Music, And Movement By: Elliott Housley

( People may be triggered by parts of this article, so continue with caution )

Stereotypically punk ( just like other alternative subcultures ) is thought of to consist of the color black, darkness and edge, with “loud” and music that contains violent tones, but what is the true history and idea of the punk culture?

The punk rock movement started in 1975-1980. The whole idea of punk is to be yourself and not take authority. You have to stick to your own morals and beliefs. Punks cannot be racist, anti semitic, sexist, homophobic/transphobic, pro-life, or pro-cops. As well as being anti-cops, Punks have a history of standing up against police brutality and racism.

Though the idea of punk has developed since the 70s, originally it was Nazi based within England. When people think of punk they think of the Sex Pistols, but the group was in fact Nazis. For example Sid Vicious (the bass player) would proudly wear a tank top with a big Swastika in the center. He said he did this to add “shock value”, but in fact he was just a Nazi. Though Sid is dead, the frontman Johnny Rotten is still alive, and is a raging Trump supporter. Later on in punk history (the 1980’s) the Dead Kennedys wrote Kill The Poor and Holiday In Cambodia which are both anti capitalist and anti racist songs, contrary to the Sex Pistols. As time went on punk as a whole became more and more progressive, and it’s still evolving today within the younger generations.

Now that the political side of punk has been addressed, let’s talk a little about the music. Not all punk bands have political roots, though a majority of them do. Within the overall punk culture as a whole, there are little music subcultures that differ from each other. SKA punk is hard core punk-rock mixed with Jamaican Reggae, you may know Sublime, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and Less Than Jake who are all considered to be SKA-punk bands. My personal favorite type of punk music is called horror punk, which is basically horror movies in song form to put it simply. Ice Nine Kills is a good example, they actually write existing horror movies into songs. One of their heavier songs, Funeral Derangements, is based off of the movie Pet Sematary. The Misfits are another example of horror punk, but they don’t usually write about horror movies necessarily. One of their more sad songs is called Saturday Night and is actually considered to be a ballad. In the song the narrator talks about a failed relationship and then the guilt felt when the girl died in a car accident. The last type of punk to be mentioned (though the list goes on and on) is Riot Grrrls. This is music made by (usually) all female bands who sing about feminist issues. This can range from rape to sexism to anything else in between. Though there are males in the band I would consider Veruca Salt to be a good example of a Riot Grrrl band. The band is fronted by females and sings about some of those issues. They wrote a song called Straight which is about a drug-addicted boyfriend choosing drugs over his girlfriend, the message being that he’s basically dating the drugs and not his girlfriend.

Those were just a few examples of the tens if not hundreds of punk sub genres.

As you can see punk is not the same as other alternative subcultures, in truth it has a very rich history!

1: Crust Pants, 2: Patches, 3: Lace Code, 4: Battle Jackets