Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. Punk bands created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produced recordings and distributed them through informal channels.

By late 1976, bands such as the Ramones, in New York City, and the Sex Pistols and The Clash, in London, were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement. The following year saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom. For the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream. An associated punk subculture emerged, expressing youthful rebellion and characterized by distinctive styles of clothing and adornment and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.

By the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore and Oi! had become the predominant mode of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a broad range of other variations, giving rise to post-punk and the alternative rock movement. By the turn of the century, pop punk had been adopted by the mainstream, as bands such as Green Day and The Offspring brought the genre widespread popularity.

Characteristics[link]

Philosophy[link]

The first wave of punk rock aimed to be aggressively modern, distancing itself from the bombast and sentimentality of early 1970s rock.^[3] According to Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone, "In its initial form, a lot of [1960s] stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll."^[4] John Holmstrom, founding editor of Punk magazine, recalls feeling "punk rock had to come along because the rock scene had become so tame that [acts] like Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel were being called rock and roll, when to me and other fans, rock and roll meant this wild and rebellious music."^[5] In critic Robert Christgau's description, "It was also a subculture that scornfully rejected the political idealism and Californian flower-power silliness of hippie myth."^[6] Patti Smith, in contrast, suggests in the documentary 25 Years of Punk that the hippies and the punk rockers were linked by a common anti-establishment mentality.

Throughout punk rock history, technical accessibility and a DIY spirit have been prized. In the early days of punk rock, this ethic stood in marked contrast to what those in the scene regarded as the ostentatious musical effects and technological demands of many mainstream rock bands.^[7] Musical virtuosity was often looked on with suspicion. According to Holmstrom, punk rock was "rock and roll by people who didn't have very much skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music".^[5] In December 1976, the English fanzine Sideburns published a now-famous illustration of three chords, captioned "This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band."^[8] The title of a 1980 single by the New York punk band Stimulators, "Loud Fast Rules!", inscribed a catchphrase for punk's basic musical approach.^[9]

Some of British punk rock's leading figures made a show of rejecting not only contemporary mainstream rock and the broader culture it was associated with, but their own most celebrated predecessors: "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977", declared The Clash song "1977".^[10] The previous year, when the punk rock revolution began in Great Britain, was to be both a musical and a cultural "Year Zero".^[11] Even as nostalgia was discarded, many in the scene adopted a nihilistic attitude summed up by the Sex Pistols slogan "No Future";^[3] in the later words of one observer, amid the unemployment and social unrest in 1977, "punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England."^[12] While "self-imposed alienation" was common among "drunk punks" and "gutter punks", there was always a tension between their nihilistic outlook and the "radical leftist utopianism"^[13] of bands such as Crass, who found positive, liberating meaning in the movement. As a Clash associate describes singer Joe Strummer's outlook, "Punk rock is meant to be our freedom. We're meant to be able to do what we want to do."^[14]

The issue of authenticity is important in the punk subculture—the pejorative term "poseur" is applied to those who associate with punk and adopt its stylistic attributes but are deemed not to share or understand the underlying values and philosophy. Scholar Daniel S. Traber argues that "attaining authenticity in the punk identity can be difficult"; as the punk scene matured, he observes, eventually "everyone got called a poseur".^[15]

Musical and lyrical elements[link]

Punk rock bands often emulate the bare musical structures and arrangements of 1960s garage rock.^[16] Typical punk rock instrumentation includes one or two electric guitars, an electric bass, and a drum kit, along with vocals. Punk rock songs tend to be shorter than those of other popular genres—on the Ramones' debut album, for instance, half of the fourteen tracks are under two minutes long. Most early punk rock songs retained a traditional rock 'n' roll verse-chorus form and 4/4 time signature. However, punk rock bands in the movement's second wave and afterward have often broken from this format. In critic Steven Blush's description, "The Sex Pistols were still rock'n'roll...like the craziest version of Chuck Berry. Hardcore was a radical departure from that. It wasn't verse-chorus rock. It dispelled any notion of what songwriting is supposed to be. It's its own form."^[17]

Punk rock vocals sometimes sound nasal,^[18] and lyrics are often shouted instead of sung in a conventional sense, particularly in hardcore styles.^[19] The vocal approach is characterized by a lack of variety; shifts in pitch, volume, or intonational style are relatively infrequent.^[20] Complicated guitar solos are considered self-indulgent and unnecessary, although basic guitar breaks are common.^[21] Guitar parts tend to include highly distorted power chords or barre chords, creating a characteristic sound described by Christgau as a "buzzsaw drone".^[22] Some punk rock bands take a surf rock approach with a lighter, twangier guitar tone. Others, such as Robert Quine, lead guitarist of The Voidoids, have employed a wild, "gonzo" attack, a style that stretches back through The Velvet Underground to the 1950s recordings of Ike Turner.^[23] Bass guitar lines are often uncomplicated; the quintessential approach is a relentless, repetitive "forced rhythm",^[24] although some punk rock bass players—such as Mike Watt of The Minutemen and Firehose—emphasize more technical bass lines. Bassists often use a pick due to the rapid succession of notes, which makes fingerpicking impractical. Drums typically sound heavy and dry, and often have a minimal set-up. Compared to other forms of rock, syncopation is much less the rule.^[25] Hardcore drumming tends to be especially fast.^[19] Production tends to be minimalistic, with tracks sometimes laid down on home tape recorders^[26] or simple four-track portastudios. The typical objective is to have the recording sound unmanipulated and "real", reflecting the commitment and "authenticity" of a live performance.^[27] Punk recordings thus often have a lo-fi quality, with the sound left relatively unpolished in the mastering process; recordings may contain dialogue between band members, false starts, and background noise.

