The Legacy and Evolution of Punk

Whatever your thing It could be anything. Canba helps you make that thing a thing Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things You can social media your thing, generate images or videos of your thing, make decks or presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing It's the seventh of june, nineteen seventy seven in London It's been a day of high celebration in the capital as Britain came together for the Queen's silver Jubilee Now, as evening draws in, the street parties continue long after the pomp and circumstances passed. For one day, the country has felt united Or most of it anyway Out on the river, on a small boat chugging along the choppy waters, the mood is distinctly different Amid a vibrant crowd of around a hundred people, a young man stands on the deck, bleached blonde hair geled up in jagged spikes and face as pale as the moon He grips the rail with one hand to steady himself as the boat rocks beneath his feet. Like everyone aboard, he's been drinking most of the afternoon, swept up in the excitement until he found himself on this private boat, hired as a floating stage for the punk band, The Sex Pistolons Right now, they're cruising the Thames, playing a live concert for this party of fans, friends, entourage, and a few selected journalists. As a fan, listening to the band's Anarchic new single, God Save the Queen, live is a defining moment in the young man's life As the bass thuds into his chest, and the guitar slices through the air, the young punk grins, shouting the lyrics along with a song He's not quite in time, not quite in tune. Who cares Ahead, the outline of the Houses of Parliament looms against the fading light, the harsh thumping music bouncing off its ancient walls Suddenly, from behind, a police launch cuts across the river towards them, sirens blaring, blue lights bouncing off the water The young man turns, squinting into the dim light Other people begin to notice now, pointing and jeering over the rails. The fan holds on tight as the wake from the police boat rocks the deck For now, the band keeps playing, loud, fast and defiant, but the atmosphere has changed, and the boat is already slowing. As the police draw alongside and officers clamber aboard, the music collapses into a piercing whine of feedback, followed by sudden silence. The stage lights flicker and die. Police shout at the fans who give as good as they get. The band themselves cry prejudice, while their manager, Malcolm McLaren protests that he's paid good money to rent the vessel. But it all falls on deaf ears, and soon they're being escorted back to the dock There, McLaren is arrested and led away, while the musicians are corralled through a line of police officers in the glare of pressed flashbulbs and shouted questions The party is over But the moment has left its mark In the celebrations today, two versions of Britain have collided One rooted in tradition and ceremony. The other restless, angry and refusing to wait its turn to be heard By the mid nineteen seventies, popular music had become a huge polished beast Rock stars were playing to vast stadiums, but the gap between performer and audience felt wider than ever At the same time, many young British people felt locked out of life The country was struggling, the future uncertain And for a generation coming of age, there was a growing sense that no one was listening In cities across the nation and in parallel scenes in America and beyond, young people decided to make themselves heard Picking up instruments with little training, forming bands with no expectation of success, they created something raw, fast, and confrontational Punk was a movement that burned brightly, fractured quickly, and left a legacy that far outlived its brief explosive heyday But why did punk resonate so powerfully with a generation that felt shut out Who were the artists and activists who drove it and the fans who embraced it And how did something so chaotic and short lived go on to reshape music, culture, and identity for decades to come I'm John Hopkins Fr the Noiser Podcast Network this is a short history of punk. In the mid nineteen seventies, much of the Western world feels unsettled The optimism and energy of the post war decades have given way to economic uncertainty, political strain, and a growing fear about the future In Britain, that mood is especially potent Inflation is rising and industrial conflict is deepening. For many young people, especially in working class communities, opportunities seem narrow and uninspiring Matthew Wallley is a British academic and author of No Future, Punk, Politics and British Youth Culture In Britain in particular, there was the close three day week ramifications. there was an increase in industrial conflict, there was social tensions. There's a sense in which the government, which was by seventy six seenty seven is a minority government, a labour government that can't quite really Govin So a sense of ungovernability You've got inflation going through the roof, a national front on the streets, a global oil crisis. So there are lots of things that suggested the world was in a very unstable