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Punk or Metal?


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Back in the 1980's there was a split that took place among a lot of rock music fans.

On one side you had the punk/new wavers and on the other side you had the heavy metal kids. This divide was pretty serious for a lot of people and it still exists to an extent, but I'm not sure if people under a certain age are even aware of it.

If you are old enough to remember the 80's which side were you on?

Were you listening to U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies?
Or were you listening to Metallica, Guns and Roses and Bon Jovi?
And why do you think?

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Quote Originally Posted by Folder View Post
Back in the 1980's there was a split that took place among a lot of rock music fans.

On one side you had the punk/new wavers and on the other side you had the heavy metal kids. This divide was pretty serious for a lot of people and it still exists to an extent, but I'm not sure if people under a certain age are even aware of it.

If you are old enough to remember the 80's which side were you on?

Were you listening to U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies?
Or were you listening to Metallica, Guns and Roses and Bon Jovi?
And why do you think?
Sorry, I just can't get my head around this. Metallica fit comfortably into the "metal" category but I have real trouble attempting to squeeze U2, REM, the Pixies, G&R and Bon Jovi into either of the two categories here.
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Quote Originally Posted by Folder View Post
Back in the 1980's there was a split that took place among a lot of rock music fans.

On one side you had the punk/new wavers and on the other side you had the heavy metal kids. This divide was pretty serious for a lot of people and it still exists to an extent, but I'm not sure if people under a certain age are even aware of it.

If you are old enough to remember the 80's which side were you on?

Were you listening to U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies?
Or were you listening to Metallica, Guns and Roses and Bon Jovi?
And why do you think?
Why didn't you mention any punk bands? wink.gif

The Pixies had a retro, outsider pop, lite-punk-influenced pop thing going on, I suppose (I ended up quite liking them -- although I was taken aback when I went with a friend to see them, because most of the audience seemed to be teenage girls -- who actually squealed and screamed when Frank Black came out, I'm not kidding) but U2 and R.E.M. were about as punk as Spanky and Our Gang.


Me, I was an early fan of metal -- and bailed in the early middle 70s, for the most part. It started out kind of exciting, but settled into loadie cliches and bonehead lyrics and licks from bonehead bands. I cut my once-near-waist-length hair off in '73 and hung around waiting for something interesting to happen until '75 or so, keeping myself entertained with various outsider and prog bands. The first time I heard Patty Smith's first album (not punk, of course, but with its embrace of retro pop elements, hard edged guitars and artful treatment of very un-pop lyrical themes) I knew it was on.

Now, of course, the music classed as punk and new wave in the second half of the 70s was very much different in intent and approach from the the rigid stylistic approach to punk that took hold during the mid-80s -- and, of course, 'new wave' like Television or the Buzzcocks or Magazine had virtually nothing to do with the tepid synth pop and jangly power pop that came to be the operant definition of the term in the 80s.


FWIW, I kept hoping for a rebirth of metal with punk's vitality. I ended up buying some of the initial single and EP releases from outfits like Iron Maiden and Celtic Frost. And I rooted for Metallica, orginally, calling my local metal station to try to get them to play it (they were much more into 10 year old Deep Purple and Judas Priest). But, after a couple albums, I found the Metallica formula wore thin fast on me. [Now, I'd also bought the last two AC/DC records with Bon Scott back when they came out -- but I was utterly horrified by the new singer.]

Since, then, aside from the first few Black Sabbath albums, I haven't really listened to any metal, except what I've had to for music and songwriting critiques and discussions. FWIW, I felt like punk died as a dynamic musical form in the 80s, too, although, like Sab and some Zep, I still listen to some of my favorites from the day.

In fact, it was only a few nights ago that I put on the first 4 tracks from Never Mind the Bollocks. Now there is a totally contrived, put together band that really worked. For long enough to make one arguably great record. But, I suppose because they always acknowledged the 'fraudulent' aspect of their conception and execution, they somehow managed to effectively excuse it.

It was a moment in music and pop culture history.


