While the world was dancing the hustle and singing together with Abba, small groups of rebels, some calling themselves the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and the Clash were shaking things up in their own regions with something that they called rock ‘n roll, but the rock writers called “punk rock.” punk was the opposite of all that was favored.
It was fast, stripped-down, machine gun music that stormed in, shot up the place and left just as all of a sudden. The tracks were generally brief and had argumentative, inciting words. Punk music took on the subjects of multinational, politics, despair and unhappiness so frequent in the grunge music that would come along about fifteen years later on.
But punk music made it sound like these folk needed to change the world, not just whine about it. In 1977, punk went countrywide in England, even though it had already sneaked into the U. S. through The Ramones ‘ first album in 1975. Punk music stayed rather in the background in the U.S. For one or two more years, while in the United Kingdom, it became virtually conventional. When The Clash released London Calling in 1979, they’d enjoyed a year or two of celebrity in Great Britain, and their Combat Rock album of 1982 with “Rock The Casbah” made it to the charts in the U.S. Most punk bands did not go places, but the ones that did ,eg the already mentioned 3 groups, had a big result on the music of their times. Disco died once punk actually came into city. The stage was set for the New Wave bands of the early 1980s. Looking under the punk thirty years down the line, a rock historian can see many musical trends in their youth. The garage-band sounds of punk rock influenced grunge. The experimental side of punk influenced bands like Duran Duran to take some possibilities with instrumentation. Sisters doing it for themselves in punk woke a new wave of girl groups even bands like Courtney Love’s Hole, or Chicks in Toyland. Some punk music even sounds a little tame nowadays, considering the death metal and speed metal that have come after it. There were lots of punk groups that realized only regional celebrity, but they modified the tastes of listeners who were uninterested in slick, bright, over-produced pop. Once punk music rolled in, it was difficult to ignore.
