Punk rock

"Although the origins of punk rock, as we know it today, undoubtedly include artists like Patti Smith, The Velvet Underground, and The Stooges, the origins of punk as an attitude can be traced back much further. In essence, punk is about the rejection of societal and musical norms, pursuing something entirely original and often revolutionary. In that sense, punk could be traced back to the original wave of jazz stars, who sought to tear down the boundaries of traditional music to create something modern and rebellious."

"According to one theory, punk rock all goes back to Ritchie Valens's "La Bamba." Just consider Valens's three-chord mariachi squawkup in the light of "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen, then consider "Louie Louie" in the light of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, then "You Really Got Me" in the light of "No Fun" by the Stooges, then "No Fun" in the light of "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones, and finally note that "Blikskrieg Bop" sounds a lot like "La Bamba.""

"The Sex Pistols were still rock'n'roll ... like the craziest version of Chuck Berry. Hardcore was a radical departure from that. It wasn't verse-chorus rock. It dispelled any notion of what songwriting is supposed to be. It's its own form."

"It would be possible to write the whole history of punk music without mentioning any male bands at all – and I think a lot of [people] would find that very surprising."

"Hippies were rainbow extremists; punks are romantics of black-and-white. Hippies forced warmth; punks cultivate cool. Hippies kidded themselves about free love; punks pretend that s&m is our condition. As symbols of protest, swastikas are no less fatuous than flowers."

"Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock."

"But I was a rebel in the usual, rather superficial, ways that teenagers in the late 1970s were. I mean, I went fairly quickly from punk rock to Thatcherism. The two had much in common. The urge to challenge the consensus was very powerful in me at the age of 15, 16, 17, and the Sex Pistols and Margaret Thatcher alike were rebarbative and critical of what seemed to me a rather stagnant country."

"Girls invented punk rock, not England."

"...punk rock had to come along because the rock scene had become so tame that [acts] like Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel were being called rock and roll, when to me and other fans, rock and roll meant this wild and rebellious music."

"...rock and roll by people who didn't have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music."

"That was the beauty of the punk thing: [sexual] discrimination didn't exist in that scene."

"[punk] was the first musical genre to spawn fanzines in any significant numbers."

"On TV, if you watched cop shows, Kojak, Baretta, when the cops finally catch the mass murderer, they'd say, 'you dirty Punk.' It was what your teachers would call you. It meant that you were the lowest."

"In its initial form, a lot of [1960s] stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll."

"Punk was meant to be of the voice of the dole queue, and in reality most of them were not. But Oi was the reality of the punk mythology. In the places where [these bands] came from, it was harder and more aggressive and it produced just as much quality music.""

"Punk was a total cultural revolt. It was a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-wing imagery, sexual taboos, a delving into it that had never been done before by any generation in such a thorough way."

"...punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England."

"During the Pistols era, women were out there playing with the men, taking us on in equal terms ... It wasn’t combative, but compatible."

"Punk rock is meant to be our freedom. We're meant to be able to do what we want to do."

"....attaining authenticity in the punk identity can be difficult."

"What made punk rock so exciting in its early years was that everything felt like an accident. Those albums became artifacts, the kind that saw a bunch of (usually) teenagers articulating things based on impulse instead of know-how."