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Punk rock (or simply punk) is a music genre that emerged in the mids. Rooted in s garage rock, punk bands rejected the perceived excesses of mainstream s rock. They typically produced short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through independent record labels.

The term "punk rock" was first used by American rock critics in the early s to describe s garage bands. When the movement now bearing the name developed from to , acts such as Television, Patti Smith, and the Ramones in New York City; the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned in London; The Runaways in Los Angeles; and the Saints in Brisbane formed its vanguard. Punk became a major cultural phenomenon in the UK late in It led to a punk subculture expressing youthful rebellion through distinctive styles of clothing and adornment (such as deliberately offensive T-shirts, leather jackets, studded or spiked bands and jewellery, safety pins, and bondage and S&M clothes) and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.

In , the influence of the music and subculture spread worldwide, especially in England. It took root in a wide range of local scenes that often rejected affiliation with the mainstream. In the late s, punk experienced a second wave as new acts that were not active during its formative years adopted the style. By the early s, faster and more aggressive subgenres such as hardcore punk (e.g. Minor Threat), street punk (e.g. the Exploited), and anarcho-punk (e.g. Crass) became the predominant modes of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued other musical directions, giving rise to spinoffs such as post-punk, new wave, and later indie pop, alternative rock, and noise rock. By the s, punk re-emerged into the mainstream with the success of punk rock and pop punk bands such as Green Day, Rancid, The Offspring, and Blink

Characteristics[edit]

Philosophy[edit]

The first wave of punk rock was "aggressively modern" and differed from what came before.^[3] According to Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone, "In its initial form, a lot of [s] stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By , I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll."^[4]John Holmstrom, founding editor of Punk magazine, recalls feeling "punk rock had to come along because the rock scene had become so tame that [acts] like Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel were being called rock and roll, when to me and other fans, rock and roll meant this wild and rebellious music."^[5] In critic Robert Christgau's description, "It was also a subculture that scornfully rejected the political idealism and Californian flower-power silliness of hippie myth."^[6]

Technical accessibility and a do it yourself (DIY) spirit are prized in punk rock. UK pub rock from to contributed to the emergence of punk rock by developing a network of small venues, such as pubs, where non-mainstream bands could play.^[8] Pub rock also introduced the idea of independent record labels, such as Stiff Records, which put out basic, low-cost records.^[8] Pub rock bands organized their own small venue tours and put out small pressings of their records. In the early days of punk rock, this DIY ethic stood in marked contrast to what those in the scene regarded as the ostentatious musical effects and technological demands of many mainstream rock bands.^[9] Musical virtuosity was often looked on with suspicion. According to Holmstrom, punk rock was "rock and roll by people who didn't have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music".^[5] In December , the English fanzineSideburns published a now-famous illustration of three chords, captioned "This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band".^[10]

British punk rejected contemporary mainstream rock, the broader culture it represented, and their music predecessors: "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in ", declared the Clash song "".^[11] , when the punk revolution began in Britain, became a musical and a cultural "Year Zero".^[12] As nostalgia was discarded, many in the scene adopted a nihilistic attitude summed up by the Sex Pistols slogan "No Future";^[3] in the later words of one observer, amid the unemployment and social unrest in , "punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England."^[13] While "self-imposed alienation" was common among "drunk punks" and "gutter punks", there was always a tension between their nihilistic outlook and the "radical leftist utopianism"^[14] of bands such as Crass, who found positive, liberating meaning in the movement. As a Clash associate describes singer Joe Strummer's outlook, "Punk rock is meant to be our freedom. We're meant to be able to do what we want to do."^[15]

The issue of authenticity is important in the punk subculture—the pejorative term "poseur" is applied to those who associate with punk and adopt its stylistic attributes but are deemed not to share or understand the underlying values and philosophy. Scholar Daniel S. Traber argues that "attaining authenticity in the punk identity can be difficult"; as the punk scene matured, he observes, eventually "everyone got called a poseur".^[16]

Musical and lyrical elements[edit]

The early punk bands often emulated the minimal musical arrangements of s garage rock.^[17] Typical punk rock instrumentation includes one or two electric guitars, an electric bass, and a drum kit, along with vocals. Songs tend to be shorter than those of other popular genres. Punk songs were played at fast, "breakneck" tempos, an approach influenced by The Ramones.^[18] Most early punk rock songs retained a traditional rock 'n' roll verse-chorus form and 4/4 time signature. However, later bands have often broken from this format. In critic Steven Blush's description, "The Sex Pistols were still rock'n'roll like the craziest version of Chuck Berry. Hardcore was a radical departure from that. It wasn't verse-chorus rock. It dispelled any notion of what songwriting is supposed to be. It's its own form."^[19]