position Cities feel run down and neglected, and there is a real sense of distance between ordinary people and those in power. But the Malise is cultural too Popular music has drifted away from its roots Progressive rock bands like Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer may be selling out stadium shows, but ticket prices are beyond many pockets even when audiences can afford the shows The music itself feels overblown with long solos and elaborate stagecraft Rock has become more about spectacle than authenticity The problem is little else in the charts seems to be hitting the right notes either. So Glam's kind of had its day. Progressive rock's kind of almost getting parody of itself and ridiculous. Top of the pops is inundated or dominated by trite novelty records, Dooby the Disco duck and all this kind of stuff. It's aimed as much at your mum and dad as it is the kids on the street So I think there was certainly enough people beginning to feel a sense that Rock had lost touch with its grassroots general disaffection that something exciting and new was needed to kind of re enliven and reignite popular music in the nineteen sevventies Across the West, bands are arriving at a similar idea Rock music needs to be stripped back, sped up, and made raw again By the mid nineteen seventies, that impulse needs a name Punk was once a term of insult, suggesting something worthless, unruly, or juvenile But it's now reappropriated as a title for this harsh back to basics art form, and the attitude that comes with it From Australia to Paris, the roots of punk are starting to emerge. In clubs like New York's CBGB, artists such as Paddy Smith, Television, and the Ramones are showing that music doesn't need polish or virtuosity to have value Far from turning people off, being as direct and abrasive as possible is what draws the crowds And because New York and London are linked by constant exchange of people, records, and ideas, each scene helps energize the other This episode is brought to you by Fox One. Watch all one hundred and four matches of the FIFA World Cup live in four K for just nineteen doll ninety nine cents a month with three days free. Build your own multi view, choose up to three streams and follow players spotlights. Stay on top of every moment with live stats, highlights and instant replays. The FIFA World Cup, streaming live on Fox One, offers a subject to change seefox dot com for complete terms and conditions This episode is brought to you by Street Easy. You gotta ask yourself, Wan to talk about the time you lived in the greatest city on Earth or still live in it? In the city where a matinee leads to two AM tacos. Your New York era can last a lifetime. With twenty years of NYC know how, Street Easy can help you become a forever New Yorker. Visit streeteasy dot com to buy or rent in NYC. Street Easy is an assumed name of Zillow Inc, which has licenses in all fifty states When punk emerges into public view in Britain, its sound has already been shaped in the margins on both sides of the Atlantic And in nineteen seventy six It suddenly comes of age nineteen seventy six is when the IMF crisis means the British economy looks at its most vulnerable and people are talking about economic collapse. a run on the pound of inflation twenty five percent. Unemployment passes one million for a first time. so you've got all those kind of social economic things too It's also the year in which someone like Mick Farron for the NME writes a famous article called The Titanic Sails at Dawn, Basically saying Rock ' and' roll is lost. We need something new. We need something to kind of save it against a backdrop of strikes, rising unemployment, and a national mood of decline, Punk steps defiantly into the space that is opened up It did the opposite of everything that was the prevailing tropes of the time. So as albums were usurping singles, punk was back to short songs, released on seven inch singles. The fact they were short songs, not long songs, the fact that it was rough and ready, not well produced, the fact that it didn't put an emphasis on musical sophistication the rougher the better, the rawer, the better Bands, like the sex pistols, the Clash, the damned and the Buzzcocks begin to attract attention first in London and then further afield It's all about being real and relatable. with lyrics drawing unashamedly from daily life, warts and all British punk takes on a particular form, I think again, relating to some of the politics and the asetics and the way in which Bandstight the Cash spoke to peculiarly British concerns. So if this is the first clash album, it's full of references to the Baker Loo line and the career opportunities working for the BBC. It's very kind of specific to its place British punk is not confined to London. It spreads quickly to places like Manchester, Liverpool, and Sheffield, where local scenes form and begin to take on identities of their own. Part of its force lies in how open it feels With its roots in Rock and rooll, Glam, Garage Rock, and reggae, Punk doesn't require or ask for permission It thrives on amateurism. the idea that anyone can pick up an instrument, start a band, make a