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