The vocals are sometimes nasal,^[20] and the lyrics are often shouted rather than sung in the conventional sense.^[21] Punk rock's "hoarse, rasping" vocals and chanting were a sharp contrast to the "melodic and sleeker" singing in mainstream rock.^[22] Early punk vocals had an "arrogant snarl".^[23] Complicated guitar solos are considered self-indulgent and unnecessary, although basic guitar breaks are common.^[24] Guitar parts tend to include highly distortedpower chords or barre chords, creating a characteristic sound described by Christgau as a "buzzsaw drone".^[25] Some punk rock bands take a surf rock approach with a lighter, twangier guitar tone. Others, such as Robert Quine, lead guitarist of the Voidoids, have employed a wild, "gonzo" attack, a style that stretches back through the Velvet Underground to the s' recordings of Ike Turner.^[26] Bass guitar lines are often uncomplicated; the quintessential approach is a relentless, repetitive "forced rhythm",^[27] although some punk rock bass players—such as Mike Watt of the Minutemen and Firehose—emphasize more technical bass lines. Bassists often use a pick due to the rapid succession of notes, which makes fingerpicking impractical. Drums typically sound heavy and dry, and often have a minimal set-up. Compared to other forms of rock, syncopation is much less the rule.^[28] Hardcore drumming tends to be especially fast.^[21] Production tends to be minimalistic, with tracks sometimes laid down on home tape recorders^[29] or simple four-track portastudios. The typical objective is to have the recording sound unmanipulated and real, reflecting the commitment and authenticity of a live performance.^[30]

Punk rock lyrics are typically frank and confrontational; compared to the lyrics of other popular music genres, they frequently comment on social and political issues.^[31] Trend-setting songs such as the Clash's "Career Opportunities" and Chelsea's "Right to Work" deal with unemployment and the grim realities of urban life.^[32] Especially in early British punk, a central goal was to outrage and shock the mainstream.^[33] The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen" openly disparaged the British political system and social mores. Anti-sentimental depictions of relationships and sex are common, as in "Love Comes in Spurts", written by Richard Hell and recorded by him with the Voidoids. Anomie, variously expressed in the poetic terms of Hell's "Blank Generation" and the bluntness of the Ramones' "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue", is a common theme. Identifying punk with such topics aligns with the view expressed by V. Vale, founder of San Francisco fanzine Search and Destroy: "Punk was a total cultural revolt. It was a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-wing imagery, sexual taboos, a delving into it that had never been done before by any generation in such a thorough way".^[34] The controversial content of punk lyrics led to some punk records being banned by radio stations and refused shelf space in major chain stores.^[35]

Visual and other elements[edit]

The classic punk rock look among male American musicians harkens back to the T-shirt, motorcycle jacket, and jeans ensemble favored by American greasers of the s associated with the rockabilly scene and by British rockers of the s. In addition to the T-shirt, and leather jackets they wore ripped jeans and boots, typically Doc Martens. The punk look was inspired to shock people. Richard Hell's more androgynous, ragamuffin look—and reputed invention of the safety-pin aesthetic—was a major influence on Sex Pistols impresario Malcolm McLaren and, in turn, British punk style.^[36][37] (John D Morton of Cleveland's Electric Eels may have been the first rock musician to wear a safety-pin-covered jacket.)^[38] McLaren's partner, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, credits Johnny Rotten as the first British punk to rip his shirt, and Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious as the first to use safety pins,^[39] although few of those following punk could afford to buy McLaren and Westwood's designs so famously worn by the Pistols, so they made their own, diversifying the 'look' with various different styles based on these designs. Young women in punk demolished the typical female types in rock of either "coy sex kittens or wronged blues belters" in their fashion.^[40] Early female punk musicians displayed styles ranging from Siouxsie Sioux's bondage gear to Patti Smith's "straight-from-the-gutter androgyny".^[41] The former proved much more influential on female fan styles.^[42] Over time, tattoos, piercings, and metal-studded and -spiked accessories became increasingly common elements of punk fashion among both musicians and fans, a "style of adornment calculated to disturb and outrage".^[43] Among the other facets of the punk rock scene, a punk's hair is an important way of showing their freedom of expression.^[44] The typical male punk haircut was originally short and choppy; the mohawk later emerged as a characteristic style.^[45] Along with the mohawk, long spikes have been associated with the punk rock genre.^[44]