The Clash, performing in 1980

Punk rock lyrics are typically frank and confrontational; compared to the lyrics of other popular music genres, they frequently comment on social and political issues.^[28] Trend-setting songs such as The Clash's "Career Opportunities" and Chelsea's "Right to Work" deal with unemployment and the grim realities of urban life.^[29] Especially in early British punk, a central goal was to outrage and shock the mainstream.^[30] The Sex Pistols classics "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen" openly disparage the British political system and social mores. There is also a characteristic strain of anti-sentimental depictions of relationships and sex, exemplified by "Love Comes in Spurts", written by Richard Hell and recorded by him with The Voidoids. Anomie, variously expressed in the poetic terms of Hell's "Blank Generation" and the bluntness of the Ramones' "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue", is a common theme. Identifying punk with such topics aligns with the view expressed by V. Vale, founder of San Francisco fanzine Search and Destroy: "Punk was a total cultural revolt. It was a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-wing imagery, sexual taboos, a delving into it that had never been done before by any generation in such a thorough way."^[31] However, many punk rock lyrics deal in more traditional rock 'n' roll themes of courtship, heartbreak, and hanging out; the approach ranges from the deadpan, aggressive simplicity of Ramones standards such as "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend"^[32] to the more unambiguously sincere style of many later pop punk groups.

Visual and other elements[link]

The classic punk rock look among male U.S. musicians harkens back to the T-shirt, motorcycle jacket, and jeans ensemble favored by American greasers of the 1950s associated with the rockabilly scene and by British rockers of the 1960s. The cover of the Ramones' 1976 debut album, featuring a shot of the band by Punk photographer Roberta Bayley, set forth the basic elements of a style that was soon widely emulated by rock musicians both punk and nonpunk.^[2] Richard Hell's more androgynous, ragamuffin look—and reputed invention of the safety-pin aesthetic—was a major influence on Sex Pistols impresario Malcolm McLaren and, in turn, British punk style.^[33][34] (John Morton of Cleveland's Electric Eels may have been the first rock musician to wear a safety-pin-covered jacket.)^[35] McLaren's partner, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, credits Johnny Rotten as the first British punk to rip his shirt, and Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious as the first to use safety pins.^[36] Early female punk musicians displayed styles ranging from Siouxsie Sioux's bondage gear to Patti Smith's "straight-from-the-gutter androgyny".^[37] The former proved much more influential on female fan styles.^[38] Over time, tattoos, piercings, and metal-studded and -spiked accessories became increasingly common elements of punk fashion among both musicians and fans, a "style of adornment calculated to disturb and outrage".^[39] The typical male punk haircut was originally short and choppy; the Mohawk later emerged as a characteristic style.^[40] Those in hardcore scenes often adopt a skinhead look.

UK punks, circa 1986

The characteristic stage performance style of male punk musicians does not deviate significantly from the macho postures classically associated with rock music.^[41] Female punk musicians broke more clearly from earlier styles. Scholar John Strohm suggests that they did so by creating personas of a type conventionally seen as masculine: "They adopted a tough, unladylike pose that borrowed more from the macho swagger of sixties garage bands than from the calculated bad-girl image of bands like The Runaways."^[37] Scholar Dave Laing describes how bassist Gaye Advert adopted fashion elements associated with male musicians only to generate a stage persona readily consumed as "sexy".^[42] Laing focuses on more innovative and challenging performance styles, seen in the various erotically destabilizing approaches of Siouxsie Sioux, The Slits' Ari Up, and X-Ray Spex' Poly Styrene.^[43]

The lack of emphatic syncopation led punk dance to "deviant" forms. The characteristic style was originally the pogo.^[44] Sid Vicious, before he became the Sex Pistols' bassist, is credited with initiating the pogo in Britain as an attendee at one of their concerts.^[45] Moshing is typical at hardcore shows. The lack of conventional dance rhythms was a central factor in limiting punk's mainstream commercial impact.^[46]

Breaking down the distance between performer and audience is central to the punk ethic.^[47] Fan participation at concerts is thus important; during the movement's first heyday, it was often provoked in an adversarial manner—apparently perverse, but appropriately "punk". First-wave British punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and The Damned insulted and otherwise goaded the audience into intense reactions. Laing has identified three primary forms of audience physical response to goading: can throwing, stage invasion, and spitting or "gobbing".^[48] In the hardcore realm, stage invasion is often a prelude to stage diving. In addition to the numerous fans who have started or joined punk bands, audience members also become important participants via the scene's many amateur periodicals—in England, according to Laing, punk "was the first musical genre to spawn fanzines in any significant numbers".^[49]

Pre-history[link]

Garage rock and mod[link]

In the early and mid-1960s, garage rock bands that came to be recognized as punk rock's progenitors began springing up in many different locations around North America. The Kingsmen, a garage band from Portland, Oregon, had a breakout hit with their 1963 cover of "Louie, Louie", cited as "punk rock's defining ur-text".^[50] The minimalist sound of many garage rock bands was influenced by the harder-edged wing of the British Invasion. The Kinks' hit singles of 1964, "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night", have been described as "predecessors of the whole three-chord genre—the Ramones' 1978 'I Don't Want You,' for instance, was pure Kinks-by-proxy".^[51] In 1965, The Who quickly progressed from their debut single, "I Can't Explain", a virtual Kinks clone, to "My Generation". Though it had little impact on the American charts, The Who's mod anthem presaged a more cerebral mix of musical ferocity and rebellious posture that characterized much early British punk rock: John Reed describes The Clash's emergence as a "tight ball of energy with both an image and rhetoric reminiscent of a young Pete Townshend—speed obsession, pop-art clothing, art school ambition".^[52] The Who and fellow mods The Small Faces were among the few rock elders acknowledged by the Sex Pistols.^[53] By 1966, mod was already in decline. U.S. garage rock began to lose steam within a couple of years, but the raw sound and outsider attitude of "garage psych" bands like The Seeds presaged the style of bands that would become known as the archetypal figures of protopunk.^[54]

