Punk rock is a rock music genre, which emerged in the middle of 1970-s in the USA, and a bit later, in Great Britain. Punk rock contains combination of social remonstrance and musical rejection of rock forms of those days: an expressly primitive technique and expressive manner of early rock-n-roll was cultivated.
The sense put by early punk rock groups into their style, was an urge to play dominating ability of playing; due to this definition, an early heterogeneous American punk scene was formed in a range from primitive and superficial Ramones to complicated and experimental Television. Such an approach enabled punk rock becoming the basis of a number of subcultures – punk, DIY, fanzine culture, and later – straight edge. In 1976-1977, punk arises in Britain, in more scandalous and politicized form; due to this, genre becomes in 1977 one of the most noticeable phenomena of British rock music.
With the lapse of time, punk rock gave birth to numerous subkinds. Major ones are more tuneful and light pop punk, aggressive hardcore and Oi!, as well as combinations with other genres – ska punk and post punk becoming a separate major genre.
The word “punk” is a polysemantic word in most cases used as a curse[1] before punk rock appeared. Depending on context, it might have different meanings in a range from “prostitute” and “homosexual” to just “scum”, being an emotional unquotable word in all cases.
The first mentioning of the word “punk” in connection with rock music refers to 1970 when in Chicago Tribune, in a review of an album of the avant-garde garage band “The Fugs”, their music was characterized as “punk rock, bumpkin sentimentalism”. Lester Bangs, one of assumed inventors of “heavy metal” term, used the word in articles about Iggy Popp. Though, as a term but not an epithet, “punk rock” was used by critics Dave Marsh and Lenny Kaye in the 1970-s.
In 1976, the “Punk” fanzine appeared, created by Legs McNeil. The magazine was devoted to American punk rock and a new wave distinctly merging them into one trend. It was this magazine that gave the genre its final name.
In general, punk rock are characterized by rapid tempo, short duration sometimes, simple accompaniment, an overfree and often aggressive manner of performance. Texts of punk rock bands are nihilistic as a rule, sometimes emphasizing social problems. Quite often, punk rock bands possess some shocking image: e.g., New York Dolls wore bright female clothes on the stage, The Adicts imitated the style of the heroes of “A Clockwork Orange”; later, such details of punk image appeared as torn clothes (Richard Hell), pins (Sex Pistols), scalp locks (The Exploited).