Why is "Post-Punk" even considered "Punk"?
 

So I grew up listening to modern punk rock, pop punk, skate punk, emo, hardcore etc. (I'm 20) and so I'm not very familiar with anything that came before the mid to late 90s. So I know punk in general has been around as long as the other rock genres that we all know and worship, but what really confuses me is the relation between punk and post-punk... Could someone please explain to me why "post-punk" contains the word "punk" when it doesn't really resemble the "punk" I know and love. Post-punk sounds like it belongs under Alternative rock along with indie rock and garage rock and gothic rock etc. Punk is not an alternative rock subgenre, so then why does this "post-punk" even coexist?

Because.

To understand the link between roots genres and their subgenres you always have to look at the first wave of artists, not necessarily what the subgenre looks like today almost 40 years later.

I'm not much of a post-punk buff but from what I understand it started in the late 70s with bands like Siouxsie & the Banshees and Wire.

This is Siouxsie & the Banshees in '79:



That's pretty punk.

A couple of years later in '81:



Things are getting weirder and "post-ier" but the roots are still there, you can still smell the punk.

This is '77:



Again you can still smell the punk but it's definitely evolving, this is one of the less adventurous tracks on the album.

Somebody that actually knows post-punk well will be able to give better insight but I think at the most basic level post-punk bands were basically adventurous punks taking what they know about punk, their snarky vocals, their crinkly guitar tones, and their disdain for traditional rock and roll tropes and pushing the genre in more experimental directions from within. Fast forward 40 years and yeah the roots may not be as evident as they once were, but trace back the influences far enough and it all makes sense.

Yea with siouxies & the banshees I know they experimented around with a few genres, but primarily under Alternative Rock at least from today's perspective. Regardless I would consider them gothic rock/new wave more than anything else, and I suppose that goes along with all post-punk bands... But I would never label a band as "post-punk", it just doesn't feel right coming from a diehard punk music fan such as myself.

That means you know almost nothing about punk rock. Go learn the basics. If you have question about a specific band or record that would make it possible to deal with your question. No Wave happened so fast it was almost like punk's mother had a ****ing abortion.

Not very familiar with anything pre 90's?

So hipsters have something to complain about.

Because it developed out of punk, but wasn't exactly the same as punk?

Is there such thing as cis-punk? And if so, is it a male or female?

Post-Punk evolved out of Punk, Alternative Rock evolved out of Post-Punk. Although it has taken on its own identity, Alternative Rock and Indie Rock are definitely derivative to Punk to some extent. They are essentially punk that focuses more on melodies than rhythm and riffing.

However, I don't think you'll really "get it" unless you look back on how all this stuff formed.

First off, I don't know if you'll even consider the Ramones punk by your standards, but they were the supposed originators of the genre as it was in New York. If you've never heard their stuff, here's a taste:



Their sound was based more on groove and poppy riffs, and was definitely one of the catalysts for the post-punk genre. On the other side of the pond, the Sex Pistols were originating their own style of punk, less based on pop, and more hard-hitting and anarchic:



After these two bands, many more Punk and Punk-inspired bands started popping up. There was a bit of an underground powerhouse in fact, back in the early days of punk. Because the sound of the scene was not set in stone yet, many bands began very quickly branching away from the basic foundation of punk. One of those directions was hardcore punk. After all, if we could have loud, fast, and heavy-hitting bands, why couldn't we have louder, faster, and heavier-hitting bands like these:




These bands and their sound obviously evolved into the punk sound of today, so then where does post-punk fit in?

You know how punk was really loud, heavy and fast? There were some who enjoyed the simple chord patterns and melodies, but not the fast tempos and the extreme distortion. These bands very quickly went from punkier:



and then split off in way too many directions to count:






Seriously, it's impossible to keep track. If you want to explore Post-Punk more, you can check out this chart with nearly every significant album in the post-punk mythos.

