A 1976 fanzine drew three chords and told readers to start a band
Punk rock erupted in the mid-1970s from 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage bands, rejecting bloated arena rock for short, fast, rough songs and a do-it-yourself ethic. By 1977 it had spread worldwide, and in 1976 one fanzine summed up its attitude with a diagram of three chords.
The name came first. In the early 1970s some American critics used punk rock to describe mid-1960s garage groups. Glam and pub rock in Britain, the Velvet Underground and New York Dolls, and Detroit's MC5 and Stooges are often cited as the key influences. By the middle of the decade the label attached to several underground scenes at once: Television, Patti Smith, Suicide and the Ramones in New York; Ohio's Rocket from the Tombs and Dead Boys; Australia's Radio Birdman and the Saints; and the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned and Buzzcocks in England.
The pioneers knew what they were fighting. Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone complained that lesser imitators of Hendrix had filled rock with endless aimless solos, and by 1973 he wanted something pure and stripped down. John Holmstrom, founder of Punk magazine, thought the scene so tame that acts like Simon and Garfunkel or Billy Joel now passed for rock and roll. Critic Robert Christgau said punk sneered at hippie idealism and flower-power whimsy. Virtuosity was viewed with suspicion; Holmstrom described punk as rock made by people with few musical skills but an urge to express themselves. In December 1976 the English fanzine Sideburns printed its famous three-chord drawing urging readers to start a band.
The DIY method had roots in British pub rock between 1972 and 1975, which built a circuit of small venues and pioneered cheap independent labels such as Stiff Records. By late 1976 punk was a major phenomenon in Britain, with a youth subculture of leather jackets, studs, bondage gear, safety pins and deliberately offensive T-shirts.
The sound kept splintering. The late 1970s brought post-punk, new wave and art punk; the early 1980s hardcore bands like Black Flag, Bad Brains and Minor Threat, plus Oi!, street punk and the anarcho-punk of Crass. Scenes sprang up from Japan and Germany to Estonia and Yugoslavia, feeding pop-punk, grunge, riot grrrl and alternative rock. After Nirvana's breakthrough in the 1990s, major labels came calling again, and Californian bands including Green Day, the Offspring, Rancid, Bad Religion and Blink-182 found mass audiences.
Source: Punk rock