fansinee, or simply claim a style and a point of view The most important thing that pung did was make people think the cliche is, you know, do it themselves, do it yourself. And you see that very quickly the sex whistles play and people think either they're rubbish, I could do better than that, or they're brilliant. I want to do that. And as we all know, there's also a load of people who thought it was terrible and didn't want anything to do with it Which is great as well because it creates a kind of thisson that can blow things up. But that sense of agency to not be spectators but to participate, to do it rather than consume it. That's where when people talk about the politics of punk, that's the politics of punk, it created the impulse to do something, it gave people a belief that they could do something themselves While men still dominate much of the music industry, Punk's disruptive, anti establishment nature means that women aren't just watching from the sidelines but helping define what the movement looks and sounds like Suzy Sue, who first comes to attention as part of the so called Bromley contingent of fans following the sex pistols, quickly transforms herself into a striking and confrontational presence With her heavy eye makeup and unflinching stare, the cold, controlled persona she creates is a deliberate counterpoint to the anarchy around her Meanwhile, as lead singer of X ray spepecs, Polly styrene arrives from a very different place daught of Somali born father and a Scottish Irish mother. She brings a voice that is fresh, urgent, and unmistakably her own. Rejecting the polished image expected of female performers, she wears braces, writes lyrics about consumerism and identity, and delivers them with a restless, almost breathless intensity This new breed of artists challenges the assumptions of who gets to be loud, visible culturally relevant Across the country, teenagers form bands and small independent labels begin pressing records quickly and cheaply Photogopied fanzines appear documenting local scenes as they spring up across the country. People start booking their own shows, making their own artwork, and creating their own networks It's still fragmented and underground, but that is precisely what gives it its force Punk is loose and fast moving, passed between fans by word of mouth and scrappy hand drawn flies It shows a generation that culture isn't something handed down from above, but something you can make yourself. And the shared language they use to that end is defined as much by style as by music Everything from clothes and hairstyles to posture and attitude becomes part of the statement. Safety pins, ripped fabric, moohawks, bleach, die, slogans, and bondage trousers are all part of an aesthetic designed to outrage Much of that visual language is sharpened in West London by Malcolm McLaren and Vivian Westwood McLaren is a former art student, fascinated by antagonism and performance, who understands the power of publicity Restless, talkative, and drawn to disruption, he is less interested in music for its own sake than in the spectacle that can form around it. Westward by contrast is more grounded and exacting A former primary school teacher, she's a self taught designer with a keen eye for the politics of appearance, whose clothes draw on fetish wear, street style, and historical fashion The importance of people like Malcolm McCare and liiving Westward was in framing what the sex pistols were doing. They gave it a point and a purpose They kind of conceptualized it really. A lot of people talk about that they were a manufactured band. I don't think they were manufactured. I think they were conceptualized That's what they did Punk is still chaotic and spontaneous But figures like McLaren and Westwood help give it direction by defining its look and focusing its presentation and meaning That framing is reinforced by the work of graphic designer Jamie Reid whose artwork gives punk some of its most enduring images I think read's the most important in some ways because just that poster for Anaky in the UK, a picture of a union jack torn to pieces held together by safety pins and bull clips That's what I mean when I talk about punk reflecting the time because in nineteen seventy six If you talk about anarchy in the UK, Anarchy can either mean the country falling into total disrepair because of industrial action and inflation and the IMF bailing it out. But it's also anacus a cult freedom and excitement and that kind of double meaning of Are we on the cusp of something amazing in the world opening up O are we on the cusp of everything collapsing in on us and descending into misery and and chaos of a different sort Jamie Reid's framing of the pistols creating that aesthetic around it has suddenly made a brilliant rock and roll band an incredible rock and roll band and something more akin to a kind of cultural intervention rather than simply great music to listen to. and the sound are now inseparate Together, they give punk a recognizable identity that outgrows its spaces in the fringes, the clubs and the record shops And the moment it finally bursts well and truly into the broader culture Broadcast