The characteristic stage performance style of male punk musicians does not deviate significantly from the macho postures classically associated with rock music.^[46] Female punk musicians broke more clearly from earlier styles. Scholar John Strohm suggests that they did so by creating personas of a type conventionally seen as masculine: "They adopted a tough, unladylike pose that borrowed more from the macho swagger of sixties garage bands than from the calculated bad-girl image of bands like the Runaways."^[41] Scholar Dave Laing describes how bassist Gaye Advert adopted fashion elements associated with male musicians only to generate a stage persona readily consumed as "sexy".^[47] Laing focuses on more innovative and challenging performance styles, seen in the various erotically destabilizing approaches of Siouxsie Sioux, the Slits' Ari Up, and X-Ray Spex' Poly Styrene.^[48]

The lack of emphatic syncopation led punk dance to "deviant" forms. The characteristic style was originally the pogo.^[49] Sid Vicious, before he became the Sex Pistols' bassist, is credited with initiating the pogo in Britain as an attendee at one of their concerts.^[50]Moshing (slamdancing) is typical at hardcore shows. The lack of conventional dance rhythms was a central factor in limiting punk's mainstream commercial impact.^[51]

Breaking down the distance between performer and audience is central to the punk ethic.^[52] Fan participation at concerts is thus important; during the movement's first heyday, it was often provoked in an adversarial manner—apparently perverse, but appropriately "punk". First-wave British punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and the Damned insulted and otherwise goaded the audience into intense reactions. Laing has identified three primary forms of audience physical response to goading: can throwing, stage invasion, and spitting or "gobbing".^[53] In the hardcore realm, stage invasion is often a prelude to stage diving. In addition to the numerous fans who have started or joined punk bands, audience members also become important participants via the scene's many amateur-written and informally distributed periodicals—in England, according to Laing, punk "was the first musical genre to spawn fanzines in any significant numbers".^[54]

Precursors[edit]

Garage rock and beat music[edit]

According to one theory, punk rock all goes back to Ritchie Valens's "La Bamba." Just consider Valens's three-chord mariachi squawkup in the light of "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen, then consider "Louie Louie" in the light of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, then "You Really Got Me" in the light of "No Fun" by the Stooges, then "No Fun" in the light of "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones, and finally note that "Blitzkrieg Bop" sounds a lot like "La Bamba."

In the early to mids, garage rock bands, often recognized as punk rock's progenitors, sprung up around North America. The Kingsmen had a hit with their version of Richard Berry's "Louie, Louie", which has been mentioned as punk rock's defining "ur-text".^{[56][nb 1]} After the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, success of the British Invasion, the garage phenomenon gathered momentum around the US.^[59] By , the harder-edged sound of British acts, such as the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who and the Yardbirds, became increasingly influential with American garage bands.^[60] The raw sound of US groups, such as the Sonics, the Seeds, the Remains, the Standells, and the Shadows of Knight predicted the style of later acts.^[60] "She Lied" () by the Rockin' Ramrods mixes melody with aggression in a way that anticipates the later sound of the Ramones.^[61] In the early s certain rock critics used the term "punk rock" to refer to the mids garage genre,^[23] as well as for subsequent acts perceived to be in that stylistic tradition, such as the Stooges.^[62]

From England in , largely under the influence of the mod youth movement and beat group explosion, came the Kinks' hit singles, "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night," both influenced by "Louie, Louie".^{[63][nb 2]} In , the Who released the mod anthem, "My Generation", which according to John Reed, anticipated the kind of "cerebral mix of musical ferocity and rebellious posture" that would characterize much of the later British punk rock of the s.^{[65][nb 3]} The garage/beat phenomenon extended beyond North America and Britain.^[67] "Wild About You" () by Australia's the Missing Links exhibits a markedly primitivist approach and was covered a decade later by their fellow countrymen, the Saints, a prominent band in the s Australian punk scene.^[68][69] In Peru's Los Saicos recorded "Demolicion", a notable example of prototypical punk.^[70]

Proto-punk[edit]