Protopunk[link]

In 1969, debut albums by two Michigan-based bands appeared that are commonly regarded as the central protopunk records. In January, Detroit's MC5 released Kick Out the Jams. "Musically the group is intentionally crude and aggressively raw", wrote critic Lester Bangs in Rolling Stone:

Most of the songs are barely distinguishable from each other in their primitive two-chord structures. You've heard all this before from such notables as the Seeds, Blue Cheer, Question Mark and the Mysterians, and the Kingsmen. The difference here ... is in the hype, the thick overlay of teenage-revolution and total-energy-thing which conceals these scrapyard vistas of clichés and ugly noise. ... "I Want You Right Now" sounds exactly (down to the lyrics) like a song called "I Want You" by the Troggs, a British group who came on with a similar sex-and-raw-sound image a couple of years ago (remember "Wild Thing"?)^[55]

Iggy Pop, the "godfather of punk"

That August, The Stooges, from Ann Arbor, premiered with a self-titled album. According to critic Greil Marcus, the band, led by singer Iggy Pop, created "the sound of Chuck Berry's Airmobile—after thieves stripped it for parts".^[56] The album was produced by John Cale, a former member of New York's experimental rock group The Velvet Underground. Having earned a "reputation as the first underground rock band", The Velvet Underground inspired, directly or indirectly, many of those involved in the creation of punk rock.^[57]

In the early 1970s, the New York Dolls updated the original wildness of 1950s rock 'n' roll in a fashion that later became known as glam punk.^[58] The New York duo Suicide played spare, experimental music with a confrontational stage act inspired by that of The Stooges. At the Coventry club in the New York City borough of Queens, The Dictators used rock as a vehicle for wise-ass attitude and humor.^[59] In Boston, The Modern Lovers, led by Velvet Underground devotee Jonathan Richman, gained attention with a minimalistic style. In 1974, an updated garage rock scene began to coalesce around the newly opened Rathskeller club in Kenmore Square. Among the leading acts were the Real Kids, founded by former Modern Lover John Felice; Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band, whose frontman had been a member of the Velvet Underground for a few months in 1971; and Mickey Clean and the Mezz.^[60] In 1974, as well, the Detroit band Death—made up of three African-American brothers—recorded "scorching blasts of feral ur-punk", but couldn't arrange a release deal.^[61] In Ohio, a small but influential underground rock scene emerged, led by Devo in Akron and Kent and by Cleveland's The Electric Eels, Mirrors and Rocket from the Tombs. In 1975, Rocket from the Tombs split into Pere Ubu and Frankenstein. The Electric Eels and Mirrors both broke up, and The Styrenes emerged from the fallout.^[62]

Britain's Deviants, in the late 1960s, played in a range of psychedelic styles with a satiric, anarchic edge and a penchant for situationist-style spectacle presaging the Sex Pistols by almost a decade.^[63] In 1970, the act evolved into the Pink Fairies, which carried on in a similar vein.^[64] With his Ziggy Stardust persona, David Bowie made artifice and exaggeration central—elements, again, that were picked up by the Sex Pistols and certain other punk acts.^[65] The Doctors of Madness built on Bowie's presentation concepts, while moving musically in the direction that would become identified with punk. Bands in London's pub rock scene stripped the music back to its basics, playing hard, R&B-influenced rock 'n' roll. By 1974, the scene's top act, Dr. Feelgood, was paving the way for others such as The Stranglers and Cock Sparrer that would play a role in the punk explosion. Among the pub rock bands that formed that year was The 101'ers, whose lead singer would soon adopt the name Joe Strummer.^[66]

Bands anticipating the forthcoming movement were appearing as far afield as Düsseldorf, West Germany, where "punk before punk" band NEU! formed in 1971, building on the Krautrock tradition of groups such as Can.^[67] In Japan, the anti-establishment Zunō Keisatsu (Brain Police) mixed garage psych and folk. The combo regularly faced censorship challenges, their live act at least once including onstage masturbation.^[68] A new generation of Australian garage rock bands, inspired mainly by The Stooges and MC5, was coming even closer to the sound that would soon be called "punk": In Brisbane, The Saints also recalled the raw live sound of the British Pretty Things, who had made a notorious tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1965.^[69] Radio Birdman, cofounded by Detroit expatriate Deniz Tek in 1974, was playing gigs to a small but fanatical following in Sydney.

Etymology[link]

From the late 16th through the 18th century, punk was a common, coarse synonym for prostitute; William Shakespeare used it with that meaning in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) and Measure for Measure (1623).^[70] The term eventually came to describe "a young male hustler, a gangster, a hoodlum, or a ruffian".^[71] As Legs McNeil explains, "On TV, if you watched cop shows, Kojak, Baretta, when the cops finally catch the mass murderer, they'd say, 'you dirty Punk.' It was what your teachers would call you. It meant that you were the lowest."^[72] The first known use of the phrase punk rock appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 22, 1970, attributed to Ed Sanders, cofounder of New York's anarcho-prankster band The Fugs. Sanders was quoted describing a solo album of his as "punk rock—redneck sentimentality".^[73] In the December 1970 issue of Creem, Lester Bangs, mocking more mainstream rock musicians, ironically referred to Iggy Pop as "that Stooge punk".^[74] Suicide's Alan Vega credits this usage with inspiring his duo to bill its gigs as a "punk mass" for the next couple of years.^[75]