live on early evening television. On the first of december, nineteen seventy six, the sex pistols appear on TemesS Television' Today program Tea timee Chata They're there almost by accident, booked at the last minute after the rock band Queen, Ccel With the band in the studio are figures from the Bromley Cingent, a loose circle of young fans and followers from Southeast London, including Suzie Sue What follows becomes one of the most notorious interviews in British television history The host, fifty three year old Bill Grundy, introduces the group as being, in his words, as drunk as I am and is patronizing and goading from the outset, apparently keen to get a rise out of his guests. He teases them about their image and attitude and then flirts awkwardly with Suzie Sue, prompting guitarist Steve Jones to label him a dirty old man Instead of bringing the interview back on course, Grundy doubles down, pressing Jones to say something shocking The musician duly obliges, unleashing a few choice expletives The swearing lasts only a few seconds, but on live television in nineteen seventy six, it detonates like a grenade Within hours, the press have mobilized, denouncing punk as filthy, degenerate, and out of control. What was a growing underground movement becomes front page news The Grundying at the end of nineteen seventy six is the point in which punk and the pistols stop being of interest to people who read the music press and become part of the broader cultural fabric. The Grundley moment serves as the moment punk moves from being a subterranean slightly left field and oppositional to something that is infusing a popular culture. On one hand, the notoriety is exactly what the bands have been looking for. Headlines condemn the band as foul mouthed and dangerous, and punk quickly acquires a reputation for disorder and trouble Some of that image is exaggerated, some of it actively cultivated, but once attached, it proves hard to shake. Venues grow nervous, and some local authorities begin to talk about bans But the more it's condemned, the more popular it grows, and the music press helped to spread that sense of difference We're so familiar with how punk looks nowadays in spiky air and whatever. But when you're peeling through the NME in nineteen seventy six and every page has got somebody with a beard and someone with long hair and someone wearing a denim suit fled trousers pososing on stage in a certain way. then you turn the page andir sudly Johnyock You really get a sense of how different it looks Punk isn't, however, just about shock value. Beneath the headlines and the outrage is a deeper expression about class P Boredom belonging s lyrics, imagery, and attitude speak to youth alienation. to distrust of authority and to the feeling that the country has nothing to offer the people coming of age within it One phrase in particular comes to capture that mood No future Made famous by the sex pistols, the sentiment is easy to interpret as pure sneering nihilism But it also identifies a generation's sense that the promised future of stable work and social progress is beginning to slip out of reach and the very real sense The nation is not working as it should Meanwhile, those in power appear distant from the frustration on the streets They're still speaking the language of order and national pride Well much of the country feels neglected tents stuck The disaffection reaches a fever pitch in nineteen seventy seven As Britain marks the Queen's silver jubilee with bunting and pageantry The sex pistols release God save the quueen I think Gods of the Queen is the kind of hide point of the pistols being seen as this anti establishment thing where you could put the politics word to them. in that it was a willfully provocative, seditious, very insightful critique of where Britain was at in the mid nineteen seventies. This is a country that its empire is dissolving and disappearing It's just entered Europe, so it's into a new phase come out of the optimistic swinging sixties and all talk of the white heat of technology And yet it finds itself in the kind of economic problems in the mid nineteen seventies To release a song like that in Jubilee Year feels to many like a deliberate act of desecration For supportters, it is thrilling Critics It is offensive to the points of unforgivable. They're made for brilliant theatre and a brilliant, spectacular response to the mad parade of the Jubilee. And again, it's crucial to it. I mean, Rotten's lyrics are fantastic. There is also Jamie Reid framing it with that brilliant cover of the Qeen muted and blinded with blackmail lettering across it which really just added to the idea that they weren't just antis social delinquents who swore on television, they were actually trying to bring the whole thing down Punk presses directly on the fault lines of British life, poking at class, authority, identity, nationalism, and race. Yet, even as bands and fans rail against the system, Punk never speaks with one clear political voice, with different people drawing different meanings from it It does, however, create a space in which people can stake out a position for themselves and insist that their