The Punk Movement - Free Post

The punk emerged as a mockery to the rigidity of the conventionalisms that concealed forms of social and cultural oppression. At the ending of the 60s, many young people thought in the United Kingdom and in the United States that the rock music passed to be a media of expression to the youth to be a way of earning lots of money and a showcase of new music groups.

The world looks to punk ideology and criticism considering deeply corrupt and wrong. The original form of punk was to express marginalized social classes, with their own concepts and thinking usually expressed through music. But over time, this has become a way of identifying social beings who share the same goal. What will you do when it takes human being dominated by this phenomenon? It is well known that the punk hosts a wide range of music, art, youth, neighbourhood, and socio-political environments, networks and mechanisms of inspiration and exchange of ideas and information movement. Over time, it became a socio-political movement for the majority of those who identify themselves as punks. This spirit is still active today in the punk music but has moderated, it has not lost followers.

First of all, we have to define the punk term to know what we are talking about. As we can see in the Wikipedia web (www.wikipedia.es) “the English term ‘punk’ has a derogatory meaning, applying to objects (meaning ‘trash’, ‘waste’) or persons (meaning ‘lazy’, ‘despicable’, ‘dirty’ or also ‘junk’ and ‘scum’ )”. Due to the nature of this meaning, the punk has often been associated with attitudes of self-neglect, it has been used as a means of expressing feelings of unease and hatred, and it has also given to neurotic or self-destructive behaviours.

In 1976, in New York, was founded "Punk" magazine by John Holmstrom, Legs McNeil, and Ged Dunn. They wanted a magazine that talked about all the things they liked: “reruns on television, drinking beer, sex, cheeseburgers, comics, B-movies and rock n 'roll playing in the dirtiest places in the city like Velvet Underground, Stooges and New York Dolls” (McNeill; McCain, 2006).

Punks want to break with the stereotypes existing with the clothes that were ‘correct’ and ‘appropriate’ to wear. For this reason, they decided to mix colours like red and black or purple and green and even wearing ripped jeans, pins, spikes and dog – collars. These were the characteristic clothes that wore the punks at the beginning.

Musically, punk is defined by simple songs; it uses letters with political and social orientations without great pretensions or orchestrations. It uses a fast and aggressive rhythm suitable for a dance called pogo. It is based on pushing and blows between all the people that are dancing, creating a chaotic environment.

We must thank to Malcolm McLaren (Sex Pistols’ manager) because, after many years without the confidence of the major record labels, small groups became increasingly known. In 1977, the Sex Pistols released their song "Anarchy in the UK". The success of the song was so great and big (becoming the punk anthem) that EMI noticed them and signed a contract to continue recording more albums.

In the United States, during those years, emerged a band known like "The Ramones" that create a new style, having it a big influence on young people from New York. They didn’t look like the British punks with Mohican hair, they had long hair with bangs and they wore tight pants and leather jackets (Strongman, 2008).

Looking to all of these groups, many others began to emerge, they followed their style and this way of wearing punk clothes passed to be fashion and it was taken to the young people all over the world. Over time, the anarchist message and the punk movement began to disappear and it passed to be only a type of music and a way of wearing rebel clothing, being part of the teen consumerism. It became everything that originally rejected this movement.

We can conclude that "punk" refers not only to a style of music; it also refers to a way of life for people who want to show some rejection to the system. Punks originated in United Kingdom and in United States when the rock was not a way of expression, rebellion and denunciation, and it was becoming a product of the big records companies.

Regarding on the type of clothes, it also has changed the way that they wore. At the beginning they were more striking with the colours and the accessories, but nowadays they wear like the rest of the people, the only thing they are keeping is using the black colour for everything.

Another thing that distinguishes the punks from other people is that they disagree in the way that the society it is built. For example, they reject the consumerism and how is the riches distribute all over the world. They believe also that there is not possible that only few people has the power and the riches and many other people can not have food to survive, a house where they can live and go to school for having a good education.

All these thinking went all over the world and nowadays, young people has taking these into account for making a new society built on the convictions of freedom, cooperation and equality between all the human beings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MCNEILL, L.; MCCAIN, G. (2006) Please kill me: The uncensored oral history of the Punk. New York: Grove Press.

STRONGMAN, P. (2008) La historia del Punk: El movimiento juvenil que transformó la escena musical y social en el mundo. Barcelona: Ediciones Robinbook.

http://www.wikipedia.es

http://www.bbc.com/culture