In August , the Stooges, from Ann Arbor, premiered with a self-titled album. According to critic Greil Marcus, the band, led by singer Iggy Pop, created "the sound of Chuck Berry's Airmobile—after thieves stripped it for parts".^[72] The album was produced by John Cale, a former member of New York's experimental rock group the Velvet Underground. Having earned a reputation as one of the first underground rock bands, the Velvet Underground inspired, directly or indirectly, many of those involved in the creation of punk rock.^[73] In the early s, the New York Dolls updated the original wildness of s' rock 'n' roll in a fashion that later became known as glam punk.^[74] The New York duo Suicide played spare, experimental music with a confrontational stage act inspired by that of the Stooges. At the Coventry club in the New York City borough of Queens, the Dictators used rock as a vehicle for wise-ass attitude and humor.^[75] In Boston, the Modern Lovers, led by Velvet Underground devotee Jonathan Richman, gained attention with a minimalistic style. In , an updated garage rock scene began to coalesce around the newly opened Rathskeller club in Kenmore Square. Among the leading acts were the Real Kids, founded by former Modern Lover John Felice; Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band, whose frontman had been a member of the Velvet Underground for a few months in ; and Mickey Clean and the Mezz.^[76] In , as well, the Detroit band Death—made up of three African-American brothers—recorded "scorching blasts of feral ur-punk," but couldn't arrange a release deal.^[77] In Ohio, a small but influential underground rock scene emerged, led by Devo in Akron^[78] and Kent and by Cleveland's Electric Eels, Mirrors and Rocket from the Tombs. In , Rocket from the Tombs split into Pere Ubu and Frankenstein. The Electric Eels and Mirrors both broke up, and the Styrenes emerged from the fallout.^[79]

Britain's Deviants, in the late s, played in a range of psychedelic styles with a satiric, anarchic edge and a penchant for situationist-style spectacle presaging the Sex Pistols by almost a decade.^[80] In , the act evolved into the Pink Fairies, which carried on in a similar vein.^[81] In Marc Bolan, completed his transformation from half of hippy psychedic folk duo Tyrannosaurus Rex to glam rock superstar leader of rushbrookrathbone.co.uk, rejecting hippy values of authenticity and humility in favour of glamorous artifice and arrogance that would ultimately bear fruit in punk attitude and contempt for the earlier hippy generation.^[82] With his Ziggy Stardust persona, David Bowie made artifice and exaggeration central—elements, again, that were picked up by the Sex Pistols and certain other punk acts.^[83] The Doctors of Madness built on Bowie's presentation concepts, while moving musically in the direction that would become identified with punk. Bands in London's pub rock scene stripped the music back to its basics, playing hard, R&B-influenced rock 'n' roll. By , the scene's top act, Dr. Feelgood, was paving the way for others such as the Stranglers and Cock Sparrer that would play a role in the punk explosion. The pub rock scene created small venues where non-mainstream bands could play and they released low-cost recordings on independent record labels.^[84] Among the pub rock bands that formed that year was the ers, whose lead singer would soon adopt the name Joe Strummer,^[85] a performer who has been called the link between pub rock and punk rock.^[8] Despite the presence of some shared approaches and values, pub rock aimed to continue the tradition of earlier rock'n'roll bands, while punk rock aimed to break with tradition.^[86]

Bands anticipating the forthcoming movement were appearing as far afield as Düsseldorf, West Germany, where "punk before punk" band Neu! formed in , building on the Krautrock tradition of groups such as Can.^[87] In Japan, the anti-establishment Zunō Keisatsu (Brain Police) mixed garage-psych and folk. The combo regularly faced censorship challenges, their live act at least once including onstage masturbation.^[88] A new generation of Australian garage rock bands, inspired mainly by the Stooges and MC5, was coming even closer to the sound that would soon be called "punk": In Brisbane, the Saints also recalled the raw live sound of the British Pretty Things, who had made a notorious tour of Australia and New Zealand in ^[89]

Etymology and classification[edit]

Between the late 16th and the 18th centuries, punk was a common, coarse synonym for prostitute; William Shakespeare used it with that meaning in The Merry Wives of Windsor () and Measure for Measure (, published in First Folio).^[90] The term eventually came to describe "a young male hustler, a gangster, a hoodlum, or a ruffian".^[91] As Legs McNeil explains, "On TV, if you watched cop shows, Kojak, Baretta, when the cops finally catch the mass murderer, they'd say, you dirty Punk. It was what your teachers would call you. It meant that you were the lowest."^[92]Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention recorded the song "Flower Punk" in , on the album We're Only in It for the Money.^[93]

The first known use of the phrase punk rock appeared in the Chicago Tribune on March 22, , attributed to Ed Sanders, cofounder of New York's anarcho-prankster band the Fugs. Sanders was quoted describing a solo album of his as "punk rock—redneck sentimentality".^[94] In the December issue of Creem, Lester Bangs, mocking more mainstream rock musicians, ironically referred to Iggy Pop as "that Stooge punk".^[95] Suicide's Alan Vega credits this usage with inspiring his duo to bill its gigs as a "punk mass" for the next couple of years.^[96]