Patti Smith, performing in 1976

Dave Marsh was the first music critic to employ the term punk rock: In the May 1971 issue of Creem, he described ? and the Mysterians, one of the most popular 1960s garage rock acts, as giving a "landmark exposition of punk rock".^[76] Later in 1971, in his fanzine Who Put the Bomp, Greg Shaw wrote about "what I have chosen to call 'punk rock' bands—white teenage hard rock of '64-66 (Standells, Kingsmen, Shadows of Knight, etc.)".^[77] Lenny Kaye used the term "classic garage-punk," in reference to a song recorded in 1966 by The Shadows of Knight, in the liner notes of the anthology album Nuggets, released in 1972.^[78] In June 1972, the fanzine Flash included a "Punk Top Ten" of 1960s albums.^[79] By that December, the term was in circulation to the extent that The New Yorker's Ellen Willis, contrasting her own tastes with those of Flash and fellow critic Nick Tosches, wrote, "Punk-rock has become the favored term of endearment."^[80] In February 1973, Terry Atkinson of the Los Angeles Times, reviewing the debut album by a hard rock band, Aerosmith, declared that it "achieves all that punk-rock bands strive for but most miss."^[81] Three months later, Billy Altman launched the short-lived punk magazine.^[82]

In May 1974, Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn reviewed the second New York Dolls album, Too Much Too Soon. "I told ya the New York Dolls were the real thing", he wrote, describing the album as "perhaps the best example of raw, thumb-your-nose-at-the-world, punk rock since the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street."^[83] Bassist Jeff Jensen of Boston's Real Kids reports of a show that year, "A reviewer for one of the free entertainment magazines of the time caught the act and gave us a great review, calling us a 'punk band.' ... [W]e all sort of looked at each other and said, 'What's punk?'"^[84]

By 1975, punk was being used to describe acts as diverse as the Patti Smith Group, the Bay City Rollers, and Bruce Springsteen.^[85] As the scene at New York's CBGB club attracted notice, a name was sought for the developing sound. Club owner Hilly Kristal called the movement "street rock"; John Holmstrom credits Aquarian magazine with using punk "to describe what was going on at CBGBs".^[86] Holmstrom, McNeil, and Ged Dunn's magazine Punk, which debuted at the end of 1975, was crucial in codifying the term.^[87] "It was pretty obvious that the word was getting very popular", Holmstrom later remarked. "We figured we'd take the name before anyone else claimed it. We wanted to get rid of the bullshit, strip it down to rock 'n' roll. We wanted the fun and liveliness back."^[85]

Early history[link]

North America[link]

New York City[link]

"Blank Generation" noicon The original anthem of the punk scene, performed live by Television in 1974 or 1975, with Richard Hell on lead vocals. The verse, described by Gary Valentine Lachman as defying melody, yields to the chorus, "set to a descending pattern reminiscent of Peggy Lee's "Fever".[88] Tom Verlaine's virtuosic guitar style would lead the band away from what became the typical punk approach.[89]

Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The origins of New York's punk rock scene can be traced back to such sources as late 1960s trash culture and an early 1970s underground rock movement centered on the Mercer Arts Center in Greenwich Village, where the New York Dolls performed.^[90] In early 1974, a new scene began to develop around the CBGB club, also in lower Manhattan. At its core was Television, described by critic John Walker as "the ultimate garage band with pretensions".^[91] Their influences ranged from the Velvet Underground to the staccato guitar work of Dr. Feelgood's Wilko Johnson.^[92] The band's bassist/singer, Richard Hell, created a look with cropped, ragged hair, ripped T-shirts, and black leather jackets credited as the basis for punk rock visual style.^[93] In April 1974, Patti Smith, a member of the Mercer Arts Center crowd and a friend of Hell's, came to CBGB for the first time to see the band perform.^[94] A veteran of independent theater and performance poetry, Smith was developing an intellectual, feminist take on rock 'n' roll. On June 5, she recorded the single "Hey Joe"/"Piss Factory", featuring Television guitarist Tom Verlaine; released on her own Mer Records label, it heralded the scene's do it yourself (DIY) ethic and has often been cited as the first punk rock record.^[95] By August, Smith and Television were gigging together at another downtown New York club, Max's Kansas City.^[93]

Facade of legendary music club CBGB, New York

Out in Forest Hills, Queens, several miles from lower Manhattan, the members of a newly formed band adopted a common surname. Drawing on sources ranging from the Stooges to The Beatles and The Beach Boys to Herman's Hermits and 1960s girl groups, the Ramones condensed rock 'n' roll to its primal level: "'1-2-3-4!' bass-player Dee Dee Ramone shouted at the start of every song, as if the group could barely master the rudiments of rhythm."^[96] The band played its first gig at CBGB on August 16, 1974, on the same bill as another new act, Angel and the Snake, soon to be renamed Blondie.^[97] By the end of the year, the Ramones had performed seventy-four shows, each about seventeen minutes long.^[98] "When I first saw the Ramones", critic Mary Harron later remembered, "I couldn't believe people were doing this. The dumb brattiness."^[99] The Dictators, with a similar "playing dumb" concept, were recording their debut album. The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! came out in March 1975, mixing absurdist originals such as "Master Race Rock" and loud, straight-faced covers of cheese pop like Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe".^[100]

That spring, Smith and Television shared a two-month-long weekend residency at CBGB that significantly raised the club's profile.^[101] The Television sets included Richard Hell's "Blank Generation", which became the scene's emblematic anthem.^[102] Soon after, Hell left Television and founded a band featuring a more stripped-down sound, The Heartbreakers, with former New York Dolls Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan. The pairing of Hell and Thunders, in one critical assessment, "inject[ed] a poetic intelligence into mindless self-destruction".^[33] A July festival at CBGB featuring over thirty new groups brought the scene its first substantial media coverage.^[103] In August, Television—with Fred Smith, former Blondie bassist, replacing Hell—recorded a single, "Little Johnny Jewel", for the tiny Ork label. In the words of John Walker, the record was "a turning point for the whole New York scene" if not quite for the punk rock sound itself—Hell's departure had left the band "significantly reduced in fringe aggression".^[91]

