Blitzkrieg Bop Music Analysis

Watching the Blitzkrieg Bop live video by the Ramones I see it is staged in what looks like an auditorium, concert hall or a club. From what I can see, it does not seem to be a huge venue, maybe small to midsize. The music taps into a few Africanisms and these include: layered ostinatos with varied repetitions, at times the lead vocalist take on a conversational aspect to his singing and seems to be addressing the audience, and the timbral variety uses a drum set, guitar, and bass guitar. The music in this video seems to be polyphonic because there were occasional outbursts from the backup singers in the band that were different for the lead vocals. At times there is a call and response between the vocalist and the instruments. Finally,

This article also brings to light an article that was published in Time in 1977 called “Anthems of the Blank Generation” (Bergeron). In this Time article CNN illuminates Time’s interpretation on punk rock back in 1977. CNN recaptures Time’s analysis when Time reported that kids across the globe are dancing provocatively, screaming to the loud, violent sounds of punk, dressing is inappropriate clothes that are severely torn and in the need of mending, and their hair is often greasy and dyed in colorful arrays (Bergeron). The final point I would like to draw out of this article is another Time’s article that draws on a punk group, the Sex Pistols. This Time’s article is from 1978 and called “The Sex Pistols Are Here” (Bergeron). Again, Time stereotypes the punk rock genre. CNN enlightens us when they bring back quotes from the original Time’s article. Time states that in Britain, punk is a prominent voice and at times a vice for the middle class youth that are having trouble finding work and don’t give a damn about long-established customs of their motherland

Firstly, I will look at our emic perspective from the interview with John Lydon. Lydon made it pretty clear that punk was globally misinterpreted. He said that the common global perspective was that punk rock was all about the clothes and a method to convey a new public policy. Lydon then stated that punk is to be open minded and to reveal the truth about the government and politics and their conspiracy to mislead. On the other hand we have the report from CNN that compiles old Time’s articles that contains negative stereotypes of punk rock. That punk music is violent, sexually charged, loud and for unemployed, rowdy, middle class kids. Both these prospective could have some truth in them and both could have some falsity. Lydon could be right in saying that the intent was to be open minded and to reveal conspiracies, but the people that were involved in the music may have engaged it for the wrong reasons and caused what Lydon is denying punk to be about. These same people that engaged the music in a way that it was not intended were most likely the ones that caused the world to stereotype punk as violent, sexually charged, loud and for unemployed, rowdy, middle class kids by not living up to the message that was intended for the music. We can see that both sides can have valid points, but I this we need to go with