PS... catching up, Surrealistic's on point with GnR and... Bon Jovi. eek.gif Some of the metal guys probably liked hard rock GnR -- but only their GFs would admit to liking the secretary rock Bon Jovi. Calling Bon Jovi metal would be like calling Duran Duran punk, seems to me. wink.gif


PPS... if you wanna find some music afficianadi who are really intense about the propriety of various genre classifications, you should check with some of the club electronica fans of the late 90s and early 00s. At one point there was this utterly amazing interactive 'style map' showing the lineage of various club styles from the late 70s to the then-present. It even had links to snippets of tracks so you could hear the styles yourself. There must have been a couple hundred styles and sub-styles. It was BRILLIANT.
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Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistic

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Sorry, I just can't get my head around this. Metallica fit comfortably into the "metal" category but I have real trouble attempting to squeeze U2, REM, the Pixies, G&R and Bon Jovi into either of the two categories here.

 

Or attempting to squeeze *anything* into only two choices.
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Quote Originally Posted by Surrealistic View Post
Sorry, I just can't get my head around this. Metallica fit comfortably into the "metal" category but I have real trouble attempting to squeeze U2, REM, the Pixies, G&R and Bon Jovi into either of the two categories here.
Those were just the first popular bands that popped into my head.

U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies were influenced by a lot of the proto punk bands of the 60's and 70's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_music

Metallica, Guns and Roses and Bon Jovi were more influenced by the hard rock bands of the 60's and 70's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_music

I was in high school in the late seventies when this cultural split first started.
The kids who listened to Elvis Costello and the B-52s sat at one table. While the kids who listened to Judas Priest and Kiss sat at the other table. Where I lived these two groups became antaganistic towards each other.

I've never been too big on categorizing music but if you were around in the 80's and were a big fan of rock music I don't see how you could miss the polarization of these two branches.
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I remember a punk vs. metal conflict in the 80s - metalheads dissed punkers for lack of technique, punkers dissed metalheads for being corporate slaves or what have you. A conflict that has been dead for years of course...

I wasn't really into punk or metal when I was a kid though, other than what ruled the Top 40 airwaves at the times. Punk was represented by The Clash and metal was represented by Def Leppard, Scorpions, and Whitesnake. The bands that hit the Top 40 from the new wave angle were considered "post-punk" (no angry anti-corporate lyrics, etc.) rather than punk and so didn't really count to me - these would include New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, early Cure, etc.

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Quote Originally Posted by blue2blue View Post
Calling Bon Jovi metal would be like calling Duran Duran punk, seems to me. wink.gif
Exactly. But I think that you could argue that Bon Jovi was out on the same branch as metal while Duran Duran was on the punk branch.

I could have titled the thread "Alternative or Hard Rock" but from my recollections Punk/ New Wave and Heavy Metal were popular terms in the eighties.

I think alternative became the popular term in the nineties for bands like U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies. But in the eighties I think these type of bands were still considered mostly New Wave. I myself would consider bands like Guns and Roses and Kiss hard rock, but for a lot a people hard rock is music from the 60's and 70's.
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Quote Originally Posted by girevik View Post
A conflict that has been dead for years of course...
Yeah, I talk to musicians in their twenties who don't really understand it.
They don't realize it's not cool to like Nirvana and Guns and Roses at the same time.rolleyes.gif
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Quote Originally Posted by Folder View Post
I was in high school in the late seventies when this cultural split first started.
The kids who listened to Elvis Costello and the B-52s sat at one table. While the kids who listened to Judas Priest and Kiss sat at the other table. Where I lived these two groups became antaganistic towards each other.
Ah, that explains a lot. My high school years were in the mid-80s rather than the 70s. There was still some punk vs. metal tension but our circle of high school friends were into new wave, Rush (thought of by some as "metal" but of course it's not really), Scorpions, and King Crimson (Belew-era because that was current). Nobody into anything with more "cool cred" like Suicide, Joy Division, or Pentagram (DC's answer to Black Sabbath), but we were fairly eclectic. We played "Lola" by the Kinks (a proto-punk band of sorts) at the quad every day just to see how long it would take for the authorities to realize it was about a transgender person.
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Quote Originally Posted by girevik View Post
There was still some punk vs. metal tension but our circle of high school friends were into new wave, Rush (thought of by some as "metal" but of course it's not really), Scorpions, and King Crimson (Belew-era because that was current).
At my school you were not allowed to like New Wave and the Scorpions simultaneously. You could like one or the other but if you liked both you would be a social outcast, a misfit.