voice matters So it's not like Punk had an ideological position explicitly, but implicitly the whole thing about punk about being yourself, doing what you want to do, being who you want to be, having a voice lent itself to a particular kind of politics. Like I say, the politics of punk are really bound up in the fact that it gave people a sense of agency a belief that they could do something, that they weren't actually worthless and useless, that they'd had something to say, they could say it That openness is part of Punk's power. But it is also where the trouble begins. Because once a movement defines itself through provocation and the right to offend It becomes harder to control who can and should be provoked and offended This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a fifty page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check Response is set up required compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus Hey, I just Venmo you for Rnt. Nice. Now I can instantly spend it whether I'm checking out online with Venmo or using a Veno debit card. Say more. More exactly? Because the more you do with VenMo, the more you get, likeike earning up to five percent cash backack with Veno Stash on a bundle of brands. So order more pizza? The math demands it. Get the Venmo debit card. Venmoash bundle terms and exclusions apply. See terms of Venmo d. slash dash term. Veno check out not available at all merchants. VenMo Master card issued by the Bankcor Bank NA By now, the Far right National Front political group is experiencing a surge in popularity exploiting economic anxiety and racial tension with a message of white nationalism. In many parts of Britain, that racism is lived as intimidation, harassment, and street violence, especially for black and Asian communities. From the outset, punk has been associated with a rejection of establishment values But that antagonism towards the status quo also attracts those who want to turn grievance into something more exclusionary. Punk is being pulled in very different political directions And some of them are openly racist I think it's a mistake to think punk had a definite politics. I think the politics of punk are always contested and you can read different types of politics into it We're talking ideology or anything like that. I think over time punk then manifests quite a lot of different types of political responses to the extent that you've got Bazi Krass really taking anarchy seriously and creating an Ao punk thing. But you've also, unfortunately, got a load of kind of right wing bands who created a whole, let's face it, bands like screwdriver played punk rock and did it in a way that generated Nazi politics and racist politics Some of this overlap comes from youth subcultures already mixing and colliding on the street It does not emerge in a vacuum It rubs up against existing skinhead and football cultures, and while some of that is rooted in working class pride and local identity Other aspects become increasingly entangled with racism. and the far right The original skinhead scene drew heavily on Jamaican music and multicultural working class life But by the late nineteen seventies, parts of that culture are becoming decidedly nationalistic. while swastikas are worn by some as a way of aggravating respectable society. rather than as a coherent statement of belief To others, they offer a true representation of deeply held ideology But in a climate of rising racism and far right activity Punks's taste for scandal becomes harder to defend as mere theatre I always think for me, the way in which McCarenon and Westb used suppos to go is always in juxtosition at other things So the famous Destroy T shirt is a swasticer with an upside down crucifix and a picture of a postage stamp with the quQueen's head being decapitated and destroy above it And so you're destroying the three pillars of authority, religion, politics, and monarchy You can read that in a more sophisticated way, but people just wearing a swastic could just shock people and it's more problematic. For many, that ambiguity becomes intolerable They don't want their culture to be captured, stained, or confused with fascism which they see is just another facet of an establishment they want no part of Plenty of punk music straddles racial lines, with bands like the Clash drawing openly on reggae influences B and white youth are meeting in clubs, at gigs and on the street, even as the national Front tries to turn British people against each other And so when prominent musician Eric Clapton, drunkenly voices support for Enoch Powell, the conservative politician notorious for his anti immigration rhetoric. Many in the music community decide that enough is enough. Rock Against Racism is formed after activists publish a letter condemning Clapton's outburst and calling for a visible anti racist response It starts as a loose network of gigs. and soon grows into a movement that brings together punk bands, reggae artists, and anti racist activists in open opposition. To the far right It's april nineteen seventy eight, near Victoria Park, East London A vast column of protestters is on the move, Thousands strong, their