So where did post-punk go? Well, as for itself, it pretty much disappeared after the early 80s. However, it's legacy is obvious:






Anyways, back to the topic. Why is post-punk considered punk?

The answer: It really isn't. It's just like how you wouldn't consider metal to be rock just because one evolved from the other. Post-punk evolved from punk, and ended up becoming so significant that it became its own unique "genre", before imploding on itself and spawning the music scene of the 80s and 90s.

Nope. I'm one of those modern-age revolutionary and past-ignorant kind of people :D

I sense sarcasm, no?

Your avatar is quite amusing by the way, if I might add.

Sarcasm? Me? Not a chance.

You know, I guess really I'm confused because I'm so caught up in the Hardcore and Emocore scene, which just like post-punk, had been heavily influenced by classic punk rock. But nonetheless I grew up with bands like Green Day, Anti-Flag, and AFI which are baseline punk rock and they all definitely emulated the styles that the Ramones formed along with Black flag and Misfits and etc. The Ramones I guess tried to be unique though with a more poppy kind of punk and BOOM post-punk was born and then shat upon by countless of bands which added bull**** like glam and funk into the mix which really threw everything out of proportions.

But thank you for that presentation though, that was actually very helpful. It all makes vivid sense now.

Roxy Music was a pretty big influence on punk, so go easy on calling glam bull****.

The post element is really just a way of saying that a band has taken punk and experimented with it. There is quite a lot of diversity in the genre, with stuff like Joy Division being more gothic and depressing to The Pop Group making off the wall freak out experimental jazz punk to The Fall who play along the lines of standard punk but bend it around to make their own sound.

In the 70's the Sex Pistols and the Damned were considered quite raw and heavy for their time.

The post punk bands that came about in the late 70's placed less of an emphasis on aggression and three chords and more emphasis on experimentation.

The punk you grew up on was pretty much has a marketed formulaic sound that identifies it as "pop punk" or "hardcore" ect.


I think the bigger question is why are young indie kids still listening to punk? or metal or rap for that reason? Mabey it's the state of the music industry, but it would be nice to see youth of today come up with something completely original.

Are you serious with this shit? Punk, metal, and rap were all derivative of earlier music. All music is derivative of what has come before it, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Music isn't like technology. It's not like old music suddenly becomes worthless and obsolete when new stuff pops up. Whether new or old, it's all just a collection of sounds that different people enjoy being arranged in different ways. "The youth of today" shouldn't be shamed for finding what they like and listening to it, regardless of it's age or "originality".

I think his point was that there's no real "underground" music scene anymore. I say, I would consider all this weird meme music (vaporwave, chillwave, etc.) could be called that.

Whether he's talking about underground or mainstream music, it boils down to the same old shit about talent and originality being dead. People criticized Rock 'n Roll for being a cheap extension of R 'n B. And then people criticized Punk for being a cheap extension of Rock 'n Roll. People always assume that the current generation has no originality, and it's only in hindsight that they fully understand everything that was truly going on.

The current underground scene is filled with all kinds of crazy, creative and amazing shit, drawing from all kinds of inspirations, and heading in all kinds of directions. Even someone like me that rarely ventures in modern territory has gotten a taste of it, and I've been surprised by some of the things I've been introduced to in Plug/Dub.

But hey, maybe I interpreted his post wrong. And really, it's not a big deal. I'm just shooting the shit here.

Yes that is what I am saying. I remember an interview by Joey Ramone that stated he put the Ramones together because everything was 7th generation Led Zeppelin. But back then there wasn't even a big time gap between the two bands.

I just find it strange to see pods of emo teenagers with skateboards looking similar to how I did when I was a teenager. It just makes me feel like music has hit some sort of cultural timewarp.

I blame the collapse of the music industry for this, than the youth of today. The creative destruction of technology through free downloading has made it next to impossible for an underground band to make the same profit and living than a band like Portishead or Bauhaus would have been able to have made back in the day.

