“Punk” music didn’t start in 1976 or 1977, with Ramones’ self-titled album or Leave Home, which came out in those years, respectively. Sex Pistols didn’t launch the genre with the four singles and album (Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols) the British band released in those same years.
The same goes for The Clash’s self-titled debut, released in 1977; The Damned’s Damned Damned Damned and Music for Pleasure, both issued in 1977; or albums by the Buzzcocks, Black Flag or MC5. Rather, the seeds of punk – a term coined by the godfather of rock-music journalism, Lester Bangs – were planted many years earlier, not by bands but by an attitude and a sound that cropped up in scattered pockets of the Western world.
Continue reading
