WHAT IS PUNK? by Raz

What is Punk? Well if you wanna throw some Warped Tour bullshit at me, then you can jog on. Chart-topping pop-strumpet Katy Perry was on the Warped Tour this summer, so I don’t want to hear anything about some form of scene purity. Don’t pop on over here and drop your illogical expectations on our doorstep. That also goes for the faster-louder-shorter definition; we all love the Ramones, but if you really think about the history of everything Punk, they’re more the exception than the rule. To wear the badge of Punk is to be more than just three or four chords, knobs at ten, distortion pedals stomped on, and songs simple and under three minutes. Even to say that Punk has a badge is me slinging my own garbage, because any self-respecting punk would resist the idea of having to wear any hint of a uniform. Punk does not strap thought down, it sets it free. It doesn’t intend to make the music inter-nation minds of tomorrow more narrow than they already are – iTunes is already stealing the album from them (which has its virtues, but to not ever know the LP would be appalling).

To me, and I hope to everyone else working on this site, Punk is more about a spirit, an attitude, an intent. Good Charlotte can get as many tattoos as they can fit on their bodies, but they have never in any way been Punk (I was working at Tower Records when their first album came out, and their label was pushing them as a safe TRL act from the start, with a Mandy Moore cameo in the video). Meanwhile, you have someone like M.I.A. whose message is without a doubt an evolution from The Clash’s Joe Strummer, but her sound is more influenced by Missy Elliott and Timbaland. Think about the possibilities that the marriage of the 1990’s Alternative explosion to the development of all the recent music-related advancements in technology have given Punk; there are dozens of forward-thinking acts today littering hipster blogs and bleeding over onto the charts who are essentially Punk just because (a) they’re trying to push back against the bloated mainstream, and (b) they’re straight-up not fuckin’ interested in joining your American Idol-watching party. Just because there’s little of Punk’s edge to be found in top ten albums by The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie, Arcade Fire, and Spoon, doesn’t mean that Punk can’t at least feel a bit of pride in these albums elbowing out a bit more room for counter-culture creative thought in the American consciousness, retracing the margins once drawn by Punk-friendly Pop groups like Blondie and Cheap Trick.

So, maybe the question isn’t What is Punk, but What is Punk to you? There’s no way I’m going to sit here and tell you that the traditional idea of Punk Rock isn’t what should enter your mind when the P word gets unleashed on a conversation, but like I said, putting the Ramones aside, there are plenty of examples of how Punk can equal ambition. The streamlined and super-speed template shouldn’t be a straightjacket. The Clash evolved into a band that could make Sandinista! just five years after their scrappy debut, Wire went from Pink Flag, the paramount of Punk minimalism, to the arty 154 in just 2 years/moves, and the rest of Punk’s history is packed with bands that continually tried to explode expectations, from X to the Minutemen to even Green Day. More than that, there are so many who have worked the margins, constantly expanded the Rock underground since the days of The Velvet Underground all the way until now when conceivably Punk’s ideals are alive in 80% of your average Lollapalooza or Coachella lineups.

What all these groups keep in common is that attitude; for so long, the idea of the do-it-yourself aesthetic has been attached with the development of Punk, especially in the UK between 1976 and 1978 with countless independent 7”s and fanzines, and it’s definitely true. If you breakdown what all Punk bands have had in common, it’s not the sound, it’s the desire to make meaningful music without letting their musical constraints (their limited skills, for instance) hold them back, not to mention the constraints of short-sighted labels and industry tastemakers. I for one favor this broad idea of Punk because it’s just way more fuckin’ fun, and I don’t have to play sellout police every five seconds.

The Damned and Bad Religion put synths on their second albums - sellouts! Oh give me a break – how about the records kinda sucked: that’s a real reason. The Clash and desert metalheads Kyuss (who would birth Queens of the Stone Age) both used the “painted in to an artistic corner” argument to describe the overly judgmental audiences that they had to deal with. Even though it’s become the quintessential “Indie Rock” album, I like to think of Pavement’s classic debut Slanted & Enchanted as a landmark Punk album, because it still qualified in all the non-musical categories with approaches that fit within all the established elements of Punk’s history, and the music wasn’t all that far off either; critics complained that Stephen Malkmus and Spiral Stairs were ripping off The Fall, but as far as I’m concerned The Fall are an important cog in the machine of Punk, so no exclusion there.

Punk is ultimately about frustration. While writing about Bright Eyes’ 2002 opus Lifted…, I theorized that “the root of Punk is dissatisfaction with the shackles of society and with the information you’ve been fed up to that point; it’s the moment you decide that important knowledge is being neglected, ignored or pushed aside, and secrets are being kept.” That extends to all facets of music, from examining political strife to exploring new sounds and styles. It’s about asking questions and maybe not getting the answers you want. That’s why the long, old roots of Punk reach to Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son”, and Public Enemy in one direction, and The Velvet Underground, Brian Eno, Glenn Branca, and, well, Public Enemy in the other. If you find answers in stripping Rock & Roll down to its base, a 4/4 beat and a few chords, like The Stooges, Ramones, The Clash, or Wire did, then by all means, that’s Punk fulfilled for you.

With all the musical developments that have been made since Punk “broke” in 1976/77, all the incredible bands stretching their legs, it provides a massive quilt of history to draw from, and bodes very well for the artistic spirit of Punk to endure for the foreseeable future. You want to merge lyrics about third-world problems with futuristic Hip-Hop beats, like M.I.A. – that’s Punk. You want to marry the class of early Beatles, the flair of Roxy Music, and the jagged funk of Gang of Four, like Franz Ferdinand – that’s Punk. You want to find the middle ground between the mystical excess and bombast of Led Zeppelin, and the primal sex-blues of The Stooges, like Queens of the Stone Age – that’s Punk. You want to make otherworldy, post-everything music like TV on the Radio – that’s Punk too. Maybe the answer to the question “What is Punk” is to never stop exploring, that answers are never final, they can always be revised. And if you don’t like our answers, well then make your own. - John Rasmussen

Please visit Raz at: http://cutshallowradio.blogspot.com