Who invented punk rock?

this thread is silly, with so many proto, "sorta" punk bands... which aren't punk bands at all. Link Wray, Pink Floyd? please.

is it possible to discuss a genre of music without harking back to the 60's here?

this sums it up perfectly:

" The term “Punk Rock” should identify a distinct type of music; it shouldn’t just be a catchall for artists only connected by a “movement” or a period in time. For instance, it’s exceedingly clear that Suicide, the Ramones, Blondie, Television, and the Tuff Darts each played radically different kinds of music (and the same goes for the Damned and the Motors, or Elvis Costello and Eater). Not all bands during the “punk era” played punk rock; to throw them all under one moniker is inaccurate and misleading.

Likewise, although the word “punk” has been fluidly applied to artists as diverse as the Sonics, the Stooges, and the Strangeloves, I maintain that it should be applied specifically to bands that emerged in (and after) the mid-1970s and played barre-chord-driven, downstroke-based minimalist rock and roll. To extend that definition to groups that were only retroactively labeled as punk encourages revisionism and confusion."

 

I voted Stooges but probably only because I'm only dimly aware of the Monks and the Sonics!

 

Vivienne Westwood

 

I'd leave off Link Wray and Pink Floyd among many others but I think it's a mistake to deny the link between the punk movement of the 70's and its roots in the 60's.

 

I'm not denying the link, I'm saying that these bands from the 60's aren't punk bands and didn't invent a genre. they merely had small elements that were similar to some of the characteristics of punk rock.

 

Not forgetting the London SS who formed in March 1975 and the very first UK punks the Hollywood Brats who formed in 1971.

 

Generally speaking, nobody invents a genre, they are recognized after the fact. And if it sounds like punk rock and looks like punk rock, it's punk rock, no matter what decade it appeared in. I wouldn't say that the Stooges or the Monks or the Sonics had only "small elements" of punk in them.

 

Creem Magazine invented punk rock. Everyone else was just playing their take on rock music, but it was music critic Dave Marsh who came up with the term, and gave them a unified genre to run with.

 

Deffo Ramones, even when they never considered themselves as such; looks, attitude, music, etc.

 

I'd say that a band like the Stooges had a lot more than a passing resemblance to punk. They were a seminal influence to a lot of the bands that emerged in the mid 70s. I do think that this poll is confusing in the way that it mixes proto-punk with the actual punk bands, but it's still useful to look at the way that the form emerged in the 60s and early 70s.

 

Punk definitely started out as an attitude. Some stuff sounds Punk but doesn't have the attitude.
I really think the Punk "sound " came out of 60's Garage Rock. Seems we have to label the different types of Rock to distinguish an artists style. We can't put Metallica in the same genre as Phish, ELP or some other different sounding style. What about the sub genre of Punk Rock, Hardcore Punk Rock? Fast, furious punk rock with once again, attitude. Totally not commercial like some of the old Punk bands that finally got radio play and recognition. The Ramones should've been huge commercially when they were all alive. Every U.S. Sports stadium and arena probably plays the Ramones every night in between stoppages of play nowadays. In the late 70's and early 80's this different sounding rock was too controversial for radio programmers to take a chance with. WBCN Boston and KROQ L.A. were 2 stations that did take chances. Now The Clash, Buzzcocks, Ramones and Sex Pistols etc. get that exposure 30 some years later.

 

Nobody invented it. It was a culmination of ideas that eventually created a genre label. Best I can come up with right now is how some say In The Court of the Crimson King is the first progressive rock album, but it's not. Multiple groups were forming a similar melting pot, just like how any other genre comes to be.

 

The Swankers
The Strand

 

Punk Rock just grew organically from Garage Rock and some time in the 70's some media outlet started calling it Punk.

 

I think The Ramones were the first band to define the punk rock sound.

 

Ruttling Orange Peel. He ain't lyin', even if his wife says so.

 

Joan of Arc

 

If I have my information right, punk rock was invented by a guy called Kenneth Magnusson who was for a time working as a recording engineer in Gothenburg. The last I have heard about him is he has pretty much 'quit the business', and gone back full time to his main job as a driver. I don't think he even has any equipment left. Haven't seen him in years. Cool guy, though.

 

Although his time with Creem was tenuous as best, maybe the end game to define any of this is best said by Lester Bangs

“Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.”

I still like my vote, but if as Mr. Bangs indicates anything can be rock and roll with the right application of attitude. Perhaps then by extension anything can be said to be "punk" in the same manner.

 

Wally the Man!

 

" He's ALWAYS lyin' "

 

+1

 

Based on Richard Hell arguably.