Punk Rock

First thing of note is "The Decline" by NOFX, which is an 18-minute punk epic. It is musically sound, and I find it to be a great song. Leagues beyond what most people perceive punk music to be. Surely it's not complex like an avant-garde or even symphonic prog song, but it's clearly well-written and highly inspired. Unfortunately NOFX didn't too much music this great, but they did have their share of songs here and there in years past.

 

There is also a punk band called Propagandhi currently making music who I find to write very good songs on both objective and subjective grounds. They aren't afraid of writing songs over 4-minutes that don't follow formulas at all, and there is solid group interplay, technicality and what not. They also are extremely passionate about their music. Their lyrics are extremely intelligent and meaningful, even if you don't agree with their extreme opinions.

 

Also, a band called The Lawrence Arms released an album called The Greatest Story Ever Told which is semi-conceptual, as it has recurring themes and motifs. It's well-crafted musically and lyrically.

 

Then we have a band called A Wilhelm Scream who play a technical kind of punk rock. Strung Out is an earlier example. Fast leads, rhythmic or melodic shifts and so on. Not too much in the way of odd-times or other prog-related attributes, but it's a respectable, forward-thinking output for their genre.

 

Bear vs. Shark is an experimental, melodic hardcore punk band that put out a couple of great albums. In a sense they took the mantle from At the Drive-In. Angular riffs, quirky rhythms, a variety of sounds, a mathy tinge, very dynamic, etc.

 

I think Punk rock has evolved nicely, and I think there have been, are, and will be some great bands in the genre. I mean, surely someone looking for the highest caliber musicians and compositions won't find anything here that's remotely near the ranks of classical, jazz or prog rock. It's definitely not "academically legitmate," smooth and/or pleasant to all ears or anything of that sort, but it can be made by truly inspired people, and some even made by talented musicians (as in the cases above).

 

There is a clip of Billy Idol talking about punk rock at the beginning of Mogwai's album Come on Die Young (the track is titled "punk rock"), and I think it's a very thought-provoking statement for naysayers. Nothing too weighty, but it's hard to argue with it.

 

Is 'Curtain Call by the Damned Prog or Punk?  (Its about 17) min long.

 

 

 

Nomeansno, case in point

 

Yeah but you don't really hear any rockabilly in stuff like The Pistols, The Damned and other bands of that era. You can hear some in The Ramones. But there were a lot of different influences in there and the end result didn't sound anything like rockabilly.. As opposed to The Cramps, who had a very rockabilly heavy sound.

 

And a pretty sexy broad for a guitarist I might add.

 

Green Day are to punk what Styx is to prog.

 

Only Styx are way better.

 

Iván

 

New wave may be an exception, you could call that more of a spinoff, like how prog spun off of psychedelic rock. But it still owes much of it's existance to punk. 

 

Punk is used to describe a very diverse genre of music, much like metal and prog. You seem to be associating punk only with the early bands. But it's grown into a much larger genre since then.

 

The others I mentioned are undeniably sub-genres of punk. It's very common for all the bands I mentioned to simply be called "punk" bands. Post punk and Hardcore are especially direct predecessors to the original punk movement. As for fusion genres like those I mentioned, it's common for sub-genres to any genre to bring something new into the mix. But just like folk metal is still metal and prog folk is still prog. Ska punk and celtic punk are still punk.