When people think of punk-rock today, bands like Blink 182 and Green Day usually come to mind. When I think of punk music I think of bands like The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and The Misfits. I do not consider myself an anarchist, a punk, or have extreme hatred toward the establishment, but I enjoy listening to punk music.
The Ramones are probably my favorite punk band, and were one of the biggest influences in punk music. The Ramones are not together today and most of them are dead, but there are hundreds of cover bands to preserve their legacy. The Ramones play the standard short, loud, and simple punk songs. Something I have noticed about the Ramones is that it seems like they never changed their clothes. I saw the DVD “It’s Alive” which is just a compilation of about twenty shows. In every show they are wearing leather jackets and ripped jeans.
The Sex Pistols I can best describe as being the English version of the Ramones. The Sex Pistols are composed of John Lydon whose stage name is Johnny Rotten, Steve Johns, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock. I first heard of The Sex Pistols when I heard the song “God Save the Queen” in my dad’s car about four years ago. I have been listening to them ever since. The Sex Pistols’ music is full of raw hatred toward establishments and Corporate America and is the pure definition of punk music.
The Misfits are a more recent band than the Ramones or the Sex pistols but are every bit as good. The first time that I heard the Misfits was when I watched a terrible horror movie called Bruiser and the Misfits music was featured in it. The movie was horrible but The Misfits music was perfect for the film. The Band created a new genre of punk music called horror punk. In a lot of the Misfits’ songs the lyrics describe horror films or strange horror themes, for example the song Astro Zombies or Night of the Living Dead.
Black Flag also created another sort of sub genre. Rather than being just punk music, Black Flag has more of a hardcore punk style. The first time I heard them was about one year ago and I thought that they sounded like the Sex Pistols, just louder and a lot more aggressive.I think the guitarist of Black Flag is more talented than other punk band guitarists. In his solos he has a sort of jazzy-hardcore style that I can only describe as just random not playing.
Punk Bands today just don’t cut it for me. Green Day and Blink 182 don’t have the same raw damaged sound that the original punk bands did. Let us take a look two samples of lyrics, one from Blink 182 and the other from Black Flag
She bought the perfect little house
And the lawn's well manicured
And she'd never missed a day of work
jealous cowards try to control.
rise above. we're gonna rise above.
they distort what we say. rise above.
we're gonna rise above.try and stop what we do.
rise above, when they can't do it themselves.
we are tired of your abuse.
try to stop us, it's no use.
This is just an example of the many differences in punk music and what is considered punk music. I just don’t see how someone would prefer Green Day over The Ramones.
508 Words
Three error rule:
ReplyDelete1. P4: Misfits music (apostrophe missing)
2. P5: In his solo’s he blends has a sort of... (solos & awkward phrasing...missing word?)
3. P6: Let us take a look two samples of lyrics (missing word)
4. P6: other from Black Flag (no end punctuation) OVER THE LIMIT!
You should also capitalize the first letter of quoted verses, which you did for the first set, but not for second. What happened?
Your writing is good here, and you're very analytical about what makes these bands special. This is a quality entry.
I have the three error rule in place to encourage my students to strive for perfection, and you've made some progress. If you want the extra points back because you passed the three error limit, you have to write an extra blog entry, and the three error rule is still in place for that one, too! However, if you stay under four errors, I'll give you a perfect 50 out of 50 score.