Greg Shaw was the first music critic to employ the term punk rock: In the April issue of Rolling Stone, he refers to a track by The Guess Who as "good, not too imaginative, punk rock and roll". Dave Marsh used the term punk rock in the May issue of Creem, where he described ? and the Mysterians, one of the most popular s garage rock acts, as giving a "landmark exposition of punk rock".^[97] Later in , in his fanzine Who Put the Bomp, Greg Shaw wrote about "what I have chosen to call "punkrock" bands—white teenage hard rock of '64–66 (Standells, Kingsmen, Shadows of Knight, etc.)".^{[98][nb 4]}Lester Bangs used the term "punk rock" in several articles written in the early s to refer to mids garage acts.^[] In his June piece in Creem, "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung," he wrote, "then punk bands started cropping up who were writing their own songs but taking the Yardbirds' sound and reducing it to this kind of goony fuzztone clatter. oh, it was beautiful, it was pure folklore, Old America, and sometimes I think those were the best days ever."^{[][nb 5]}

By December , the term was in circulation to the extent that The New Yorker's Ellen Willis, contrasting her own tastes with those of Flash and fellow critic Nick Tosches, wrote, "Punk-rock has become the favored term of endearment."^[] In the liner notes of the anthology LP, Nuggets, musician and rock journalist Lenny Kaye, later a member of the Patti Smith Group, used variations of the term in two places: "punk rock," in the essay liner notes, to describe the genre of s garage bands, and "classic garage-punk," in the track-by-track notes, to describe a song recorded in by the Shadows of Knight.^{[][nb 6]} In May , Billy Altman launched the short-lived punk magazine, which pre-dated the better-known publication of the same name, but, unlike the later magazine, was largely devoted to discussion of s garage and psychedelic acts. ^[][]

In May , Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn reviewed the second New York Dolls album, Too Much Too Soon. "I told ya the New York Dolls were the real thing," he wrote, describing the album as "perhaps the best example of raw, thumb-your-nose-at-the-world, punk rock since the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street."^[] Bassist Jeff Jensen of Boston's Real Kids reports of a show that year, "A reviewer for one of the free entertainment magazines of the time caught the act and gave us a great review, calling us a 'punk band.'&#; [W]e all sort of looked at each other and said, 'What's punk?'"^[] In a interview for his fanzine Heavy Metal Digest Danny Sugerman told Iggy Pop "You went on record as saying you never were a punk" and Iggy replied "well I ain't. I never was a punk."^[]

By , punk was being used to describe acts as diverse as the Patti Smith Group, the Bay City Rollers, and Bruce Springsteen.^[] As the scene at New York's CBGB club attracted notice, a name was sought for the developing sound. Club owner Hilly Kristal called the movement "Street rock"; John Holmstrom credits Aquarian magazine with using punk "to describe what was going on at CBGBs".^[] Holmstrom, Legs McNeil, and Ged Dunn's magazine Punk, which debuted at the end of , was crucial in codifying the term.^[] "It was pretty obvious that the word was getting very popular", Holmstrom later remarked. "We figured we'd take the name before anyone else claimed it. We wanted to get rid of the bullshit, strip it down to rock 'n' roll. We wanted the fun and liveliness back."^[]

– Early history[edit]

North America[edit]

New York City[edit]

The origins of New York's punk rock scene can be traced back to such sources as late s trash culture and an early s underground rock movement centered on the Mercer Arts Center in Greenwich Village, where the New York Dolls performed.^[] In early , a new scene began to develop around the CBGB club, also in lower Manhattan. At its core was Television, described by critic John Walker as "the ultimate garage band with pretensions".^[] Their influences ranged from the Velvet Underground to the staccato guitar work of Dr. Feelgood's Wilko Johnson.^[] The band's bassist/singer, Richard Hell, created a look with cropped, ragged hair, ripped T-shirts, and black leather jackets credited as the basis for punk rock visual style.^[] In April , Patti Smith, a member of the Mercer Arts Center crowd and a friend of Hell's, came to CBGB for the first time to see the band perform.^[] A veteran of independent theater and performance poetry, Smith was developing an intellectual, feminist take on rock 'n' roll. On June 5, she recorded the single "Hey Joe"/"Piss Factory", featuring Television guitarist Tom Verlaine; released on her own Mer Records label, it heralded the scene's do it yourself (DIY) ethic and has often been cited as the first punk rock record.^[] By August, Smith and Television were gigging together at another downtown New York club, Max's Kansas City.^[]