	"Blitzkrieg Bop" noicon The chorus of the Ramones' first single "is a primer on the punk take on rock rhythm...everyone pumps out the rock rhythmic layer—on a drum, on a single note, on a single chord", according to scholar Michael Campbell. "This is as pure, and as energetic, as rock rhythm gets."[104]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Other bands were becoming regulars at CBGB, such as Mink DeVille and Talking Heads, which moved down from Rhode Island. More closely associated with Max's Kansas City were Suicide and the band led by drag queen Wayne County, another Mercer Arts Center alumna. The first album to come out of this downtown scene was released in November 1975: Smith's debut, Horses, produced by John Cale for the major Arista label.^[105] The inaugural issue of Punk appeared in December.^[106] The new magazine tied together earlier artists such as Velvet Underground lead singer Lou Reed, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls with the editors' favorite band, The Dictators, and the array of new acts centered around CBGB and Max's.^[107] That winter, Pere Ubu came in from Cleveland and played at both spots.^[108]

Early in 1976, Hell left The Heartbreakers; he soon formed a new group that would become known as The Voidoids, "one of the most harshly uncompromising bands" on the scene.^[109] That April, the Ramones' debut album was released by Sire Records; the first single was "Blitzkrieg Bop", opening with the rally cry "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" According to a later description, "Like all cultural watersheds, Ramones was embraced by a discerning few and slagged off as a bad joke by the uncomprehending majority."^[110] At the instigation of Ramones lead singer Joey Ramone, the members of Cleveland's Frankenstein moved east to join the New York scene. Reconstituted as the Dead Boys, they played their first CBGB gig in late July.^[111] In August, Ork put out an EP recorded by Hell with his new band that included the first released version of "Blank Generation".^[112]

The term punk initially referred to the scene in general, rather than a particular sound—the early New York punk bands represented a broad variety of influences. Among them, the Ramones, The Heartbreakers, Richard Hell and The Voidoids, and the Dead Boys were establishing a distinct musical style. Even where they diverged most clearly, in lyrical approach—the Ramones' apparent guilelessness at one extreme, Hell's conscious craft at the other—there was an abrasive attitude in common. Their shared attributes of minimalism and speed, however, had not yet come to define punk rock.^[113]

Other U.S. cities[link]

	"Hot Wire My Heart" noicon With what music historian Clinton Heylin described as the "most brutal guitar sound this side of The Stooges",[114] Crime self-released the first single by a West Coast punk band, two songs (the B-side was "Baby, You're So Repulsive") in a style likened to "revved up, distorted Chuck Berry".[115]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

In 1975, the Suicide Commandos formed in Minneapolis. They were one of the first U.S. bands outside of New York to play in the Ramones-style harder-louder-faster mode that would define punk rock.^[116] Detroit's Death self-released one of their 1974 recordings, "Politicians in My Eyes", in 1976.^[61] As the punk movement expanded rapidly in the United Kingdom that year, a few bands with similar tastes and attitude appeared around the United States. The first West Coast punk scenes emerged in San Francisco, with the bands Crime and The Nuns,^[117] and Seattle, where the Telepaths, Meyce, and The Tupperwares played a groundbreaking show on May 1.^[118] Rock critic Richard Meltzer cofounded VOM (short for "vomit") in Los Angeles. In Washington, D.C., raucous roots-rockers The Razz helped along a nascent punk scene featuring Overkill, the Slickee Boys, and The Look. Around the turn of the year, White Boy began giving notoriously crazed performances.^[119] In Boston, the scene at the Rathskeller—affectionately known as the Rat—was also turning toward punk, though the defining sound retained a distinct garage rock orientation. Among the city's first new acts to be identified with punk rock was DMZ.^[120] In Bloomington, Indiana, The Gizmos played in a jokey, raunchy, Dictators-inspired style later referred to as "frat punk".^[121]

Like their garage rock predecessors, these local scenes were facilitated by enthusiastic impresarios who operated nightclubs or organized concerts in venues such as schools, garages, or warehouses, advertised via inexpensively printed flyers and fanzines. In some cases, punk's do it yourself ethic reflected an aversion to commercial success, as well as a desire to maintain creative and financial autonomy.^[122] As Joe Harvard, a participant in the Boston scene, describes, it was often a simple necessity—the absence of a local recording industry and well-distributed music magazines left little recourse but DIY.^[123]

Australia[link]

	"(I'm) Stranded" noicon Sounds magazine in Britain found "(I'm) Stranded" "so bloody incredible" it provided readers the Australian address from which they could mail order it.[124] Ed Kuepper's "sheet-metal guitar sets the breakneck tempo", while lead singer Chris Bailey "howl[s] into the gale."[125] Its DIY sound was later described as "crud-encrusted", praise in the punk milieu.[126]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

At the same time, a similar music-based subculture was beginning to take shape in various parts of Australia. A scene was developing around Radio Birdman and its main performance venue, the Oxford Tavern (later the Oxford Funhouse), located in Sydney's Darlinghurst suburb. In December 1975, the group won the RAM (Rock Australia Magazine)/Levi's Punk Band Thriller competition.^[127] By 1976, The Saints were hiring Brisbane local halls to use as venues, or playing in "Club 76", their shared house in the inner suburb of Petrie Terrace. The band soon discovered that musicians were exploring similar paths in other parts of the world. Ed Kuepper, coleader of The Saints, later recalled:

