Green Day - American Idiot
The genre of music developed between 1974 and 1976 across the US, UK and Australia.. It was originally deeply rooted in garage rock as well as other forms of what is now known as protopunk music.
Bands who found themselves in this genre were all about the fast, hard-edged music they produced and were known for short songs filled from beginning to end with limitless energy.
When it began, the first wave of punk rock aimed to be aggressively modern, distancing itself from the bombast and sentimentality of early 1970s rock and according to Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone; "In its initial form, a lot of [1960s] stuff was innovative and exciting. “
Most of the lyrics were layered with political opinions as the musicians ranted for anti-establishment. it also embraced a very DIY ethic; with many early bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels.
Some of British punk rock's leading figures made a show of rejecting not only contemporary mainstream rock and the broader culture it was associated with, but their own most celebrated predecessors: "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977", declared The Clash song "1977".
So, with the cards laid in place, along came bands such as NYC's Ramones, and the Sex Pistols and The Clash, in London, and in 1976 these guys were flagged as the vanguard of a new musical movement. So punk was born.
In the year that followed, this new music spread like wildfire across the globe; notedly in the UK where an associated punk subculture emerged, expressing youthful rebellion and characterized by distinctive clothing styles and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.
By the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore and Oi! had become the predominant mode of punk rock and musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a broad range of other variations, giving rise to post-punk and the alternative rock movement.
By the turn of the century, pop punk had been adopted by the mainstream, with bands such as Green Day and The Offspring bringing the genre much more widespread popularity.
So just how did Punk music become known as, well, punk? Before the mid-1970s, the work 'Punk' typically meant a gangster, hoodlum or someone who generally misbehaved and therefore ended up being the lowest of the lowest.
So to fit in with their image opf being 'low lives' and people who didn't give a shit about politics or what people were typically 'supposed' to care about; Punk was the most obvious choice!
The 1990's saw new life breathed into punk rock thanks to the fellas in Nirvana, Green Day and Bad Religion.
With Nirvana's success, the major record companies once again saw punk bands as potentially profitable, so in 1993, California's Green Day and Bad Religion were both signed to major labels. The next year, Green Day released Dookie, which became a huge hit, selling eight million albums in just over two years. Bad Religion's Stranger Than Fiction was certified gold.
Other California punk bands on indie label Epitaph, run by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, also began garnering mainstream success. In 1994, Epitaph put out Let's Go by Rancid, Punk In Drublic by NOFX, and Smash by The Offspring, each eventually certified gold or better. Smash went on to sell over eleven million copies, becoming the best-selling independent-label album of all time.
By 1998, the punk revival had commercially stalled, but not for long. My childhood favourite band, Blink-182, released Enema of the State in 1999 and it reached the Billboard top ten and sold four million copies in less than a year.
Then new pop punk bands such as Sum 41, Simple Plan, Yellowcard, and Good Charlotte achieved major sales in the first decade of the 2000s and in 2004, Green Day's American Idiot went to number one on both the U.S. and UK charts; proving that punk really was a force to be reckoned with.
Jimmy Eat World, which had taken emo in a radio-ready pop punk direction, had top-ten albums in 2004 and 2007; and in a similar style, Fall Out Boy hit number one with 2007's Infinity on High.
Then came ska punk groups such as Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake whocontinued to attract new fans, as well as celtic punk, with U.S. bands such as Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys merging the sound of Oi! and The Pogues, which reached wide audiences.
Even as nostalgia was discarded, many in the scene adopted a nihilistic attitude summed up by the Sex Pistols slogan "No Future". So it would seem that the attitudes of people in our society today as they swan about with their; "I don't give a shit" attitude to life, music and other people could be the first stepping stone on the 2009 revival of punk rock... anything to get rid of these boring, droneful and uninspiring Indie kids!