Punk rock flourished and faded away in the mid-late 1970s. As soon as it became a conformist subculture, the internal contradiction destroyed it. Since then, a few under-talented musicians have exploited punk&as a commmercial category, preying on kids too clueless to realize they're swindled by a 70s nostalgia trip.

Although now most Punk Rock has gone mainstream under the guise of self-Pitying, date-obsessed adolcsents, a few bands such as the insyderz and nofx still try to hold up punk ideals, altough the mainstream bands manage to easily undermine any progress in the genre. Unfortunately, this trend will probably continue while record companies pump out sugar pop songs and bands which jump onto the guise of punk and ska, and the big labels will keep putting out poop like that as long as 12 year old girls continue to be the biggest spending sector of the american economy.

Iggy Pop on "Punk Rock":

"I'll tell you about punk rock. Punk rock is a word used by dilletantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies and the bodies and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds of young men who give what they have to it, and give everything they have to it. And it's a term that's based on contempt. It's a term that's based in fashion, style, elitism, satanism and everything that's rotten about rock'n'roll.

"I don't know Johnny Rotten but I'm sure he puts as much blood and sweat into what he does as Sigmund Freud did. You see, what sounds to you like a big load of trashy old noise is in fact the brilliant music of a genius, myself. And that music is so powerful that it's quite beyond my control and when I'm in the grips of it I don't feel pleasure and I don't feel pain, either physically or emotionally. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Have you ever felt like that? When you just couldn't feel anything, and you don't want to either. You know, like that?"


Speech is sampled in a track called "punk rock:" on the album "Come On Die Young" released by Scottish post-rock band Mogwai in 1999 on Matador Records. The original source is unknown, though apparently an appearance by Iggy on some sort of round-table-type discussion show.

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