voices and banners filling the streets Among them, a sixteen year old girl in a scuffed leather jacket, tartan mini skirt, and laddered tights is carried along, her hair stiff with cheap hairspray and back combing She came in by tube with two friends from South London, clutching a hand painted Rock againainst Racism sign she made on her bedroom floor last night. Now, after hours on the move, her legs ache and her throat hurts from chanting But her energy and that of the sea of people she's part of shows no sign of running out All around her are punks in ripped shirts and leather jackets, while trade union banners bob above the crowd Black and white teenagers, veteran activists, women with children on their shoulders, students and socialists all blur together as locals leaning from windows watch them pass The sound is constant as voices rise and fall in waves and chants are taken up and lost again to laughter and chatter Up ahead, a drumbeat sets a rhythm. Below it all, police sirens pulse and fade As the march slows at a junction, the noise changes with a burst of aggressive shouting erupting from the pavement ahead She crames her neck to see a small knot of men gathered behind a line of police. skinheads. Faces hard, arms folded, waving union jacks and national Font placards One of them cups his hands and yells vicious slurs, while another spits towards the demonstrators Police hold the line, shoulders squared as the march pushes past in a wave of jeers, raised fists, and lobbed bottles Confronted by this common enemy, the punks are reinvigorated. After all, this is exactly why they're here. a show of strength against these fascist thugs and everything they stand for. Their chants start up again, and the girl joins in with enthusiasm louder than ever, drowning out the abuse. By the time they reach Victoria Park, the march had swollen into an enormous crowd. People pour through the gates and out across the grass, spreading in every direction. The air smells of beer, smoke, and sweat At the center is a stage and an enormous sound system, and as a band gets started, it sends out a deep, rolling throb of reggae bass that rises through the soles of the girls's boots and into her ribs She stops for a moment and turns slowly in a circle, taking it in There are skinheads here too. brracees bright against their shirts. And again, she feels that flicker of uncertainty one of them lifts a rock against racism sign above his head, and another is already dancing to the baseline, laughing as the crowd surges toward the stage Up ahead, the platform is rough and makeshift, but the force gathering around it is immense The march, the jeering, the police lines, the threat hanging over the streets outside, all of it has funneled into this one place Outside the park, a man who want Britain smaller, whiter, and meaner In here, for one afternoon, another version of the country is making itself heard against racism shows that punk can do more than just provoke outrage. They can also build alliances, draw lines, and help imagine a different kind of Britain By the end of the nineteen seventies, punk is past its outrageous first wave, and its momentum is splintering off in different directions. Which isn't to say it's failed as a movement, but more that it has opened too many possibilities to remain one unified thing. One way of thinking about the sex B was almost like a kind of Kamikaze mission into the heart of the music industry to blow it all up and just get rid of all the rules and the expectations that people had about pop music and rock and roll And then it was up to people to then put the pieces back together in a way that they wanted to That is exactly what begins to happen Some artists take punks, principles into politics, some into pop, some into art, experimentation and electronics. The result is not one future for punk Many Of course you can mix punk with a bit of free jazz and a bit of funk and become the pop group Of course you can take a punk attitude to things and put really harsh electronics on it and think about paranoia and de industrialization become Cabareret Voltaire and of course punk doesn't have to be four boys in a band. It could be the slits or it could be the raincoats or something like that. Andf course punk rock doesn't just have to be Three cs play quick You can bring reggae in there Regae is thinking about what's happening to the black community. So we're going to sing about what's happening to our community. and then it's our community is black handwite. So we sing about what's happening to both of us. And it just breaks everything downam and gets re put into place But while Punk is opening out into new forms, the band most closely identified with its early days beginning to fall apart The sex pistols have burned fast and hard generating scandal wherever they go. By the time they reached the end of a chaotic demoralizing U.S. tour They're coming a part of the seeps bassist and singer Sid Vicious is sinking deeper into heroin addiction manager Malcol McLlaren is pushing the band ever harder. And lead vocalist Johnny Rin has grown bitter, exhausted, and increasingly convinced he's being used As the final