One thing I remember having had a really depressing effect on me was the first Ramones album. When I heard it [in 1976], I mean it was a great record ... but I hated it because I knew we’d been doing this sort of stuff for years. There was even a chord progression on that album that we used ... and I thought, "Fuck. We’re going to be labeled as influenced by the Ramones", when nothing could have been further from the truth.^[128]

On the other side of Australia, in Perth, germinal punk rock act the Cheap Nasties, featuring singer-guitarist Kim Salmon, formed in August.^[129] In September 1976, The Saints became the first punk rock band outside the U.S. to release a recording, the single "(I'm) Stranded". As with Patti Smith's debut, the band self-financed, packaged, and distributed the single.^[130] "(I'm) Stranded" had limited impact at home, but the British music press recognized it as a groundbreaking record.^[131] At the insistence of their superiors in the UK, EMI Australia signed The Saints. Meanwhile, Radio Birdman came out with a self-financed EP, Burn My Eye, in October.^[132] Trouser Press critic Ian McCaleb later described the record as the "archetype for the musical explosion that was about to occur".^[133]

United Kingdom[link]

	"Anarchy in the U.K." noicon With its "inflammatory, venomous lyrics [and] crude energy", the Sex Pistols' debut single "established punk's modus operandi".[134] Producer Chris Thomas layered multiple tracks of Steve Jones's guitar to create a "searing wall of sound",[135] while Johnny Rotten spewed the vocals "as if his teeth had been ground down to points."[136]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

After a brief period unofficially managing the New York Dolls, Englishman Malcolm McLaren returned to London in May 1975, inspired by the new scene he had witnessed at CBGB. The Kings Road clothing store he co-owned, recently renamed Sex, was building a reputation with its outrageous "anti-fashion".^[137] Among those who frequented the shop were members of a band called The Strand, which McLaren had also been managing. In August, the group was seeking a new lead singer. Another Sex habitué, Johnny Rotten, auditioned for and won the job. Adopting a new name, the group played its first gig as the Sex Pistols on November 6, 1975, at St. Martin's School of Art^[138] and soon attracted a small but ardent following.^[139] In February 1976, the band received its first significant press coverage; guitarist Steve Jones declared that the Sex Pistols were not so much into music as they were "chaos".^[140] The band often provoked its crowds into near-riots. Rotten announced to one audience, "Bet you don't hate us as much as we hate you!"^[141] McLaren envisioned the Sex Pistols as central players in a new youth movement, "hard and tough".^[142] As described by critic Jon Savage, the band members "embodied an attitude into which McLaren fed a new set of references: late-sixties radical politics, sexual fetish material, pop history,...youth sociology".^[143]

Bernard Rhodes, a sometime associate of McLaren's and friend of the Sex Pistols', was similarly aiming to make stars of the band London SS. Early in 1976, London SS broke up before ever performing publicly, spinning off two new bands: The Damned and The Clash, which was joined by Joe Strummer, former lead singer of The 101'ers.^[144] On June 4, 1976, the Sex Pistols played Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in what came to be regarded as one of the most influential rock shows ever. Among the approximately forty audience members were the two locals who organized the gig—they had formed the Buzzcocks after seeing the Sex Pistols in February. Others in the small crowd went on to form Joy Division, The Fall, and—in the 1980s—The Smiths.^[145]

In July, the Ramones crossed the Atlantic for two London shows that helped spark the nascent UK punk scene and affected its musical style—"instantly nearly every band speeded up".^[146] On July 4, they played with the Flamin' Groovies and The Stranglers before a crowd of 2,000 at the Roundhouse.^[147] That same night, The Clash debuted, opening for the Sex Pistols in Sheffield. On July 5, members of both bands attended a Ramones club gig.^[148] The following night, The Damned played their first show, as a Pistols opening act in London. In critic Kurt Loder's description, the Sex Pistols purveyed a "calculated, arty nihilism, [while] the Clash were unabashed idealists, proponents of a radical left-wing social critique of a sort that reached back at least to ... Woody Guthrie in the 1940s".^[149] The Damned built a reputation as "punk's party boys".^[150] This London scene's first fanzine appeared a week later. Its title, Sniffin' Glue, derived from a Ramones song. Its subtitle affirmed the connection with what was happening in New York: "+ Other Rock 'n' Roll Habits for Punks!"^[151]

Another Sex Pistols gig in Manchester on July 20, with a reorganized version of the Buzzcocks debuting in support, gave further impetus to the scene there.^[152] In August, the self-described "First European Punk Rock Festival" was held in Mont de Marsan in the southwest of France. Eddie and the Hot Rods, a London pub rock group, headlined. The Sex Pistols, originally scheduled to play, were dropped by the organizers who said the band had gone "too far" in demanding top billing and certain amenities; The Clash backed out in solidarity. The only band from the new punk movement to appear was The Damned.^[153]

Over the next several months, many new punk rock bands formed, often directly inspired by the Sex Pistols.^[154] In London, women were near the center of the scene—among the initial wave of bands were the female-fronted Siouxsie and the Banshees and X-Ray Spex and the all-female The Slits. There were female bassists Gaye Advert in The Adverts and Shanne Bradley in The Nipple Erectors. Other groups included Subway Sect, Eater, The Subversives, the aptly named London, and Chelsea, which soon spun off Generation X. Farther afield, Sham 69 began practicing in the southeastern town of Hersham. In Durham, there was Penetration, with lead singer Pauline Murray. On September 20–21, the 100 Club Punk Festival in London featured the four primary British groups (London's big three and the Buzzcocks), as well as Paris's female-fronted Stinky Toys, arguably the first punk rock band from a non-Anglophone country. Siouxsie and the Banshees and Subway Sect debuted on the festival's first night; that same evening, Eater debuted in Manchester.^[155] On the festival's second night, audience member Sid Vicious was arrested, charged with throwing a glass at The Damned that shattered and destroyed a girl's eye. Press coverage of the incident fueled punk's reputation as a social menace.^[156]

