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Punk - musically significant or not?


spectoremg

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11 minutes ago, leftybassman392 said:

All due respect Paul but that just doesn't make any sense. Are you really saying that anything musically worth saying can be said in less than 3 minutes?

I agree on this. Self-indulgence is not measured in seconds. There is a ton of  "lenghty" music where every second makes competely sense in building up atmosphere or tension

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One thing that consistently baffles me is the 'either/or' mentality I see from people. 'Punk/whatever is great, prog/whatever is crap', or vice versa.

I love Yes, Floyd and Genesis. I love The Beatles and ABBA. I love the Stranglers, The Pistols and the Damned. I love Ellington and Basie. To use someone's earlier example, I love both Never Mind the Bollocks and Bat Out of Hell. Why does it always have to be one or the other? 

 

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1 minute ago, 4000 said:

One thing that consistently baffles me is the 'either/or' mentality I see from people. 'Punk/whatever is great, prog/whatever is crap', or vice versa.

 

 

Not my case, I listen mostly to somewhat "proggish" stuff nowadays. 

Edited by oZZma
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5 minutes ago, oZZma said:

 Poor argument.

I'm not arguing with anyone. Not even with you when you try to put words into my mouth. 

Don't confuse personal preferences with facts. A band or artist who has world wide success for decades is never "rubbish", or any other negative word you can think of. You may not like them but that has no impact on whether they are good or not.

 

58 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

Why do bands extend songs live? another thing punk put a stop too (to start with anyway) if you can't say what you want to say in 3 minutes you're saying too much

If anyone wants 3 minute songs with no faff, that get to the point and have changed the world of music? Check out Chuck Berry.

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5 hours ago, BreadBin said:

Punk allowed people the freedom to pick up an instrument and play it regardless of whether they knew how. Some of the music they produced was good, most of it was shyte. 

Skiffle did that 20 years before punk came along.

'Oh! Where's me washboard!' 🤣

latest?cb=20131002211451

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2 minutes ago, chris_b said:

I'm not arguing with anyone. Not even with you when you try to put words into my mouth. 

Don't confuse personal preferences with facts. A band or artist who has world wide success for decades is never "rubbish", or any other negative word you can think of. You may not like them but that has no impact on whether they are good or not.

 

If anyone wants 3 minute songs with no faff, that get to the point and have changed the world of music? Check out Chuck Berry.

no picking on you Chris (some well made points) but the thread seems to have been completely derailed from "has punk had a lasting influence?" (yes in my opinion) to "do you think punk is better than other types of music?"

Much less bothered about the second 

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9 minutes ago, Hobbayne said:

Skiffle did that 20 years before punk came along.

'Oh! Where's me washboard!' 🤣

latest?cb=20131002211451

it certainly did, which is a big reason why we had some many good bands in the 60's, but it was forgotten, punk reminded people of that and I don't think it's been forgotten again, probably punks lasting legacy

Edited by PaulWarning
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2 minutes ago, chris_b said:

I'm not arguing with anyone. Not even with you when you try to put words into my mouth. 

Don't confuse personal preferences with facts. A band or artist who has world wide success for decades is never "rubbish"

ah yeah, sure. Maybe blockbusters are all good movies too, are they? 

Maybe some critical, historical, musicological perspective instead of charts have a little more significance.

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13 minutes ago, 4000 said:

One thing that consistently baffles me is the 'either/or' mentality I see from people. 'Punk/whatever is great, prog/whatever is crap', or vice versa.

I love Yes, Floyd and Genesis. I love The Beatles and ABBA. I love the Stranglers, The Pistols and the Damned. I love Ellington and Basie. To use someone's earlier example, I love both Never Mind the Bollocks and Bat Out of Hell. Why does it always have to be one or the other? 

 

Is this your first time on the internet? :lol:

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1 minute ago, oZZma said:

ah yeah, sure. Maybe blockbusters are all good movies too, are they? 

Maybe some critical, historical, musicological perspective instead of charts have a little more significance.

Why do they have more significance than the charts?

Why are blockbusters slated as not being "worthy"? Why should a musicologist define what is and what is good music? Why can't sheer numbers of sales and listeners and gig-goers add their own claim to defining significance?

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5 hours ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

Punk changed music as we know it. It blew the kneecaps off the overly pretentious 20 minute solo prog rock crap that was becoming extremely popular, and brought music back down to earth for the everyman. It introduced (maybe reintroduced to a new generation) short, sharp and extremely powerful songs that people could get behind, and defined music for a whole generation and more. Admittedly there was a lot of crap in there too, but that could be said about any genre and is pretty much down to personal taste. I'd hate to think where music would be now if it wasn't for punk. 

A lot of people liked, and still like now, the 20 minute solo prog rock 'crap'. Yes you're right, it is pretty much down to personal taste. The same personal taste that leads me to opine that punk was crap.
We all like different stuff, and thank god for that.

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4 minutes ago, ianrendall said:

Punk is certainly more credible than this complete barrel-scraping trash I saw advertised on TV yesterday. 

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I don't suppose anyone on here will buy it, but then again we are not the target market.

Perhaps the target market who DO buy it might enjoy it and think it credible.

My question, and it has yet to be answered, is why do some feel that just because something sells in large numbers it automatically has less artistic merit?

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1 minute ago, Deanol said:

I don't suppose anyone on here will buy it, but then again we are not the target market.

