Punk Rock

Let's face it: Punk Rock started with strung-out scrawny kids sticking up their scratched and scrawny middle fingers up at the establishment. This was because the establishment was keeping them down, putting up a taller fence between the "haves" and the "have-nots". This is also the fence that separates a stinky dirt yard from a nicely manicured lawn.

The grass is greener when you have some.

Taking a cue from the last time music was used to rebel against the ruling class, these kids took their counterculture to garages and basements where they played drums, bass, and six-string guitars; left over from when Uncle Daddy almost joined Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two. To further distinguish the unique angst they felt, the music was played as fast and loud as possible, ignoring frivolous characteristics of catchy tunes such as melody, beat, and dynamics.

We don't want you to like it.

Soon there were punk bands playing in any VFW or Universalist Unitarian Church they could get into, with scores of others who felt the same pointlessness in existence. Having no one else to take out their frustrations on, they got together and took it out on each other.

While there were a handful of Punk bands that attempted to affect social change through music and lifestyle choices (Minor Threat, Bad Brains), regional punk scenes quickly became a competition over who could spend more time and money letting the world know they didn't care what anyone thought.

"No one accepts me for who I am."

Bands that went beyond a certain level of popularity and achieved any sort of success were accused of "selling out", or what we here at Cracked call the "Rage Against the Machine Syndrome". Different punk rock sub-cultures fought each other on and off-stage. All-the-while the music industry was painstakingly researching the roots of Punk Rock, hoping to understand its message of anarchy, chaos, and brightly colored mohawks.

"I've got your message right here!"

Punk Rock came back in the 90s under the guise of the grunge movement; characterized by doing away with all of the hair-product and leather/spandex endorsed groups the original punks inspired in the first place. When a certain frontman from Aberdeen, WA died from acute lead poisoning in 1994, Goodwill stores across the nation returned to serving single septuagenarians and the hair metal bands returned from unemployment lines to sing about licking cherry pie and sliding around on knee-pads.

How do we know that's not another dude?

Now we have Green Day, AFI, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and Coheed & Cambria; all under the "emo" label. The original punk-rockers, meanwhile, are either selling dairy products or getting beat up at punk shows...again. If only there were a way to rebel against the stereotype of what Punk Rock looks like.