Some new bands, such as London's Alternative TV, Edinburgh's Rezillos, and Leamington's The Shapes, identified with the scene even as they pursued more experimental music. Others of a comparatively traditional rock 'n' roll bent were also swept up by the movement: The Vibrators, formed as a pub rock–style act in February 1976, soon adopted a punk look and sound.^[159] A few even longer-active bands including Surrey neo-mods The Jam and pub rockers The Stranglers and Cock Sparrer also became associated with the punk rock scene. Alongside the musical roots shared with their American counterparts and the calculated confrontationalism of the early Who, the British punks also reflected the influence of glam rock and related bands such as Slade, T.Rex, and Roxy Music.^[160] One of the groups openly acknowledging that influence were The Undertones, from Derry in Northern Ireland.^[161] Another punk band formed to the south, Dublin's The Radiators from Space.

In October, The Damned became the first UK punk rock band to release a single, the romance-themed "New Rose".^[162] The Vibrators followed the next month with "We Vibrate" and, backing long-time rocker Chris Spedding, "Pogo Dancing". The latter was hardly a punk song by any stretch, but it was perhaps the first song about punk rock. On 26 November, the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." came out—with its debut single the band succeeded in its goal of becoming a "national scandal".^[163] Jamie Reid's "anarchy flag" poster and his other design work for the Sex Pistols helped establish a distinctive punk visual aesthetic.^[158] On December 1, an incident took place that sealed punk rock's notorious reputation: On Thames Today, an early evening London TV show, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones was goaded into a verbal altercation by the host, Bill Grundy. Jones called Grundy a "dirty fucker" on live television, triggering a media controversy.^[164] Two days later, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, and The Heartbreakers set out on the Anarchy Tour, a series of gigs throughout the UK. Many of the shows were cancelled by venue owners in response to the media outrage following the Grundy confrontation.^[165]

Second wave[link]

By 1977, a second wave of the punk rock movement was breaking in the three countries where it had emerged, as well as in many other places. Bands from the same scenes often sounded very different from each other, reflecting the eclectic state of punk music during the era.^[166] While punk rock remained largely an underground phenomenon in North America, Australia, and the new spots where it was emerging, in the UK it briefly became a major sensation.^[167]

North America[link]

	"Forming" noicon As inchoate as its name suggests, The Germs' "Forming" was the first L.A. punk record[168] and pointed directly toward the hardcore sound that would soon emerge.[169] The teenagers' performance has been described both as a signal example of punk incompetence[170] and as "bringing monotony to new heights".[171]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The California punk scene was in full swing by early 1977. In Los Angeles, there were The Weirdos, The Zeros, Black Randy and the Metrosquad, The Germs, X, The Dickies, The Bags, and the relocated Tupperwares, now dubbed The Screamers.^[172] San Francisco's second wave included The Avengers, Negative Trend, The Mutants, and The Sleepers.^[173] The Dils, from Carlsbad, moved between the two major cities.^[174] The Wipers formed in Portland, Oregon. In Seattle, there was The Lewd.^[175] Often sharing gigs with the Seattle punks were bands from across the Canadian border. A major scene developed in Vancouver, spearheaded by the Furies and Victoria's all-female Dee Dee and the Dishrags.^[175] The Skulls spun off into D.O.A. and The Subhumans. The K-Tels (later known as the Young Canadians) and Pointed Sticks were among the area's other leading punk acts.^[176]

In eastern Canada, the Toronto protopunk band Dishes had laid the groundwork for another sizable scene,^[177] and a September 1976 concert by the touring Ramones had catalyzed the movement. Early Ontario punk bands included The Diodes, The Viletones, The Battered Wives, The Demics, Forgotten Rebels, Teenage Head, The Poles, and The Ugly. Along with the Dishrags, Toronto's The Curse and B Girls were North America's first all-female punk acts.^[178] In July 1977, the Viletones, Diodes, Curse, and Teenage Head headed down to New York City to play "Canada night" at CBGB.^[179]

By mid-1977 in downtown New York, punk rock was already ceding its cutting-edge status to the anarchic sound of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and Mars, spearheads of what became known as No Wave,^[180] although several original punk bands continued to perform and new ones emerged on the scene. The Cramps, whose core members were from Sacramento by way of Akron, had debuted at CBGB in November 1976, opening for the Dead Boys. They were soon playing regularly at Max's Kansas City.^[181] The Misfits formed in nearby New Jersey. Still developing what would become their signature B movie–inspired style, later dubbed horror punk, they made their first appearance at CBGB in April 1977.^[182]

Leave Home, the Ramones' second album, had come out in January.^[183] The Dead Boys' debut LP, Young, Loud and Snotty, was released at the end of August.^[184] October saw two more debut albums from the scene: Richard Hell and The Voidoids' first full-length, Blank Generation, and the Heartbreakers' L.A.M.F.^[185] One track on the latter exemplified both the scene's close-knit character and the popularity of heroin within it: "Chinese Rocks"—the title refers to a strong form of the drug—was written by Dee Dee Ramone and Hell, both users, as were the Heartbreakers' Thunders and Nolan.^[186] (During the Heartbreakers' 1976 and 1977 tours of Britain, Thunders played a central role in popularizing heroin among the punk crowd there, as well.)^[187] The Ramones' third album, Rocket to Russia, appeared in November 1977.^[188]

