Home » Music » Post-Punk Music » The punk era ends; post-punk is born

The punk era ends; post-punk is born

© Jason C. Reeher

To understand the post-punk era, you must first understand the punk movement itself. As we shall see in a later article, the actual sound of post-punk was influenced more by the proto-punks, groups like the Velvet Underground, and the Stooges, of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The spirit of post-punk, however – Do It Yourself, “be what you want to be” – came directly from the punk movement itself.

Although rock histories tend to differ over where punk was first invented, many people credit the New York scene of the mid-1970’s. Including bands like the Ramones and the New York Dolls, this nascent sound was nothing like the mellow, Elton John – Peter Frampton sound of the rock mainstream at the time. These new bands were tough, gritty, and urban; they wore leather jackets and sang short songs about crime and girls and sniffing glue. They were loud, fast, and obnoxious. In short, they were everything that 70’s rock was not.

If punk was a relatively minor, regional phenomenon in the U.S., it caught on big in Britain. In the U.K., clubs were more accepting of new bands, as groups like the Banshees, Generation X, Chelsea, and of course, the Clash and the Sex Pistols formed a vibrant scene. To this day, whenever the general public thinks of punk, it is the Brit version – dyed mohawks, ripped clothing, and safety pins through noses – that most people remember. If punk started in the U.S., it took on a life of its own in the U.K., where desperate economic conditions gave way to a dark, nihilistic national mood ripe for class warfare.

Many of the great post-punk bands would get their start during the first, classic wave of punk, or the years from 1976 to 1978. The Cure was playing small British clubs then, though they were known as The Easy Cure, and had yet to be discovered by Polydor Records, which would eventually make them the biggest selling post-punk act in the world.

Joy Division, perhaps the most critically acclaimed band of the post-punk era, was making records then, too. They got their start in 1977, when they were called Warsaw – after a David Bowie song with a similar title. Warsaw recorded the little-heard EP, an Ideal For Living, then changed their name to Joy Division in late 1977. Greatness loomed, but the decade would be over before the Manchester foursome would achieve their greatest notoriety.