gig of the tour rolls around Itdle comes to a headad It is the fourteenth of january nineteen seventy eight in the Winter and Ballroom, San Francisco A young fan, a student, near the front of the packed room, braces himself against the crush and looks up at the band on stage The sex pistols have come to the end of their American tour, which has been a strange combustible run through the deep south and beyond But Now in San Francisco, they should be finishing the tour with a bag. But tonight, the atmosphere feels brittle. The band members barely acknowledge one another. There is no sense of shared momentum, only the feeling of four people forcing themselves through the mechanics of a performance The student at the front takes a swig of his drink, as the guy next to him sloshses beer down his shirt On stage, the band crash into their next song, No Fun The sound is raw and ragged. Steve Jones' guitar snarls, Paul Cook's drums drive hard, and Sid Vicious lurches through the lyrics with the same wounded instability that has followed the whole tour John Leiden, or Johnny Roden, as he's known, stalks the front of the stage with a look that is part disgust and part exhaustion The student in the crowd canense something is wrong, even if he can't name it This doesn't feel like the band he's come to love. It feels like a group of people expending the last dregs of their energy and enthusiasm in public Each one of them looks exhausted, touchy, and almost resentful He looks around Some people are cheering wildly, someome just stare at the band as if infected by the same malaise But others are apathetic, talking over the music, buying drinks and pushing through the crowd, as if this is just another night Leiden steps to the microphone For a second, the room hangs there with him. He's breathing hard Sweat glints under the stage lightights. And then he asks the ballroom Ever get the feeling you've been cheated He comes across half as a joke, half as an accusation There's some laughter and cheering, though many in the crowd don't seem to understand what they've just heard But to the student, the bitterness in the Englishman's tone is unmistakable And then, just like that, it's over With no grand farewell or final pose, and no triumphant encore, the last gig has ended, and the band have walked off The house lights flare up. The amplifiers hum and the crowd begins to disperse, oblivious to the fact that they have just watched the last performance of the band that defined a movement Punk will go on to fracture, evolve and rebuild itself But for the sex pistols This is the end And their final collapse was sudden, sour, theatrical, and unexpected. Everything it was meant to be Looking back, I think the sex pistols splitting out when they did was probably a good thing because it meant them as a focal point of them seeming to embody what punk meant for many people. So for them to split in january nineteen seventy eight to all extents and purposes was a really good thing, I think, because it left them with just these four great singles on an album as a testimony to what they'd done. It meant they were never going to at the time going to go off and become dreadful and release a bad record Itd also created this big vacuum after them where some people had to fill it In the space left behind, new directions emerge as the genre continues to mutate. Out of punk grows post punk, New Wave, hardcore and Gh in Britain and in parallel scenes across America Bands like Public Image Limited, Suie and the Bansheies, Gang of fourour, the Slitits, and the Raincoats, take punk into stranger and more ambitious territory As this new landscape develops across the late nineteen seventies and into the early nineteen eighties, the political mood sharpens too. And with Margaret Thatcher's rise to power, some of Punk's anger begins to find a clearer target Punk's disaffection before Margaret Thater is far more diffuse and in many ways, and again, without over intellectualizing it, quite existential. It's just the world's rubbish, pop music's rubbish, Telly's rubbish, that pub's rubbish, the road looks rubbish. Pices are going up. I don't like it. I'm gonna do something else. It's a lot more just general disaffection Margaret Thatcher brings a real focus. You got someone to throw your eggs at For some bands, the music becomes more explicitly political. more focused in its opposition. In different cities, local scenes pull punk in new directions Manchester's bands strip the sound back even further or turn it towards something colder arti here and more self consciously experimental In Sheffield, musicians begin folding in drum machines, synthesizers and a harsher industrial moveood. The scene around Eric's cllub in Liverpool produces bands that keep Punk's energetic core but add more melody and pop instinct And over the Irish Sea in Belfast, where everyday life is already shaped by sectarian tension and army patrols, Punk carries a different charge altogether, becoming a space where young people can step outside the rigid identities of the troubble But its evolution creates a new problem The more it spreads, the easier it becomes to imitate package. sell This episode is brought to you by Starbucks. That is fire. Whoa, that's good. 