“Punk Rock and the Increase in Harsh Edges in Pop music”

 Of course my words and structure in my writing rely on the amount of education I have. My own personal tendencies that have been instilled in me based on certain circumstances. And among things, I am an adult male with certain biases, but that’s not the point.

But one of the things that have stuck with me that has not as much to do with the music itself is Punk Rock. There’s a lot of “inflation” out there on the concept of “Punk Rock”. Or really anything that includes the word “Punk”. “Punk” of course originally described some sort of “crappy, “adolescentish”, garbage person”. But words and phrases evolve over time, of course to turn into different meanings. But what in the world is “Punk Rock”?

If you’ve been deep into music as much as yours truly. You may have encountered sayings describing music as being “proto-“ (before). It’s all right and natural to trace things back to find the roots of them. But eventually, it turns into a joke where people just start throwing the label on everything. Even considering certain musical acts as “revival”. Like “Post-punk revival”, “Garage rock revival”, so on and so forth. Words are weird, at least in the language that I myself speak and communicate with.

All these words of course are just potentially “root words” or something, that is a lead-on to describe something in greater detail; from Latin mostly I believe. At the end of the day, all languages that we speak as human beings are just one in themselves. But to a completely different topic, if you ask a music nut to describe “the roots of Punk Rock”. They’ll probably name certain music acts and albums like The Stooges/Iggy & The Stooges, with all of their studio albums fitting the bill in someway. The Stooges (1969), Funhouse (1970), and finally; the seminal Raw Power (1973). I guarantee those albums and that band, would be the first thing somebody would mention if they were knowledgeable about music, and asked to name significant “Proto-punk” music.

So basically, it seems to me that all Punk Rock is is just “crazy, loud, off-the-wall Rock ‘N’ Roll”. And the truth of the matter is, it is. You can compare it to Heavy Metal and say that it’s one in of the same, but it’s not. Punk Rock is about sloppy, but for some reason sounds good playing, and the freedom that you can do this as well. You can make the music yourself, anybody can. Just put your heart and soul into it, your deepest feelings that you’ve been hiding away for so long, and it will be the greatest feeling ever. But at the end of the day, it’s all Pop music.

But there’s confusion: What is Pop music? Pop is just popular music. Not necessarily, I believe (and a bazillion people would agree with me) Pop music is merely structure, repetition. Yes, it is popularity, but your music doesn’t have to be popular to be Pop music. Even the most scruffy/angry albums of all time like Black Flag - Damaged (1981) are Pop music when broken down to the foundation. Tell me Rise Above, even though it is an angry Punk Rock song, can’t also be considered Pop music. With its chanting refrain “Rise above, we’re gonna rise above”. The structure and repetition is what gets these songs stuck in our head, makes us buy the records, and the songwriters/producers know it’s true. I would go on longer with this, because I didn’t reach the entire point in the title. But the long-term popularity of Punk Rock music has brought “scruffy, raw, angry, but happy” music to all of us that’s incorporated in all the music we listen to. 

It’s not all about Punk Rock music, but it’s nice to know that no matter the mood I’m feeling. There’s always a song or band I can listen to that I can relate to, to make me feel better about the way I’m feeling. That someone else out there feels the exact same way.