The Ohio protopunk bands were joined by Cleveland's The Pagans,^[189] Akron's Bizarros and Rubber City Rebels, and Kent's Human Switchboard. Bloomington, Indiana, had MX-80 Sound and Detroit had The Sillies. The Suburbs came together in the Twin Cities scene sparked by the Suicide Commandos. The Feederz formed in Arizona. Atlanta had The Fans. In North Carolina, there was Chapel Hill's H-Bombs and Raleigh's Th' Cigaretz.^[190] The Chicago scene began not with a band but with a group of DJs transforming a gay bar, La Mere Vipere, into what became known as America's first punk dance club. Tutu and the Pirates and Silver Abuse were among the city's first punk bands.^[191] In Boston, the scene at the Rat was joined by the Nervous Eaters, Thrills, and Human Sexual Response.^[190][192] In Washington, D.C., the Controls played their first gig in spring 1977, but the city's second wave really broke the following year with acts such as Urban Verbs, Half Japanese, D'Chumps, Rudements and Shirkers.^[193] By early 1978, the D.C. jazz-fusion group Mind Power had transformed into Bad Brains, one of the first bands to be identified with hardcore punk.^[190][194]

United Kingdom[link]

	"Oh Bondage Up Yours!" noicon X-Ray Spex' debut single, an antimaterialistic anthem considered "one of punk rock's defining moments."[195] As Lora Logic's saxophone "serrate[s] right through the ubiquitous guitar-buzzsaw",[196] Poly Styrene sings "in a voice somewhere between that of a wailing baby and that of a banshee".[197]
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The Sex Pistols' live TV skirmish with Bill Grundy was the signal moment in British punk's transformation into a major media phenomenon, even as some stores refused to stock the records and radio airplay was hard to come by.^[198] Press coverage of punk misbehavior grew intense: On January 4, 1977, the Evening News of London ran a front-page story on how the Sex Pistols "vomited and spat their way to an Amsterdam flight".^[199] In February 1977, the first album by a British punk band appeared: Damned Damned Damned (by the Damned) reached number thirty-six on the UK chart. The EP Spiral Scratch, self-released by Manchester's Buzzcocks, was a benchmark for both the DIY ethic and regionalism in the country's punk movement.^[200] The Clash's self-titled debut album came out two months later and rose to number twelve; the single "White Riot" entered the top forty. In May, the Sex Pistols achieved new heights of controversy (and number two on the singles chart) with "God Save the Queen". The band had recently acquired a new bassist, Sid Vicious, who was seen as exemplifying the punk persona.^[201]

Scores of new punk groups formed around the United Kingdom, as far from London as Belfast's Stiff Little Fingers and Dunfermline, Scotland's The Skids. Though most survived only briefly, perhaps recording a small-label single or two, others set off new trends. Crass, from Essex, merged a vehement, straight-ahead punk rock style with a committed anarchist mission. Sham 69, London's Menace, and the Angelic Upstarts from South Shields in the Northeast combined a similarly stripped-down sound with populist lyrics, a style that became known as streetpunk. These expressly working-class bands contrasted with others in the second wave that presaged the post-punk phenomenon. Liverpool's first punk group, Big in Japan, moved in a glam, theatrical direction.^[202] The band didn't survive long, but it spun off several well-known post-punk acts.^[203] The songs of London's Wire were characterized by sophisticated lyrics, minimalist arrangements, and extreme brevity.^[204] By the end of 1977, according to music historian Clinton Heylin, they were "England's arch-exponents of New Musick, and the true heralds of what came next."^[205]

Alongside thirteen original songs that would define classic punk rock, The Clash's debut had included a cover of the recent Jamaican reggae hit "Police and Thieves".^[207] Other first wave bands such as The Slits and new entrants to the scene like The Ruts and The Police interacted with the reggae and ska subcultures, incorporating their rhythms and production styles. The punk rock phenomenon helped spark a full-fledged ska revival movement known as 2 Tone, centered around bands such as The Specials, The Beat, Madness, and The Selecter.^[208]

June 1977 saw the release of another charting punk album: The Vibrators' Pure Mania. In July, the Sex Pistols' third single, "Pretty Vacant", reached number six and The Saints had a top-forty hit with "This Perfect Day". Recently arrived from Australia, the band was now considered insufficiently "cool" to qualify as punk by much of the British media, though they had been playing a similar brand of music for years.^[209] In August, The Adverts entered the top twenty with "Gary Gilmore's Eyes". As punk became a broad-based national phenomenon in the summer of 1977, punk musicians and fans were increasingly subject to violent assaults by Teddy boys, football yobbos, and others. A Ted-aligned band recorded "The Punk Bashing Boogie".^[210]

In September, Generation X and The Clash reached the top forty with, respectively, "Your Generation" and "Complete Control". X-Ray Spex' "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" didn't chart, but it became a requisite item for punk fans.^[211] In October, the Sex Pistols hit number eight with "Holidays in the Sun", followed by the release of their first and only "official" album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. Inspiring yet another round of controversy, it topped the British charts. In December, one of the first books about punk rock was published: The Boy Looked at Johnny, by Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons.^[212] Declaring the punk rock movement to be already over, it was subtitled The Obituary of Rock and Roll. In January 1978, the Sex Pistols broke up while on American tour.

Australia[link]

In February 1977, EMI released The Saints' debut album, (I'm) Stranded, which the band recorded in two days.^[213] The Saints had relocated to Sydney; in April, they and Radio Birdman united for a major gig at Paddington Town Hall.^[214] Last Words had also formed in the city. The following month, The Saints relocated again, to Great Britain. In June, Radio Birdman released the album Radios Appear on its own Trafalgar label.^[132]