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Sful turns at mintMobile. com The scale of its success begins to change its heart By this point, the defiant anti establishment movement has proved too big an opportunity for the commercial mainstream to ignore Record companies move in, and punk fashion, once defined by rebellion, now starts appearing in highigh street shop windows Even the media, which has previously treated punk as a threat, now begins to repackage it as a trend nowhere is that tension clearer than around Malcolm McLlaren. From the start, he has presented himself as Punk's provocateur an impressario and master manipulator who understands how outrage can be turned into attention and attention into money. By the end of the nineteen seventies, that is making it a more divisive figure. To his admirers, he is a brilliant strategist who helped stage Punk's eruption Critics is increasingly the man who commodified it, making it something more palatable and marketable by tearing out its soul Even Vivian Westwood's designs begin to move into a more rareified world of fashion High prices What started as an attack on consumer culture Now risks becoming just another expensive thing to buy can be the most shocking pop band in the end, but ultimately your recle company is going to flog a dead horse, It's going to release some product whether the rock ' and roll Swindle was Malcolm McLlaren getting a few quid, or actually the Swindle was the record industry turning a dangerous cultural form into mere product, is open to question. The pung does very quickly get appropriated and it signifies a punk get emptied of their meaning and simply positioned as fashion statements or aesthetics or whatever And the energy of punk is sometimes retained, but the provocations and willful unsettling nature of punk is diluted But even as the industry is turning punk into a capitalist venture, People at the heart of it still retain its spirit As their visual codes are lifted out of context and sooul to the masses, the answer for many artists shaped by punk is not to defend the old form forever changing before the culture industry can pin them down planted the seed and be to think, right As soon as people recognise what this is, it has to be something else. We have to find a way to constantly being inventive. So you have to dress up and reconfigure yourself monthly in order to stay ahead of the game. because if you stand still for a minute press will get you and they'll codify you and your cultural brilliance will be transformed into mere commodity One of Punk's deepest legacies is that refusal to stay still long enough to be neatly packaged In the years that follow, it becomes clear that Punk's true impact reaches far beyond its brief explosive beginning. It reshapes music, strips away old assumptions about who gets to make culture and it leaves its mark on fashion, politics, and everything in between plays a pretty long game, I think, in terms of the impact that if we're talking in the British context sex pistols have just in terms of inspiring a whole generation musicians come up with really constantly evolving. interesting and exciting forms of music and musical presentation It's influenced threads through the decades, servacing in Iie, Grunge, Riot Girl, and alternative music And later it shows itself in the DIY spirit of online culture where people create, share, and challenge the mainstream on their own terms punk left behind was a way of thinking It showed a generation that they didn't have to wait to be chosen, that they could make something themselves, say what they meant, and claim their space In that sense, punk is less a genre than an invitation. A lasting reminder that culture can be shaped from the ground up by anyone bold enough to have a go. Punk's most lasting impact on British culture at the time was that it opened up a space for lots of people previously probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to do creative things and to do creative things in ways that fundamentally changed the culture of Britain and the world Next time on Short History, we'll bring you a short history of the Cray twwins Home life in the East End in the forties and early fifties was brutal. They were being bombed by the Germans. They were having to rebuild once the war was over. There was poverty, extreme poverty, and they were fighting for survival in so many ways And their circumstance and the world they grew up in sent them into this life of crime. and then they made a choice to follow that path and they made incredibly bad choices along the way Cool. So They chose to be criminals, they chose to be villains, and they did a really bad job of that because they got caught And they both died having spent most of their lives behind bars Nothing about that teric Thats next time. You can listen to the next two episodes of Short History of right Now without waiting and without adverts by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Just hit the link in the episode description or head to www. noiser. com forward slash subscriptions unl lot more episodes today