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Richard King
Instructor: Ray Briggs, Ph.D.
Music 24B-Section #5162
April 24th, 2013
Rock n Roll versus Punk Rock
Few events in history have impacted the landscape of popular music like the advent of
rock n roll in the 1950s. Rock n roll was clearly the most important event in post WWII music
history. The music, the fashion and the attitude have had long lasting effects on pop culture
which continue to this very day. Rock music flourished and evolved for many years but as it
became mainstream and detached in the 1970s, punkrock was a badly needed wakeup call.
Punkrock stripped away some of the pretenses of big arena rock and got back to the basics of
heavy, loud, abrasive music and attitude similar to that which rock and roll was originally
founded upon. Punkrock inadvertently did something else though: it opened the doors for many
new types of music, fashion and pop culture. This paper will explore the roots of punkrock and
the impact it had on the future of music and compare and contrast it to that of rock n roll in the
1950s.
The modern-day English rock band Muse performed live at Staples Center in January of
this year. This was part of a massive world tour for them. Their performance was explosive.
Their music is powerful and moving. Although Muse has been a band for nearly twenty years,
they still seem to embody what is decidedly modern alternative rock music. Despite this label,
their style transcends genres from alternative to electronica to even heavy metal. The diversity of
their sound is extraordinary. Their influences span the entirety of modern music. How did this
come to be? Where did this punk-influenced, modern rock, electronic, heavy metal band look for
inspiration?

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For the most part, music genres are not invented, created or discovered. They evolve.
Only in retrospect are we able to look back and point to specific events and music movements or
bands which define a certain style or genre in a distinct manner. Many people attempt to credit
certain bands with being the first of whatever genre is in question. John Lennons famous
quote for example If you tried to give rock n roll another name, you might call it Chuck
Berry. But, all musicians have something that they draw upon for inspiration. It is easy to look
back and say Oh, the Ramones were the first punk rock band but would they have existed
without The MC5 or The Stooges? Would The MC5 have existed without The Who? Music is
constantly evolving and record companies and club owners (on the local level) have a vested
interest in attaching labels to new bands so that they fit neatly into categories that can be
packaged and sold. (Dodd, 40)
Despite this misunderstanding of music evolution, sometimes we must recognize the
impact that certain genres have on the future of music; whether or not the genre is a made-up
word for profits sake. The term rock n roll was, of course, coined by Alan Freed as a way to
play racemusic for the masses of white teenagers. Yet, once the term was coined and the craze
took off, it did take on a life of its own. People were starting new bands with the idea of rock n
roll already embedded in their minds. Music was changed forever. The pop culture that
surrounded it was no less significant. The very culture of America changed considerably because
of rock n roll.
By the 1970s, rock music had grown to a degree of grandeur the likes of which its
founders could never have imagined. Rock bands were performing at arenas and stadiums with a
spectacle one-upmanship rivalry which led to some of the most grandiose events in Western
culture. This also led to a decline in diversity. There was a sort of uniformity in chaos which

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became dull. Rock bands were making millions by touring the world with the same basic look
and performances which became, to a degree, redundant. Rock was not dying, it was simply
becoming over-indulgent and mundane. A resistance was already being born and cultivated in the
1960s and began to sprout wings in the early 1970s. Bands like The New York Dolls revived the
street-corner rocknroll attitude and paved the way for a whole new movement that was aimed
at stripping away the arena rock conventions (Spicer, 212).
Punk rock evolved out of necessity. Rock music needed a shot in the arm and punk rock
delivered it. As with all music genres, punk rock evolved out of earlier ideas such as garage rock
and glitter rock. Most people would claim that it began with The Ramones here in America and
The Sex Pistols in England. But, as discussed earlier, this music was a slow evolution whose
founding fathers were more likely bands like The MC5, David Bowie, The Stooges and The
Velvet Underground. These bands had a reputation for taking rock music to a new level of
intensity and pushing the limits of what was acceptable in popular music. Although these early
pioneers provided the inspiration for what would later become punk rock music, the term punk
rock was coined in New York to describe bands like The Ramones and Blondie and then caught
on in England with bands such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols. Punk was not just a style of
music; much like rock n roll, it was also an attitude. An attitude expressed in such ways as the
Sex Pistols swearing on national British television and The Ramones inundating their audience
with intense bursts of noise (Blake, 7)
The most important aspect of punk rock music was the way in which it destroyed the
conventions of mainstream rock. Suddenly, one was not required to wear bellbottom pants and
strut across a massive arena stage playing a ten minute guitar solo. This is not to say that that
idea died or faded away. Rock music carried on and heavy metal sort of grabbed the baton of

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arena rock. Punk simply stated that this was not a requirement. Punk allowed their idols to cut
their hair short, color their hair wildly or shave it off completely. They wore whatever they chose
and played however they wanted. Punk was founded on an idea of freedom that had sort of fallen
short with the previous generation. There was no uniform for punk or specified ethnicity. There
were African American bands like The Bad Brains who were among the first hardcore punk acts
and were widely accepted and still considered to be icons of punk rock, integrated bands like The
Specials and bands like The Rezillos who were a Scottish punk band with both male and female
vocals.
Punk rock set the stage for the immensely diverse music of the 1980s. Just about every
new act of the 1980s was in some way influenced by the punk rock movement. New wave, New
Romantic, gothic, industrial and many other music styles were spawned by punk. Punk rock also
influenced preexisting music genres such as heavy metal and glam rock. Bands like Motorhead
blurred the line between punk and metal. Even Motley Crue, in their early days, compared
themselves to punk icon Johnny Thunders and The New York Dolls. Music styles such as ska
and reggae were able to become much more popular because punk opened the floodgates of
diversity (Strauss, 72).
In the 1950s, rock n roll pioneers such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard had
picked up on an attitude, an energy and sort of an inner rage that was let loose upon the public
with their searing live performances. Their recordings captured a dark rebelliousness that is often
overlooked when people reflect on that decade. When Chuck Berry sang about hot rods and
stock cars, he was really singing about sex and romance to a repressed society. As the years
rolled forward, these metaphors became more obvious. In the 1960s, many bands spoke of civil
rights and freedom. Punk rock did not speak of freedom; they practiced it (Shaw 145).

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Muse have inherited a legacy of diverse music and culture that was built by rebels and
rendered complacent by giants and torn down again by rebels. This cycle repeated itself again in
the 1990s with the Seattle movement. Grunge did to big rock bands exactly what punk had done
to arena rock. Valid thoughthis may be, it was nothing new. Punk rock had shown them the way
just as early rock n roll had shown punk the way. This is a cycle that rolls on and on. Muse was
lucky enough to come along at a place in time when they could draw upon many different
influences from many different eras in music. Perhaps the real question should be: How could
any band in this day and age not exercise such diversity after all that history has handed them?
Punk rock and grunge can be seen as our saving graces. But, we must not lose sight of our music
heritage. None of this would be possible without rock n roll.

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Works Cited

Blake, Mark. comp. and ed. Punk:The Whole Story. New York: DK Publishing Inc., 2006.
Print.

Dodd, Philip, The Book of Rock: From The 1950s to Today.New York: Thunders Mouth Press,
2001. Print

Shaw, Arnold. The Rockin 50s: The Decade that transformed the Pop Music Scene.New York:
Hawthorn Books Inc., 1974. Print.

Spicer, Al. The Rough Guide to Punk.New York: Rough Guides Ltd., 2006. Print.

Strauss, Neil, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil, and Nikki Sixx. Motley Crue: The Dirt
Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band.
New York: Harper Collins Publishers Inc., 2002. Print.