Punk

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is a question for people who didn't experience punk firsthand (sorry o wise eldersaurs!)

How did the ideas/legacy/presence of punk affect your listening to and thinking about music?

(I didn't say it was a small question)

And do you still feel it as a presence within pop music and culture? Does it affect current music? Does it affect how you approach the music that came before it?

I'm interested in 'my' generation of listeners (30somethings) but also especially in 20somethings and younger - and in British people especially.

Comments

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Its influence was entirely negative for the six months or so I thought I 'should' like it! Then I realised I really detested it, just on a sonic level, couldn't care less about the politics, and found it slightly...unhygienic. That canon Sex Pistols album is one of the worst things I have EVER HEARD. And since then it has not crossed my mind except for the occasional rockist-baiting declaration of Avril Lavigne/tATu/Lindsay Lohan as "totes punk rock" (I have no idea what I mean by this as it's clearly one of those words with a gazillion defns depending who you talk to, and I don't care enough to ponder it too deeply).

It clearly signifies lots of approved things for many people my age though - it is usually a sign that I should not pay attention to anything they say on the subject of music.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Hurrah a comment!

I don't expect many kids nowadays are that into the Sex Pistols, but I'm curious as to whether the notion of punk as a rebellious or purifying or authentic (these 3 words not wholly connectable obv!) force is a sustained one today or whether people have "got over it".

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Rebellious and authentic, definitely, plus that annoying "dangerous" signifier - maybe more for certain people my age, and various older taste-makers (ie music crits)? No doubt it is prevalent amongst ver kidz as well but I suspect - HOPE! - that as many kidz dismiss it as old people's music. I have never come across the idea of punk as purifying and have no idea how that would even work.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

That's interesting cos this was a powerful part of punk when I first encountered it - the idea of 1976/7 as "year zero", either a complete destruction of what had gone before or a return to first principles. This was obviously more powerful 10 years after the fact than it would be thirty years after, but without that sense of upheaval I think claims made (to and by new listeners) about rebellion and authenticity are weirdly unrooted.

"complete destruction of what had gone before or a return to first principles"

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

in other words it sorta requires you to KNOW ALL PRIOR HISTORY and yet be FREE FROM ALL PRIOR HISTORY

which is a trick very rarely achieved i think -- it's kind of a HUGE GIANT advantage having lived through it, bcz i am so underawed by all the recaps

Re: "complete destruction of what had gone before or a return to first principles"

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Isn't everyone underawed by the recaps though?

The paradox is - if a year zero event can happen once it can happen again BUT in order for a subsequent YZ event to happen it must wipe out its predecessor, which is impossible - it is marching under the banner of said predecessor.

julian temple ton cul est a moi

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

by recaps i meant retellings of the "original" 77 story, not "o hai we r nu-punk" x 5 every year -- everyone thinks latter lame obv, former gets too much free pass (except from me)

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Avril Lavigne - US punk != UK punk.