PUNK AT 50 – HOW IT CHANGED EVERYTHING screams the strap line on the cover of last issue of Mojo, with Johnny Rotten, eyes ablaze, alongside. Well did it?
In 1976, the year the Pistols began to make waves, over 100,000 fans turned up to watch the Stones at Knebworth. Bowie played six nights at Wembley Empire Pool, Paul McCartney’s Wings three. In 1977, Pink Floyd played five nights at the same venue. Heavens only knows how many fans turned up at Knebworth in 1979 to watch Led Zep, well over 200,000 anyway. And that same year The Who played Wembley Stadium, around 80,000 I guess. A glance at the best-selling LPs for those years – step forward Abba, Rod Stewart, Floyd, Zep, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Bee Gees, etc – reveals a remarkable dearth of punk acts. And let’s not even bother with the situation in America.
All of which leads me to conclude that the ‘punk revolution’ was created largely by staff writers from the hawkish weekly music press baying for the blood of the dinosaurs and not by the overwhelming majority of fans. To a degree, this is reflected on pages 26 and 27 of this same issue of Mojo where an in-house ad features 24 covers, only one of which – the current Sex Pistols issue – can be said to feature a ‘punk’ act, unless you count Paul Weller who wouldn’t be seen dead in a torn tee-shirt. 14 of those covers feature acts that predate punk, most of whom released their first records in the 1960s.
This would seem to confirm the view that, try as they might, the idea that the punks slaughtered the dinosaurs is a myth.
This is not to say that punk didn’t blow away a few cobwebs that needed blowing away, or that several acts carried along in the same momentum didn’t produce some great records. But let’s not get carried away. Punk didn’t change everything. Nothing much changed in the long term. It just created a new(ish) rock genre.
Great Miles Davis CD, by the way.
Regards
Chris Charlesworth
9 comments:
It is certainly true that the music press, especially the British music press, really went overboard in the late 70s/early 80s using punk rock as an excuse to not only push out any musical acts they considered "past their sell-by date", but also to write in an ultra-arch sarcastic style about all music. Reading it today, it all seems so much an excuse to be snotty little boys and girls.
Spot on!
CC
''Changed everything for ever'' is a clickbait trope YT creators use and appeals to the gullible, impressionable and anyone with preexisting confirmation bias.
I see Brian's point, and I still love a wide swath of the rock aristocrats who prospered between '63 and '75 or so. But can't agree in full with the brief on the table.
No doubt a lot of writers in the era in question wanted to sling arrows at big, slow-moving targets. However, I'd wager they often did so at the behest of their publishers, who understood that poking the beast might sell more rags than praising it. And punk did go in the door while the inspiration that fueled big-branders was going out - Once great artists who make records like Atlantic Crossing or Street Rats and deserve to be typewriter-thumped.
Regardless, I don't think the wave of 1976, 1977 ('new' only because the kids of those years weren't around when rock was the hallmark of juvenile delinquents) was about toppling anything. It just served to create a strong second division, where you didn't have to lick some A&R boot heel to make a record or then make the record the owner of that boot insisted upon, and where you believed your record would sell just enough anyway. And if it didn't, your life was not at its terminal point. Your goals did not have to include a mansion and an E-Type, and you could take satisfaction in playing to your peers in their clubs at a 12-foot distance, not an arena where the people who dig your music don't recognize you without a telescope.
Revolution is a variable: Sometimes it's only about staking claim to the land you have, not taking it from somebody else.
Thanks, always dearly enjoy this blog.
Thanks Glenn, CC
As passionate as your assertion is that punk was merely a case of ‘nothing to see here’, it rings a bit hollow. Coming from a Melody Maker hack (albeit a MM hack who loved Slade) all I can say is that you were looking thru the wrong end of the telescope. Sounds got it. The NME got it. Christ, even Record Mirror got it. Maybe the new Steve Hillage album at the time really was worth overlooking a musical tornado that overturned everything in its path; fifty years later I guess it doesn’t matter now. We’ve all moved on.
Keep up the good work, Chris. I love the blog. Really. Just having a bit of fun with you.
Thanks John. MM employed Caroline Coon who certainly 'got it'. She went on to manage The Clash.
Thanks, Chris, for this article. I'm from the US, and saw British punk was never more than a sort of cult following here. I never bought that "punk HAD to happen" rhetoric brought on by the music journalists - British and American. It did take me a while to appreciate the genre. I never understood why music fans suddenly "had" to hate the music that was popular in the 70s like Yes, Genesis and so on. Why couldn't one like both? I did. Why be myopic?
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