Punk rock

From ArticleWorld

Punk Rock began as an anti-establishment music movement in 1975. It eventually developed as a musical genre that has its earliest representatives in bands like Sex Pistols, The Ramones, The Clash, The Damned and others.

Characteristics

Punk rock is a very simple structured musical genre. It presents simple structures that rely on a verse-chorus sequence and only rarely will have a bridge. Highly influenced by garage rock, this particular musical genre established itself more like an attitude than music. The typical punk rock band will include a drum kit, a bass, one or two electric guitars (usually at least one of the guitars will play power chords that are highly distorted) and voice. The length of the songs will only rarely be higher than three minutes and can even be as brief as 90 seconds. Punk music addresses different subjects but will, in most cases, contain lyrics about social or political aspects.

Fashion

The biggest impact punk rock made on the society was not through music but through fashion. Basically put, punk appeared as much more than music, more likely exhibited as a rebellion against different subjects. The first impact upon fashion appeared in hair style. Spiked hair, Mohawks and other strange at that point in time looks made a powerful impact, especially amongst teenagers. When the subject of clothing came up the changes were again significant. Some type of accessories and clothes were characteristic: ripped jeans held together by safety pins, marker or paint writings on pants, t-shirts with anti social messages, leather motorcycle jackets, razor blades used as jewelry, leather or vinyl clothing, safety pins used for piercing and many more.

Attitude

The biggest problem that appeared with punk rock fans was in their attitude. When a concert was held riots usually started. People saw people attending the shows as crazy and this belief only made their anti-social principles become more solid. Fights were “normal” at almost any show and damages to locations or equipment usually happened. Nowadays violence is not that big of a problem with punk band shows but it still happens in remote occasions.