Facade of legendary music club CBGB, New York

Out in Forest Hills, Queens, several miles from lower Manhattan, the members of a newly formed band adopted a common surname. Drawing on sources ranging from the Stooges to the Beatles and the Beach Boys to Herman's Hermits and s girl groups, the Ramones condensed rock 'n' roll to its primal level: "'!' bass-player Dee Dee Ramone shouted at the start of every song, as if the group could barely master the rudiments of rhythm."^[] The band played its first show at CBGB on August 16, , on the same bill as another new act, Angel and the Snake, soon to be renamed Blondie.^[] By the end of the year, the Ramones had performed seventy-four shows, each about seventeen minutes long.^[] "When I first saw the Ramones", critic Mary Harron later remembered, "I couldn't believe people were doing this. The dumb brattiness."^[]The Dictators, with a similar "playing dumb" concept, were recording their debut album. The Dictators' Go Girl Crazy! came out in March , mixing absurdist originals such as "Master Race Rock" and loud, straight-faced covers of cheese pop like Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe".^[]

That spring, Smith and Television shared a two-month-long weekend residency at CBGB that significantly raised the club's profile.^[] The Television sets included Richard Hell's "Blank Generation", which became the scene's emblematic anthem.^[] Soon after, Hell left Television and founded a band featuring a more stripped-down sound, the Heartbreakers, with former New York Dolls Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan. The pairing of Hell and Thunders, in one critical assessment, "inject[ed] a poetic intelligence into mindless self-destruction".^[36] A July festival at CBGB featuring over thirty new groups brought the scene its first substantial media coverage.^[] In August, Television—with Fred Smith, former Blondie bassist, replacing Hell—recorded a single, "Little Johnny Jewel", for the tiny Ork label. In the words of John Walker, the record was "a turning point for the whole New York scene" if not quite for the punk rock sound itself—Hell's departure had left the band "significantly reduced in fringe aggression".^[]

	The chorus of the Ramones' first single "is a primer on the punk take on rock rhythm everyone pumps out the rock rhythmic layer—on a drum, on a single note, on a single chord", according to scholar Michael Campbell. "This is as pure, and as energetic, as rock rhythm gets."[]
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Other bands were becoming regulars at CBGB, such as Mink DeVille and Talking Heads, which moved down from Rhode Island, as well as Cleveland, Ohio's The Dead Boys. More closely associated with Max's Kansas City were Suicide and the band led by Jayne County, another Mercer Arts Center alumna. The first album to come out of this downtown scene was released in November Smith's debut, Horses, produced by John Cale for major label Arista.^[] The inaugural issue of Punk appeared in December.^[] The new magazine tied together earlier artists such as Velvet Underground lead singer Lou Reed, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls with the editors' favorite band, the Dictators, and the array of new acts centered on CBGB and Max's.^[] That winter, Pere Ubu came in from Cleveland and played at both spots.^[]

Early in , Hell left the Heartbreakers; he soon formed a new group that would become known as the Voidoids, "one of the most harshly uncompromising bands" on the scene.^[] That April, the Ramones' debut album was released by Sire Records; the first single was "Blitzkrieg Bop", opening with the rally cry "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" According to a later description, "Like all cultural watersheds, Ramones was embraced by a discerning few and slagged off as a bad joke by the uncomprehending majority."^[] At the instigation of Ramones lead singer Joey Ramone, the members of Cleveland's Frankenstein moved east to join the New York scene. Reconstituted as the Dead Boys, they played their first CBGB gig in late July.^[] In August, Ork put out an EP recorded by Hell with his new band that included the first released version of "Blank Generation".^[]

Other New York venues apart from CBGB included the Lismar Lounge (41 First Avenue) and Aztec Lounge (9th Street).^[]

At this early stage, the term punk applied to the scene in general, not necessarily a particular stylistic approach as it would later—the early New York punk bands represented a broad variety of influences. Among them, the Ramones, the Heartbreakers, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Dead Boys were establishing a distinct musical style. Even where they diverged most clearly, in lyrical approach—the Ramones' apparent guilelessness at one extreme, Hell's conscious craft at the other—there was an abrasive attitude in common. Their shared attributes of minimalism and speed, however, had not yet come to define punk rock.^[]

Other U.S. cities[edit]