Punk Rock Movement In The 80's

The Punk Rock movement of the 1980’s was an explosion of hybrid and eccentric beats and lyrics that caught everyone’s attention, especially the young adolescents of the time period. The movement of Punk Rock took a major role in shaping the culture in the 80’s. The template for the 1980’s Punk Rock emerged from its preceptor of the 70’s Punk Rock which emerged from London. It’s loud and reckless tunes, to some sounded like noise, but to others it imposed many political standings and raised discussions of controversial topics in its lyrics. From this movements figurative and literal expressions through its bold fashion and uncensored lyrics, it definitely made a stance in the history of music and the 20th century.
The movement of Punk Rock was more than just the music, bands such as MDC also known as Millions of Dead Cops, used their platform to bluntly raise awareness to pressing issues such as homosexuality as well as their stance against Reagan. Topics such as nonconformity, and equality were a platform in their lyrics which influenced their audiences of teenagers to

vote and raise awareness to controversial issues. Green day, another band in the late 80’s made its stance politically as well. From the late 80’s to its run through the early 2000’s, Green day took a stance on bringing awareness to the environment with NRDC. Both groups used their platforms to raise discussions on factoring social topics.

In regards to this movement’s social influence, it did more that make statements but gained followers of its new unique sound and look. As a more aggressive style of music, the fashion statement that Punk Rock portrayed a new style in the history of both music and fashion. Paralleling with the 1970’s movement, in which the movement first began as an anarchic movement. It all began with a good sum amount of young adults who defined themselves as an anti-fashion street culture. Taking the world by storm in its early beginnings of the mid 70’s, torn jeans, leather vests, deconstructed garments, body mutilation and piercings were all emulated by its followers of young teenagers. Not caring how they looked in their fashion and lyrics presented the movement’s stance on nonconformity. The bizarre and odd fashion statement that the Punk Rock movement created seems almost normal now in our 21st century.
Publicly the movement of Punk Rock had a great amount of effect on society, especially in the 80’s.

The conveying message of DIY (do-it-yourself) set a platform for people to think and make stance for themselves. The rejection of norms was one of their base reasoning. Through vulgar lyrics and shocking outward appearances, socially the movement may have been the one of the first cultures that thought rebellion. Bluntly raising questions against authority through lyrics influenced teenagers the idealism of freeing oneself again the government. Using such a platforms set the stage for a new age of thinking. Punk "deliberately cultivated an image of violence, deviance, and repugnance at the very inception of the subculture” (Leblanc 39). Despite the image that Punk Rock portrayed, its messages on self-expression and independence have inspired many generations to come both musically and

individually.

The use of provocative names stirred up much controversy in this movement as well. For example the group Bad Religion, who had a cross buster logo. In terms of religion, the group did not stand for anti-religion, but used the name for a deeper more refined meaning. The group based such a title to state the title of Bad Religion as a metaphor more so to speak on anti-conformity and not on anti-religion. "So, faith plays an important role, but faith in people you don't know, faith in religious or political leaders or even people on stages, people who are popular in the public eye, you shouldn't have faith in those people” spoken by Greg Graffin in a NY Rock interview. Greg Graffin spoke on the need to not conform to things that you do not know.