Importance Of Punk

Punk originated in England in the 70’s before being taken up internationally, Roy Shuker (1998, p52) says ‘... lower middle-class youth favoured later, found working and lower middle-class youth favoured heavy metal, punk and reggae…’, but why? This essay will discuss where punk came from, and what punk is as well as how it was represented during the time it was most popular, and how its changed over time or if it can actually be seen today. Is punk dead? As well as looking at these changes and detuning weather they were good or bad for the punk movement. To do this, it is need to look at the different aspects that made up the punk life style. What makes a punk a punk? Such as things like fashion and music, and how the rest of the society saw and treated punks. ‘The original message of punk was dissident, counter-cultural, disobedient and politically outspoken… The importance of punk “can be judged by the echoes heard in music…’ (Maria 2013)

British teens collectively created punk though a compilation of numerous things one of which being the way they presented themselves though the way they chose to dress, they did this by waring completely outrageously ridiculous cloths, making ugly fashionable. ‘The punks wore clothes which were the sartorial equivalent of swear words, and they swore as they dressed – with calculated effect, lacing

By the mid 70’s some of the bands that were thought to be at the very forefront of the punk music movement were bands such as ‘The Sex Pistols’, ‘The Ramones’ and ‘The Clash’. The punk music was completely based on nihilism, anger, as well as teenage angst from the unemployment rate as well as hatred for the irrelevant old rock bands of the time. ‘Although it was a British phenomenon, punk was heavily influenced by US artists.’ (Bricheno, Kaye, Nickol, Winterson and Winterson 2003,