I'm not really sure the music industry can be brought back to be honest, you could pass all the copyright laws in the world and I'm sure some guy halfway across the world would invent something that would allow people to download en mass for free.

It might just be one of those things.

I completely disagree with that. Go on bandcamp for a minute, and look at all the artists who upload awesome new music there on a regular basis. Or go check out a hip-hop site like Datpiff or Hot New Hip-Hop and see just how many rappers are putting out quality projects while still going unnoticed by the mainstream audiences.

Just because people aren't creating new fads to accompany genres doesn't have anything to do with the so called underground not existing. The internet has made everything available at the click of a finger, so now just because you're a big fan of skate-punk, that doesn't mean you listen exclusively to skate-punk, because you can just as easily find bands that influenced your favourite bands, and have access to a giant catalogue of nearly any band or artist who made up that genre. On top of that, just because teenagers dress a certain way, doesn't mean they listen exclusively to the music you would associate the scene with. For example, I have friends who listen primarily to hip-hop that skate board and dress like skaters. I personally wear band shirts on a day to day basis, and they're usually strictly metal shirts (black metal, death metal, grindcore) but that's a very small portion of the music I listen to, despite what people would assume from my image.

In terms of creating something original, I think that's just a poor statement. There are TONS of acts around now that are blazing their own trails. The difference is that now, you don't need to get on the radio to make an impact, you don't need to be Led Zeppelin, or the Beatles, or the Ramones. You can make great music, and stay relatively unknown to the majority of the music world, and still influence so many acts while keeping a style that is unique to yourself. Just because there might not have been new genres coined, or terms to describe this music, doesn't mean in any way that it isn't being created.

Do you actually know the difference between what your average 1st tier underground band makes now as opposed to twenty or thirty years ago? It's probably inarguable that they make less from album sales, but I'm dubious that they ever got enough from album sales to make much of a living off of anyway. I'm decently sure that underground bands have always survived off of touring.

Successful underground music.
I have this on vinyl.

Kill yourself, hipster. And vote in the Metal Album Survivor thread already, ya ****.

No to both. Just skip me this round, I've only heard the first album on the list.

Underground bands use to make a considerable amount off of album sales and merchandise, in fact, that's how they made a lot of their money touring. Touring would often leave these bands in a whole otherwise.

Well that's just it isn't, rap is old fogie music, but that's okay, it just means I'll
be cool for a little while longer.

"Hey did you check out that old geezer in the electric wheelchair wearing his NWA t shirt!" James.

"Sure did man! That was so fly! I can't wait to be as old has him, than I can get a low rider wheelchair with gold plated hubs, its going to hop up and down like a mofo! Only 40 more years, I can't wait!!!"

I'm confused here. You think kids shouldn't be listening to as much music from the 80's and 90's as they currently are? What's wrong with appreciating the roots? I mean, there's an abundance of people who state "there's no good music anymore" but there's just as many people who are completely oblivious to the music scenes that existed before their time.

I wasted two extra days on you, you ****ing ****ass ****! You know what that feeling is? That's my dick in your ass. That's right, my dick. In your ass. Don't bother resisting, you'll like it in the end.

Picturing you as Arin. Perhaps PM me a picture of yourself so I can get a more accurate depiction?

You need more 2 8 1 4.

If you look to the far left, you can just see my areola.

http://i.imgur.com/L6jros3.jpg

kill yourself what are you talking about

Good music



You're not so bent on not being called a hipster that you'd refuse to listen to this fun album, are you?

In a minute or an hour or a week. I'm now listening to Manowar. Nothing may come between us.

It isn't a type of punk. It's influenced by punk but isn't itself punk, hence the name post-punk. Post means "after".

Last time I talked about post punk I completely embarrassed myself so I'll just say that I like music and leave it at that.

Got a link?

I'm lazier than your fat hairy chested ass right now but it was in the post punk appreciation thread.

You're just jealous of my chest hair.

I am lacking a bit in that regard but where I reach for greatness is the area of the lumber beard and ball fro.