I am guessing that when most of you saw the title of this article, you probably thought what the hell is this guy on about, Modernism and Punk Rock give me a break! Stick with it though as I am about to give you an interesting comparison between a cultural revolution, including literature, art and philosophy, at the turn of the 20th Century and a musical revolution that took place in the mid 1970’s. Both changed the face of their worlds radically and were vastly different from what came before.

 

The principle belief in all modernists is that their particular subject has become outdated and doesn’t quite fit the world it finds itself in. Or they feel that they need to change the way their field runs and challenge it’s conventions as they feel it has become predictable and lacks freedom. We see this in Literature with the work of Barthes and techniques like stream of consciousness and in Art with the Impressionists like Picassso. 

 

 At this point you may know be wondering if I am ever going to get onto the link with Punk Rock, well your wait is over. Where this ties in with Punk Rock is that after the initial pop revolution and Mersey beat scene championed by the Beatles and the start of recognised Rock Music with bands like Led Zeppelin; the music scene had become predictable, over-complicated and a lot of bands were becoming over commercialised with a lot of bands becoming just an extension of the record companies that bought them, bit like know really. They were seen, by the Punk pioneers, as playing stuff that would sell rather than stuff that they wanted to play, lacking freedom, and it was time for musical revolution. The Ramones drummer, Tommy Ramone put it simply as, "In its initial form, a lot of 1960s stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll’.

    

The main ethos of Punk Rock was to reject current rock music and to go back to basics with the lyrics and musical style. The wider punk movement was not just about the music style it was also about adopting a nihilistic approach and a longing for a leftist utopia. For them it was about expressing themselves through music they wanted to play. They tended to be anti-establishment, songs like the Sex pistols, God Save the Queen, and the songs content was politically or socially charged with controversial lyrics. 

 

Focusing more on the lyrics and musical value of the movement, the musical arrangement was refreshingly simpler than before. Punk bands created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentals. And there was often a DIY approach to recording and an emphasis on playing live. The vocals were often nasal and shouted instead of singing of previous eras. The rulebook on song writing was also torn up with the lyrics know focusing on political and social unrest and issues like miners’ strike or socialism, most of the time they were anti-establishment. It was meant to show the realism of urban life and its main aim was to shock the mainstream movement and the establishment.      

Rock n Roll Behaviour was prominent in the era with many bands taking shed loads of drugs and drinking heavily. The bands tended to rebellious and their outrageous behaviour and fashion was a freedom of expression and it was generally, a lashing against the mainstream culture and music. Lyrics were often extremely offense and album covers often blocked. The Sex Pistols song, God Save the Queen was even banned from radio. The rebellious nature of the movement is epitomised by the Sex pistols song Anarchy in the UK, which calls for a socialist revolution.  

 

So you see now how the Punk Movement relates to Modernism, it to rejects all previous conventions of the art form previously. It is meant to attack the tedious aspect of previous work and aimed to shock the mainstream traditionalists. Both are meant as an expression of freedom they feel they can’t get through the previous styles. I would just to add as an aside that I feel that certainly mainstream pop music is tedious and dull and manufactured. It is all processed, most of it involves computers not instruments and it all sounds the same and the whole music industry would do well out of another revolution, like that of the Punk Movement forty years ago.         

 

By Jules Pestano: Ewell Castle School