Punk rock

Punk rock (also known as punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll^[2][3][4] and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the overproduction and corporate nature of mainstream rock music. Typically producing short, fast-paced songs with rough stripped-down vocals and instrumentation, artists embrace a DIY ethic with many bands self-producing and distributing recordings through independent labels.

During the early 1970s, the term "punk rock" was originally used by some American rock critics to describe mid-1960s garage bands. By the middle of the decade, it had become associated with several regional underground music scenes, including the MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges in Detroit; Television, Patti Smith, Suicide, the Dictators, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Ramones in New York City; Rocket from the Tombs, Electric Eels, Devo and Dead Boys in Ohio; the Saints and Radio Birdman in Australia; and the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned and the Buzzcocks in England. By late 1976, punk had become a major cultural phenomenon in the UK, giving rise to a punk subculture that expressed youthful rebellion through distinctive styles of clothing, such as T-shirts with deliberately offensive graphics, leather jackets, studded or spiked bands, jewelry, bondage clothing and safety pins.

By 1977, the influence of punk music and its associated subculture spread worldwide, taking root in a wide range of local scenes. The movement later proliferated into various subgenres during the late 1970s, giving rise to movements such as post-punk, new wave, and art punk. By the early 1980s, punk experienced further diversification with subgenres such as hardcore punk (e.g Bad Brains, Minor Threat and Black Flag); Oi!, (e.g Sham 69 and the Exploited); street punk (eg. GBH, the Partisans, and Chaos UK); and anarcho-punk (e.g Crass). The movement later expanded with the development of pop-punk, grunge, riot grrrl, and alternative rock.

Following alternative rock's mainstream breakthrough in the 1990s through the success of bands like Nirvana, punk rock saw renewed major-label interest and mainstream appeal exemplified by the rise of Californian bands Green Day, Social Distortion, Rancid, the Offspring, Bad Religion, Blink-182, and NOFX.