Why did Punk fade out so fast?

[Vincent Vega]

From around '77 to '80 or so, Punk was the newest fad and shook the rock world and took it by storm. These were the new bad boys in Rock, and the raw intensity of Punk startled the press and captured music listeners. Many older rock bands either adapted their sound to include a Punky edge and tried to emulate the new kids, who were in actuality emulating THEM. But it seems just as quickly as it came on the scene, it also faded as quickly from mainstream popularity and by the early '80s seems to have become a niche or underground sort of thing. It's influence was still felt in other genres and in many acts which had a punky edge, but pure Punk became more an underground thing. Why did it fade from the mainstream so relatively quickly?

[Guest Len B'stard]

It was never mainstream in America.

[Georgy Zhukov]

People really need to stop thinking Punk as Sex Pistols and Ramones. It was all just bad vocals and buzzsaw guitars. It wasn't just a fashion and political statement. It basically changed over the years with the times. Became Post-punk and New Wave. Hardcore and merged with metal.

[Rustycage]

I'd hardly call the Misfit's vocals "bad vocals."

It didn't fade out. It was never popular enough for it TO "fade out." The punk underground never went away.

[Georgy Zhukov]

I was not talking about Misfits.

Glenn Danzig and Jello Biafra are my favorite Punk vocalists.

[Rustycage]

It brings up the argument of when Punk started as to whether it was a quick fad. IMO, The Velvet Underground were the first. It was a flash in the pan movement in the late 70's but I wouldn't say it was ever mainstream. It was like the bastard child of Rock n Roll that people knew were there, gave a glance and moved on but it never became mainstream.

IMO, he best evolution from punk isn't hardcore or the crossover bands; it's Psychobilly.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Rustycage

[Guest Len B'stard]

Every little movement or sub-genre has a relatively brief day, proper rock n roll was dead by 1960, The Beatles British Invasion style pop was dead by 66/67, rock bands were really done as far as having anything worthwhile to offer by the mid 70s, Prog had a relatively short period at the top of the table, it's the nature of the game. Anyway, punk was never really mainstream anywhere except England for a very brief time and i suspect Canada for a time in the late 70s.

Whoose on top of the pops then eh?

[Zint]

Nah, it was never mainstream here in the late 70's.

College radio popular, but that's about it.

Rockers in Ted Nugent shirts hanging out at the pinball arcade, still wanted to kick the shit out of you for being different.

**DING**

Punk started to fade out when doing something different, wasn't different anymore.

[alfierose]

Because being controversial and living in anarchy is hard fucking work. They all burnt out before they were 30. Lol

[Zint]

Many died before their time, no question.

[moreblack]

I thought it partly merged with other stuff and became new wave

[Zint]

The music industry homogenized punk (ie: new wave), like they do any great rock genre.

The second gen punk kids gravitated towards hardcore. Not a lot of the early punk scene people got in to the hardcore stuff.

Hardcore ate itself alive. Then kids got bored with the same-ness of it all after a few years, and it started to merge with the next wave of metal.

Things ground to a halt with the skate-metal-core thing in the mid 80's.

And future generations have been aping the good stuff ever since.

[Guest Len B'stard]

The idea was you can do anything you want however you want...so it stands to reason it's not gonna be that fuckin' format of 3 chords, super fast forever but the bands that came about as a result of it PiL, Magazine and all the little offshoots going in a bajillion directions, they took it onwards. A result of this is that punk had it's little marker in the genesis of a fuckload of different kinds of music, dance music, the rave scene, art stuff, new wave, no wave, grunge, goth you wouldn't have without punk, a lot of Britpop took queues from them (so they say anyway), Madchester you wouldn't've had full stop were it not for punk. Apparently it had some effect in metal or whatever, Bran was saying the other day but i dunno fuck all about Metal so someone elses probably better equipped to put their two cents in on that count.

[Rustycage]

Bands like Metallica are heavily influenced by bands like the Misfits. Which I guess that applies to so many 80's and 90's bands but Misfits/Samhain and Venom were a major influence of what WERE the kings of Metal. Early Venom sounded very "punkish." Just darker. Can't leave out Anti-Nowhere League.

The only rule was to be original. It's taking a while but music will cycle around back to preferring originality again.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Rustycage

[Carne_asaDA]

Nirvana was truly punk. Not grunge. ::

[chevelle]

That which burns brightest burns fastest.

[Rustycage]

Nirvana was truly punk. Not grunge. : :

"No one knows I'm New Wave" - Kurt Cobain.

