How do you define Punk?
Written by Ryandira Bagus Rahardjo
‘What is punk? How do you define punk?’ Here’s how I define punk: It’s a free space. It could be called jazz. It could be called hip-hop. It could be called blues, or rock, or beat. It could be called techno. It’s just a new idea. For me, it was punk rock. –Ian Mackaye
The message of Punk was thus anti-mainstream, anti-establishment, anti-commercial, and very angry. As did early Hip Hop in the United States, Punk Rock embodied a “Do-It-Yourself” or “DIY” attitude. Many bands were self-produced and self-recorded. The only palpable punk element in Indonesia before the 90s was fashion; antagonists in movies were often portrayed as Joey Ramone-esque punk rock misfits. Punk Modern Band, which was active in the mid-80s, utilised punk imagery but mostly performed Rush and Duran Duran covers, not punk rock. In Jakarta, it was the metal scene that helped launch punk rock to a wider audience. Thrash metal bands like Roxx, Adaptor, Mortus, Sucker Head, Painful Death, and Rotor became a sort of ‘gateway’ to punk.
Is it dead anytime soon? Punk can’t be dead because good punk bands still exist. It’s not just the soul of it that’s still alive — it’s the fans, too. The genre is less popular than it once was. By the early 2000s, punk rock was a dying genre, and as a result, many bands shifted to what is now categorized as emo. No longer were well known bands producing hardcore punk, but instead what was once punk had split into three different genres: pop-punk, emo and indie rock. Punk Rock had become a “sell-out” thing by many bands like Black Flag who tours all across the countries, Bad Religion and Descendents who goes playing in bigger venues, Green Day who all of a sudden becomes an icon in MTV just a moment after Kurt Cobain passed away
“This is just a punk rock song
Written for the people who can see something’s wrong
Like ants in a colony we do our share
But there’s so many other fuckin’ insects out there”Punk Rock song by Bad Religion
There is a pretty substantial corporate presence behind “punk” nowadays (relative to the 80s, at least). I think what he means by letting it die and being reborn is cutting off those ties, thus allowing the genre to be driven by originality once more and not just what sells. The term ‘punk’ is a notoriously amorphous concept. At a very basic level, it is clear that punk was/is a subculture characterised as part artistic statement, part youth rebellion.
Punk is alive, just a bit different as it should be.
“Punk” means a so many different things. So some it just a music, or maybe a movement even an ideology maybe even a lifestyle. To some it is just a phase of others life choice. To all above definitions punk is still alive. It is just no longer new or trendy. Problem is that punk has become accepted and no longer considered dangerous by the society (In general). Also punk itself has after so much time become part of the scene it no longer stands out, and it is no longer provocative (as in through provoking). People just disses one and other with a word called “punk”. That word doesn’t even defines the negativity in the attitude or something like that, some kind of bullshit that people think that punk is a world that reassemble with certain kind of negative act. “Punk” is such a multifaceted entity that it’s hard to pin down. If we’re to define punk as the spirit of free thinking and questioning authority (generalizing here), then the spirit of punk is alive and well. However, if we define punk by the subcultures it birthed, then it becomes a bit of a paradox. punk cultures eventually developed their own tastemakers and gatekeepers that (in many cases) created an authority that sought to enforce some level of conformity. Take it a step further, you then have the “punk” cultures that rebelled against those tastemakers and gatekeepers, and the cycle continues to propagate.
Everyone recognizes and categorizes that as punk without giving it much thought. There are many new and genuine punk bands out there embracing the DIY culture, internet has made it a lot easier these days but also spawned other DIY cultures further hiding the real punk.
When the world was about deception and pretend morality, punk was about anger. Now that the world (especially politics and the government) are about anger and hate, punk is all about love and acceptance such as how @idlesband defines their music at this certain type of things. I think that punk has changed form a bit over the years.
The biggest shift is that the spirit of punk seems to have departed from what people call “punk rock.” I think that, regardless of one’s personal opinions and preferences, it is relatively obvious that Blink 182 and Avril Lavigne make a very different kind of music than The Stooges or The Sex Pistols. No matter which you prefer, it should be obvious that Sk8er Boi should not be put in the same category as I Wanna Be Your Dog.
It may not be dead but it sure as hell is socially acceptable.
Don’t wait for them to do it for you, because they won’t. Do it yourselves.