Heard how short-lived punk is?

Will there be punk in the future? Won't. What about the flow friends? possible.

In a small town in Texas, punks with cockscomb heads clashed with the football team .

A punk boy was deliberately hit and killed by a football team, but the opponent was acquitted in court.

Because of prejudice, misunderstanding, and stigma against punk, the jury decided that "punk should be damned . "

The film [Bomb City] is very general, but the story told is based on a real event in the 1990s .

I almost cried because I remembered what happened since punk was born in the 70s.

Punk, from a musical style to a fashion, a branding, a youth culture , has left countless legacy to future generations.

But it was long dead, born in the 1970s, and quickly withered here .

01.

death of punk

At the end of 1969, at the Altamont Free Music Festival in Southern California, a black audience member was stabbed to death by a security biker.

At that time, the "Love and Peace" Woodstock had just passed 4 months, and the idealistic hippie movement was pushed to the face of harsh reality.

The idealism of the 1960s has collapsed, and a new generation of young people in the 1970s is quietly emerging from the ashes.

In the face of high unemployment in the UK, nationwide power cuts, food shortages, and soaring prices——

Dirty and wild, the Sex Pistols , with "I'm an anarchist" ("Anarchy in the UK"), came out first.

The outright provocation of the basic social order of politics and religion was the first bomb they dropped on the Western world.

Punk (PUNK), from a niche music that was popular in the New York underground, turned into a frenzied youth trend in the United Kingdom .

In just two years in 1976-77, punk brought together a rabble from all walks of life :

Low-level teens, 60s activists, gays, addicts, criminals, disco girls, intellectuals, artists, and more.

Social outcasts of all kinds gather under punk bands like the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, and more, seeking strength and approval.

But just like the New York Dolls before it , although far-reaching, it only existed for a short period of 4 years and only released two official studio albums.

The Sex Pistols are even more so.

In 1978, the Sex Pistols toured in Los Angeles with the last cover of Iggy Pop's "NO FUN";

After singing, the lead singer squatted on the stage and shouted a little lonely: "Do you feel cheated?"

Since then, the Sex Pistols have never performed on stage again.

The Sex Pistols, which took less than two years from its establishment to its dissolution, truly practiced "Too young to die" and "burn with ease".

And with the disbandment of the Sex Pistols, by the end of the 70s, punk music/bands in the true sense of the word were dead.

Their reappearance in the public eye, at least in the popular sense, will have to wait for another revival a dozen years from now.

But that was no longer the punk of the 70s.

02.

die by strangulation

The Sleepers from San Francisco sing: "When you go to hell, you always know."

In '76, the Sex Pistols appeared on a morning news talk show where the host kept taunting them.

It feels like they were never serious about making music and satirizing their street gang status.

The members of the Sex Pistols explained patiently and sincerely at first, but later, they directly threw a bunch of swear words at the host.

The next day, all the front pages of the newspapers were "filth and fury" about the Sex Pistols .

The media premeditatedly destroyed them from then on , calling on society to boycott the Sex Pistols, and urging record companies to terminate their contracts.

The originally planned tour locations decreased rapidly from dozens, and no tour unit was willing to accept them. In the end, only a few cities were performed.

When the record company EMI saw this, they immediately abandoned them, and they had to move between different companies.

No one wants to, and no one dares to sign them.

Politicians jumped out again, speaking out against and boycotting them on TV, and then some conservative political groups, parent unions.

For a time, the Sex Pistols, together with the punk movement, were pushed to the forefront of public opinion .

This is not the first time the media has premeditatedly exaggerated and then destroyed the youth culture they fear.

For example, in the 1960s , most of the conflicts between the Mods and the Rockers were created by the media.

The media flamboyantly portrays the contradictions of young people as horrific national crime syndicates, stifled in the cradle by conservative adult culture with tough measures.

They're still the same for the punk wave that exploded in the '70s.

But while the mainstream media was banned, political groups resisted, and all the youth became more and more crazy about the Sex Pistols and the punk movement.

In the record industry, the Sex Pistols who were crossing the street and shouted by everyone, finally signed the independent record Virgin, and finally was able to release the world-famous "God Save the Queen" .

The cover is to seal the queen's eyes and mouth, and the lyrics sing:

God save the queen/fascist regime/they turned you into a fool/no future/no future.

Mixed with a touch of anger at Britain's decline, a touch of powerlessness, and a touch of truth-telling sincerity and a touch of nihilism.

England at that time didn't want to listen to such unpleasant words.

So, the song was quickly banned . Radio stations are banned, and record stores are banned from selling them.

On the 25th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne , the Sex Pistols followed the Queen's cruise ship and sang the song publicly, titled "A Rose for Fools".

The banned song hit No. 1, and they spent the night at the police station.

Later, they were often attacked on the road, and conservative groups even mobilized parents to march on the streets against punk.

Equating punk with "violence" and "danger" is something the media, the mainstream, and conservative forces have been doing.

Therefore, after the death of the Sex Pistols, no company was willing to touch punk bands again. For a time, each band either disbanded, transformed, or went underground.

The era of punk is over.

03.

die in business

Punk is the art of rebellion.

Inheriting the Dadaism of the 1920s and the Situationism of the 1960s, they rebelled against the rules, against the system, and against consumerism.

Guy Debord says:

Culture has been completely reduced to a commodity, and inevitably becomes the star commodity of the spectacle society.

Anti-commodity punk is, in the end, inevitably part of its opposition.

This is the paradox of punk.

So, can you call the punk revival of the '90s business trend punk.

I am skeptical.

Of course, punk in the 1970s was not completely anti-commercial either.

The Sex Pistols who signed and terminated their contracts several times were all mainstream commercial companies; and the Crash Band was even more famous for its commercial promotion and operation.

But more importantly, the anti-commercial spirit of punk at that time :

In the early days, punk bands did not go to TV or sign companies. They did everything by themselves. They recorded records, made magazines, and made movies.

Later, even as part of being consumed, they have kept a distance and distrust of media and business.

The media can make them or they can destroy them.

The same goes for record companies.

But after the silence of the 1980s, by the 1990s, the revival of punk was finally incorporated into the industry and fully commercialized.

Grunge's Nirvana (Nirvana) quickly swept the entire United States like a gust of wind, and achieved great commercial success;

Immediately after this, Offspring and Green Day .

Green Day's third album, "Dookie," sold over 20 million copies and was promptly nominated for a Grammy.

A trend called "Pop Punk" has arrived.

The rebellious lyrics that aimed at the evil of the times turned into campus love, and punk began to become a fashionable dress, a money-making tool, and a business.

Now, it is difficult for new pop-punk bands to enter the public's attention, and the existing ones like 5 Seconds of Summer and All Time Low have also been transformed under the commercial trend .

When you're still thinking about whether or not a punk is punk, the trend of punk has passed.

Will there be punk in the future? Won't. What about the flow friends? possible.

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Author / Curly Hair

The article was first published on the WeChat public account "Bao Ci Er"