[bran]

without punk, metal may have just been a fad that never lasted a decade.bands started to mix punk into metal which gave way to the new wave of british heavy metal (NWOBHM) starting in 1980 with all the land mark albums by diamond head, angel witch, iron maiden, venom(1981) and on and on.

eventually bands wanted to take the more uptempo songs of NWOBHM and mix even more punk aggressiveness and speed and became the thrash bands of slayer, metallica, anthrax,megadeth, sodom and kreator(and tons of other bands).

at around the same time though there were bands that were more punk that still had metal influences, usually being on what was considered the "extreme" side of metal at the time, like venom, bathory, celtic frost. these bands would become the crust punk bands,

amebix basically founded the genre

also discharge sometimes gets lumped into this genre as well.

even black metal bands like darkthrone started adding crust to their sound in their later albums.

where as thrash took metal and added punk influences, and crust took hardcore punk and added extreme metal influences, it was what became crossover thrash the mixed the two genres.

this started around the time crust and thrash was forming early to mid 80s. these bands were DRI(dirty rotten imbeciles)

as well as nuclear assault and neurosis plus dozens of other bands.

punk influenced the death metal bands, the black metal bands and many other sub genres.

the tl/dr version

punk and metal are much closer than people think and have fused together over the years. punk never really faded just evolved and fused into other genres and sounds.

[sweetness]

1. It was never mainstream

2. It never burned out.

The music has changed and branched out a lot, evolved and merged with other genres, but the idea is still very much alive and there are still old and young DIY punk bands touring and playing shows with each other in every city in North America and the UK. Put down Rolling Stone and go out to one.

[dalsh327]

Pussy Riot is the most famous punk band in the world right now.

[wasted]

When Motely Crue and Megadeth cover The Sex Pistols i feel the far reaching influence of punk.

[Georgy Zhukov]

1. It was never mainstream

2. It never burned out.

The music has changed and branched out a lot, evolved and merged with other genres, but the idea is still very much alive and there are still old and young DIY punk bands touring and playing shows with each other in every city in North America and the UK. Put down Rolling Stone and go out to one.

Better way of putting it than I did.

[dalsh327]

Punk is still out there living and breathing, and it's meant to be sought out.

[Zint]

The music has changed and branched out a lot, evolved and merged with other genres.

That's more commonly known as, influence.

Punk, as an original scene, as a core movement, is over.

It was more than the music.

It was a few hundred kids in any societal-conservative environment, insert city name here, willing to put their well being in danger in the name of different self expression.

Deliberate, obnoxious behaviour in an era (mid 1970's) that harboured a mainstream majority that had yet to see what they perceived as imminent danger in their communities, on a scale as out of control as they measured "punk" to be.

A threat many were willing to challenge with violence against those few hundred kids.

But those kids didn't give one flying fuck and they took those beatings, because they knew who was ultimately winning that war.

You got spit on by passing cars, but you let it drip down your face and you kept walking. You walked to that local gig, where the local army barracks goons were pissed out of their heads on a Saturday night, looking to crack some skulls at a "punker bar". But you stood next to them, you did not show fear. And by the end of the night you were most likely throwing a mate into a cab and getting him to emergency to get his injuries tended to. And ultimately, you were right back at that bar for the next gig.

And the next day you walked those city streets again, parents turning their children's faces away. Daily, you dealt with the incessant catcalls and deliberate shoulder shoves on every downtown sidewalk. You didn't get jobs. You were hassled by the cops. Have you ever pondered what it was like for a "punk" to show up at high school in 1977??

And you took it, all of it, and you did so with pride that was lost on 99% of whatever city you lived in.

But you got it, you understood something that most didn't.

And you believed in it with every fibre of your being, no matter how hard the vast majority tried to wear you down.

And all the while, you had the best fucking time of your life, because you knew this was where you belonged.

THAT...has faded.

THAT...is gone.

THAT...was the essence of punk rock.

No one blinks an eye at anything anymore. Bank tellers have spiked hair. Cashiers at Wal-Mart have purple mohawks and cheek piercings.

DIY might still exist, DIY was happening in garages in the mid 60's.

Songs of frustration and protest will always exist, punk has no rights of claim to that.

Activism isn't unique to punk, social protest is ageless.

Punk was an expression, a timely expression, it was a dare to BE something that most people on planet Earth considered vile, in an era where it was vastly uncommon.

It was a deliberate minority.

It was a life choice.

It was an existence of leaving the house in the morning not knowing if you were going to make it through the day without returning home that night with blood stains on your face and clothes.

THAT simply does not exist anymore, in terms of punk rock as a movement...which it so very much was.

[dalsh327]

Good reflection on the punk movement, Zint.