Perhaps the target market who DO buy it might enjoy it and think it credible.

My question, and it has yet to be answered, is why do some feel that just because something sells in large numbers it automatically has less artistic merit?

We're old enough to remember Mr Blobby getting to number 1, perhaps?

Edited by upside downer
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5 minutes ago, Deanol said:

why do some feel that just because something sells in large numbers it automatically has less artistic merit?

I said something different actually: selling large numbers doesn't automatically give you any artistic merit. And I should not even explain why, ESPECIALLY ON A MUSIC-RELATED FORUM.

But if you want to measure artistic merit in ounces like if it was selling pork... as I said, I yield

Edited by oZZma
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I think, to answer the original question asked, punk has had  a lasting influence. In many different bands you can hear punk influences - and also via those trace them back to original 50s rock n roll imo. There are punk songs now used in adverts, McDonalds has  similar artwork styles to that of what came out of punk. Would David Beckham have had a good few of his haircuts and outfits if not for punk. I’m not saying it changed the world, just that you can see its influences today, 40 plus years on.

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I have no reason to imagine I would ever have picked up an instrument if it wasn't for punk. In 1978, at the age of 15, me and a bunch of schoolmates sneaked into a pub to watch a punky/pub rock act who'd been making a bit of a name for themselves locally. On the way home, ears ringing, little minds comprehensively blown, and emboldened by a pint or two of shandy, we formed our first band.

None of us could play or had ever thought about being in a band before, but we chose our instruments and (eventually) went ahead, bought them & learned to play. I chose bass because I didn't think I'd get away with asking my parents to help me buy a drum kit - and because I was a big Stranglers fan & wanted to make "that" sound.

Me & my schoolmates never played together (although we all carried on playing) and I've never played punk rock. Some of the music was great (at the time, I'd say) but more than anything else it was a gateway. The bands weren't "rock stars" or millionaires, they looked the same as the kids in the audience & spoke the same language. The music was straightforward and accessible - previously I'd been into the likes of Alice Cooper and The Who, I would never, ever have entertained the idea I could ever pick up an instrument and actually play Halo Of Flies, or The Real Me - but thrashing along to Pretty Vacant or Peaches was no bother.

I always struggled (and still do) with tribalisation of music & genres - good music's good music whether it's 2.33 of three chords and shouting, or whether it's 17 minutes of existentialism arranged in four movements, with varying time signatures derived from the Fibonacci Sequence. And my metric of what's "good" is what I happen to like. Doesn't make anyone else's taste wrong but I do question some of the entrenched attitudes.

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Couldn't really give two hoots for punk music - same as I couldn't give two hoots for reggae or country & western. What I take/took issue with was the negativity and faux anger - the constant trashing of everything that wasn't "punk". "Destroy" was the mantra of the day - perfect for impressionable youngsters to kick against the establishment.

7 hours ago, BreadBin said:

Punk allowed people the freedom to pick up an instrument and play it regardless of whether they knew how. Some of the music they produced was good, most of it was shyte. 

AFAIK there's never been a law preventing people picking up an instrument and bashing out a tune. What punk did was to lower the bar so much that if you could just hold an instrument, you had an audience.

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11 minutes ago, oZZma said:

I said something different actually: selling large numbers doesn't automatically give you any artistic merit. And I should not even explain why, ESPECIALLY ON A MUSIC-RELATED FORUM.

But if you want to measure artistic merit in ounces like if it was selling pork... as I said, I yield

I'm not wanting to measure artistic merit in ounces at all.

I want to know what your definition of "artistic merit" is. I asked you before (although instead of "artistic merit" you said "greatness") but you declined to answer.

What you said was...

55 minutes ago, oZZma said:

ah yeah, sure. Maybe blockbusters are all good movies too, are they? 

Maybe some critical, historical, musicological perspective instead of charts have a little more significance.

Again, why should a musicologist define what is "significant"? You have now used three terms and not defined them...

  • Artistic merit
  • Greatness
  • Significance

How are these things defined when we discuss music?

Again, the argument from incredulity - "I can't believe that you don't agree with me especially as we are on a music website!" - that is no argument. This is a music website, and I disagree with you that some niche genre of music, as dictated by some academic musicologist, defines what is artistically meritorious.

Why don't you set out what is "artistic merit", "greatness", or "significant" in music?

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Just now, SteveK said:

Couldn't really give two hoots for punk music - same as I couldn't give two hoots for reggae or country & western. What I take/took issue with was the negativity and faux anger - the constant trashing of everything that wasn't "punk". "Destroy" was the mantra of the day - perfect for impressionable youngsters to kick against the establishment.

AFAIK there's never been a law preventing people picking up an instrument and bashing out a tune. What punk did was to lower the bar so much that if you could just hold an instrument, you had an audience.

That was kind of my point

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Away from my parent's record collection, punk was my first discovery and I played in a few punky bands when I was younger.

I think history has been rewritten slightly to imply that all music was poor beforehand and punk was totally fresh - just so long as nobody ever played any 60s Garage bands or the New York Dolls, you could be fooled into believing that! 

Punk is an attitude and it is still there in so much music. And in business. And in other walks of life. I feel the slightly cartoon-y take on a lot of it today with the identikit bands kind of misses the point.

And history should also re-write the Pistols to acknowledge that Glen Matlock was actually way cooler than Sid Vicious. 

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