Is Old School Punk an actual genre?
 

I've asked this question to several punk rock fans. The ones who were green day fans said no. The ones who werent said yes.

It's easy to see the connection here, Green Day.

Some see GD as "New Punk", along with bands like Blink 182 and Sum 41.

Others think that punk hasn't changed enough to create the "Old School" subgenre.

What do you think?

Green Day is music for 13 year old boys. Green Day fans are usually wrong about everything.

Blink-182/Green Day haven't even been pop punk in a long time (though blink was really only pop-punkish on like their really early stuff) and Sum 41 never were.

Agreed

I don't see any of that as 'new punk' though, or punk rock at all......so I'm not a Green Day fan, but I still don't see 'Old School Punk' as an actual genre or anything.....a band is either punk rock, or it's not

Green Day mascuades as punk rock. That's why when certain people ask other people "Whats your fav genre?" some are hesitent to say Punk Rock, because others (ecspecially Metalheads) automaticly think Green Day.
Annoys me to death!

Yes old punk is a genre, and it's right up there with 'old jazz' , 'old techno' . 'old polka' and 'post not quite as post as it is now rock'.

Punk has always been pop. Example - The Ramones.

Uh no. But there is such a genre as "Pop Punk". Example - Paramore

Mike Watt has his own opinion of punk - it ended in the mid to late 1980's. Personally I can't say I completely agree with him, but he does have a point. Consider psychedelic music, it clearly had it's time & place in the late 1960's, but since then numerous bands have reinvented the genre, particularly in the 1980's.

The point being - punk music was clearly a current music genre in the 1970's through 1980's. Once punk music wained it no longer became an active genre - see 'post-punk' following 1970's UK punk or 'hardcore' following early 1980's US hardcore punk. So I don't know what any punk since 1990 really is - certainly Fugazi is punk, but what about any band that started from scratch since then?

I agree with him - 'punk' was a counter movement to 1970's metal & progressive rock. Punk bands of the 1970's were really just playing early 1960's pop / garage rock but with more energy. Take a look at most UK punk - it was treated as pop music by the masses, albeit a completely different form of pop music.

My theory is that if you want to make music in the same spirit as punk then you won't sound like a punk band.

Punk was a reaction to the stuff that came before it. The punk rock 'sound' is over 30 years old. If the Sex Pistols had came along & made music that sounded like it was 30 years old they'd sound like Glenn Miller.

Pop = Popular Music.

Rock = Popular Music.

Subgenres of Rock = Popular Music.

You could call the band Black Sabbath pop in the 1970s and be considered technically correct. As pop stands for popular music.

It's only in the last twenty years or so that "pop" and rock have become such mortal enemies, as with the rise of Dance Pop, Boy Bands and (increased) Bubblegum Pop, the punk scene of the early 90's (and late 80's), as well as Grunge and Alternative Music, seperated themselves from Hairmetal pop ballads and the above.

Thus, I don't really see punk rock as pop. But it has been at times considered "popular music".

But punk has closer ties to pop than metal or prog-rock. Metal after all is electrified blues, definitely not pop. Punk (at least late 70's UK punk) is energized pop (especially Sticky Fingers & Buzz****s). It's only the 1980's US's hardcore punk that combines the non-pop metal with punk.

No - punk isn't strictly 'pop' like Madonna or ABBA. But if you can sing along just like a pop song, it could be considered pop. Though clearly US hardcore punk isn't singable - so I should perhaps rephrase my defense, 1970's punk is pop, just not 1980's US Hardcore punk.

Very good point. Some genres cant really be surplanted from the historical context that inspired them and still remain relevant. I feel that today's punk, true DIY punk. is more about personal and communal empowerment, and while I really don't care for the music, I love the culture, and what it represents.

^ You sir have just gone up ten points on my favorite people list

I would say that there's such thing as protopunk. Bands that were playing punk type music before the genre was "born" ie the Stooges or New York Dolls

and yes, green day and such ilk is "pop punk"

No punk is punk and they aint punk. Punk is a historical concept now. Too many other influences now merge it and it isn't punk anymore as punk is an ethos that was taken up by rap.
Punk was a concept and is now no more.


Punk was the seventies. It is no more.
Those other bands are like early morning school holiday tv what is your favourite colour jelly kids.

Punk is a genre of music, all this punk is an ideal stuff is bullshit. If punk was an ideal we wouldn't be discussing it on a music forum. Even if were true, The Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Germs, Crass they were all more punk than the Ramones/Sex Pistols/Clash (all major label acts whom you hype.) So either way, you're wrong.

^ nice pwnage

I strongly disagree with you. I suppose you'd call Bad Religion and Pennywise pop-punk then? All of those bands are Pop-punk (and Sum even goes beyond that). This isn't the 70's anymore. Punk isn't all raw anymore. The standards have changed. Led Zeppelin wouldn't be considered Hard Rock today, but back in '69, they were the heaviest thing going. Same goes for punk.

Just read these:

Russ and Chuck at Fitzgerald's in Houston 8/99

A Punk Synopsis

I guess Kelly Clarkson is punk too than.

What the hell? Okay, we're talking Blink, Sum and Green here. Not Simple Plan and Good Charlotte, and Kelly Clarkson isn't even as punk as them (which doesn't say much). I don't consider GC and SP pop punk at all either, so... yeah.

I know what's punk, and what's power pop.

YouTube - Sum 41 - My Direction <That's not punk?

Typical song for those kinds of bands sounds more like this:
YouTube - blink-182 - Stay Together For The Kids: Original Version

Which sounds very similar to this:
YouTube - Kelly Clarkson-Since U Been Gone

You can go ahead and post the odd song by them and say "Look they're punk (and I don't even think that song is very punk, much too poppy)" but the fact doesn't change Sum 41 is more likely to release stuff like "In To Deep" or "Still Waiting"

Still Waiting isn't really punk OR pop.

And uh... Stay Together For The Kids isn't exactly THE blink 182 song, though it does get heavy in the chorus.

What I'd like to know is what you define as just Punk Rock.

She's so punk...she's the next Avril Lavigne.

And its your typical Sum 41 song so...

Untrue. Your typical Sum41 song is more along the lines of Underclass Hero or The Hell Song. And I edited my post up there.

Punk Rock is fast paced, raw and simple music not studio made pop for the masses.

Sum 41 is not punk because they're not socially deviant. Punk has an ethos behind it...it's a lifestyle.

It's a fashion.

that's a perversion of the term. The stuff that's going on today may be fashion based, but it's not faithful to the origins of the genre or the spirit under which it was founded. That's why critics have abandoned the term. I know there aren't any major critics who were punks (unless Lester Bangs counts) but they are the force that defines music in terms of the way it's verbally described.

Punk is a style of music, and can be a lifestyle. Sum 41 is not punk, but I'd definately call them pop-punk. No, their lifestyle is far from punk, though.

it was a joke =/

Oh.


I'm sorry.



Nevermind.

ugh,...swill merchants

WHAT? Not fair, Savannah just joined in Janurary and she already has more posts then me! :eek:

the fruits of an insomniac,.......

Unfortunately I went throught that phase.....god was I uncool

I suppose you've moved up to Blink 182