Punk rock (Punk) is a rebellious genre of music that fused fast, stripped-down music with a defiant cultural ethos, evolving through waves of decline, revival, and reinventions, while spawning several subgenres.

Characteristically, punk music is loud, fast, and simple, often built on three chords, short song lengths, and shouted vocals. Lyrics include themes of alienation, anti-establishment politics, and youthful frustration. Punk music is aggressive, chaotic, and participatory. Mosh pits, stage diving, and raw energy define its live shows. Bands recorded cheaply, distributed independently, and rejected polished record production.

The culture surrounding the music included leather jackets, ripped jeans, safety pins, mohawks, and Doc Martens, as symbols of defiance. Punk is often aligned with anarchism, anti-capitalism, and social justice movements. Local scenes flourished in New York, Los Angeles, London, and beyond, emphasizing inclusivity and rebellion against mainstream norms.

The word punk originally meant "worthless" or "juvenile delinquent." By the 1970s, it was applied to raw garage bands, and later solidified as "punk rock," a label for music that embraced imperfection and aggression.

Through the 1960s and early 1970s, proto-punk bands like The Stooges, MC5, and The Velvet Underground rejected polished mainstream rock, favoring raw aggression and minimalism. Groups such as The Sonics and The Monks embodied the DIY ethos and energy that would later be central to punk.

The first wave of punk music came in the mid-to-late-1970s, when The Ramones pioneered fast, stripped-down songs, and CBGB, in New York City, became the hub for punk acts like Television and Patti Smith. In the United Kingdom, The Sex Pistols and The Clash fused music with political anger, sparking a cultural revolution. The defining traits in the 1970s included short songs, anti-establishment lyrics, and confrontational performances.

In the 1980s, hardcore punk bands like Black Flag, Minor Threat, and Dead Kennedys pushed speed, aggression, and political intensity. Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco became hotbeds of hardcore. Independent labels and zines sustained punk outside mainstream channels.

Punk's mainstream visibility waned as pop and new wave dominated in the mid-1980s. Many bands evolved into post-punk (Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees) or alternative rock, experimenting with atmosphere and art-rock influences.

The pop punk boom in the 1990s, with Green Day's Dookie (1994) and The Offspring's Smash (1994), brought punk back to radio and MTV. Skate punk, with NOFX, Pennywise, and Blink-182, tied punk to youth sports and suburban culture. Punk became both a commercial force and a subcultural identity, sparking debates about authenticity.

Beginning in the 2000s, punk fused with emo, post-hardcore, and indie rock, and bands like Anti-Flag and Rise Against revived punk's activist edge. Today, punk thrives in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia, where it has adapted to local struggles. Elsewhere, festivals, documentaries, and archives preserve punk's ethos, while underground bands keep its DIY spirit alive.

Subgenres include hardcore punk (faster, heavier, and politically charged), pop punk (melodic and radio-friendly), post-punk (experimental and atmospheric), anarcho-punk (explicitly political), riot grrrl (feminist), oi (working-class street punk), skate punk (tied to skateboarding culture), and horror punk (macabre themes).

Influential punk rock artists include The Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, The Stooges, MC5, The Velvet Underground, Buzzcocks, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Crass, Misfits, Descendents, Bad Religion, NOFX, Pennywise, Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182, Fugazi, Rancid, Social Distortion, and Bikini Kill.

From its beginnings in the 1970s, punk rock has been more than a music genre - it's a cultural movement of rebellion, simplicity, and authenticity.

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