DS Editorial: What is Punk?

Bowling For Soup was my first punk band.

Older listeners will scoff as they remember their baptism by way of Minor Threat, younger listeners will question who Bowling For Soup is, and I’m sure everyone else will just laugh. But the point remains: Bowling For Soup introduced me to punk rock.

It’s easy to write them off now as a poor man’s Blink-182. Poppy in all the ways the radio likes. Offensive in a safe, juvenile way. Fast and accessible. But when I was a kid I didn’t hear anything but furious, righteous anger; pointed political attacks.

The nasally vocals and chugging guitars were my Pied Piper, so to speak. Luring me from the relative safety of popular music into a world of anarchy signs and chain wallets, crossbuster shirts and mohawks.

As my ears have hardened considerably since then, scarred from years of crust punk, I’m sad to say that I find the pop-punk stylings of Bowling For Soup nearly unlistenable. But–and this is what inspired my Great Awakening of sorts– as un-punk as they are, whatever I got from them was undeniably punk rock. There’s a reason I write for a punk site right now, and not Pitchfork, superior taste aside. The more I think about it, the more striking it is to encounter the broad boundaries of the punk rock genre. How can a band like Bowling For Soup and Tragedy possibly fall under the same umbrellla?

We all know the old adages that speak of three sacred chords and a pension for breakneck speed. Simplicity and passion above technicality and distance– I assume these are carved into runes somewhere, because these ancient definitions have taken on a life of their own as punk rock’s de facto definition. But these are rendered irrelevant by even the most cursory examination of the genres progression. Virtuostic fretwork isn’t a cardinal sin anymore, as anyone who has listened to A Wilhelm Scream knows. The three chords rule is defied often and extensively, with some bands even employing–gasp!–key changes. With some groups reaching global popularity, the gap between artist and fan grows. But these are all still punk bands. We may argue their inherent quality, but a bad punk band is still a punk band.

Dictionary.com defines it as such:

“a type of rock-‘n’-roll, reaching its peak in the late 1970s and characterized by loud, insistent music and abusive or violent protest lyrics, and whose performers and followers are distinguished by extremes of dress and socially defiant behavior.”

Remember where we are today in the scene. Does that sound like Gaslight Anthem?

It seems the only identifying characteristic left is abstract to the point of being aggressively vague–passion. As impossible as it is to quantify, I think most of us would agree that a passion for creating music on your own terms is an undeniable element of punk rock. But what musician is passive towards the art they create?

With all of these contradictions, I ask: what is punk?

Under the umbrella of punk rock there is an intersecting web of subgenres that attempts to conclusively describe every variation to the formula. It’s enlightening to think about the fact that so many subgenres of punk rock are defined by what makes them unpunk. Melodic hardcore is distinguished by its increased accessibility through melody, pop punk transgresses the strictures of punk by embracing both lyrical and musical influences from popular music. Crust punk embraces metal, often seen as the genre’s greatest friendly adversary.

Punk needs to be redefined. So many aspects that were once fundamental and necessary to the genre’s identity are no longer so. Punk can be progressive without losing it’s passion, it can be pop without succumbing to it. Non-conformity is without a doubt close to the core of punk rock. Perhaps we’ve finally gotten to the day and age where punk is willing to defy itself.

When Crass said punk was dead, maybe they were onto something. Pure-bred punk rock is dead. But the mutt that we have now is more cunning, more streetwise, and stronger than ever.

Punk is dead. Long live punk.

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Dying Scene writers aren’t much different than you Dying Scene readers. Yeah, we have news writing superpowers, but ultimately we are just super fans of the punk genre like the rest of you. And like the rest of you we have our own individual thoughts and opinions and sometimes we just got to get stuff off our chest. Editorial style. So with that in mind, we’d like to remind all of our handsomely toned and intelligent readers that the views expressed in these articles are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the entire Dying Scene staff.