How would you know which lunch table to sit at?icon_lol.gif

Of course it was possible to switch teams.

After the B-52s were on Saturday Night Live a lot of guys that were into Led Zeppelin and Rush all of a sudden had short new wave haircuts and straight leg jeans.
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There's been a rift between punk and, well, everything else, hasn't there? That's partially why I've been answering the way I've been answering. But also, there are sooo many things that are between or completely outside the punk and metal camps anyway.

If one is going to force other genres into either punk or metal, do you put rap into punk and dance into metal? Where does folk go? Does it go under punk if the person appears hacked off, but under metal if it's a sweet sounding ballad? Where does reggae go? What about blues, R&B, New Wave, funk, hard rock, or anything else? What about the kinds of music that are largely outside Western influence or categorization?

And what about the bands that I mentioned? Where do those go? Is Slayer more punk? Or metal? What about Discharge? Or the Misfits? Or the Chili Peppers? Was Black Flag punk and then when Greg Ginn began doing guitar solos, they were metal? Where does industrial or Goth fit in? What about teen pop? Tarting 13 year old female singers up to make 'em sexy is really subversive...so is that punk?

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Quote Originally Posted by Folder View Post
At my school you were not allowed to like New Wave and the Scorpions simultaneously. You could like one or the other but if you liked both you would be a social outcast, a misfit.

How would you know which lunch table to sit at?icon_lol.gif
But you said you were in high school in the 70s. Maybe 10 years after you got out of high school (my time) things were different at your high school biggrin.gif
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Quote Originally Posted by UstadKhanAli View Post
If one is going to force other genres into either punk or metal, do you put rap into punk and dance into metal? Where does folk go? Does it go under punk if the person appears hacked off, but under metal if it's a sweet sounding ballad? Where does reggae go? What about blues, R&B, New Wave, funk, hard rock, or anything else? What about the kinds of music that are largely outside Western influence or categorization?

And what about the bands that I mentioned? Where do those go? Is Slayer more punk? Or metal? What about Discharge? Or the Misfits? Or the Chili Peppers? Was Black Flag punk and then when Greg Ginn began doing guitar solos, they were metal? Where does industrial or Goth fit in? What about teen pop? Tarting 13 year old female singers up to make 'em sexy is really subversive...so is that punk?
I didn't start this thread to discuss musical categories. Categories can be broad and debatable. But for a lot of people who were young in the 80s they remember a social divide based on two basic rock musical branches.

If you didn't listen to rock music in the eighties or had no preference either way that's fine. I just thought it might be fun for people who remember the eighties to share whether they were a headbanger or a new waver. Which lunch table did you sit at and why do you think you chose that table.
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I listened to all styles, but lean towards hard rock and old school metal. And I like and dislike bands in each genre. I remember when Judas Priest "Sad Wings of Destiny" came out. I was around 14 or 15 and I was at a Lazarus store in Columbus, Ohio. I always went to the music department while my mom was shopping. Anyway there was that album cover !! Im thinking gospel music, but its in the new rock section ? I turn the cover and see all that long hair on the members of the band. So I bought the album and it changed my listening habits. I just loved that sound and started listening to mostly heavy rock and metal !! Now on the Punk side. I remember hearing "God Save the Queen" for the first time on WVUD Radio (album rock) late 1977. This was different and so cool. I went on a search high and low for the album. Well many stores in the USA wouldnt carry it and there were distribution issues too. I had all but givin up hope on finding it, when one lunch break at school I went to the Certifide Gas Station (we bought dorito's and mountain dew for lunch each day) and there it was !!! On 8-track !!! The gas station carried boot-leg 8 tracks, (a small display of maybe 12 tapes) and it was mostly country music since I grew up in farm country. But never the less there it was !!! So I bought it and listened to it non stop. To me that is Punk !!! But I really like all music, except for a few genres. So I guess Im an old "Metal Punk" smile.gif But in my small town we had no social divides. My graduating class was around 40 kids, so everyone new each other. As far as dressing punk or metal, 1975 - 1980 my jr high and hs years. This was when punk and metal was just coming into view, so we still all wore jeans and regular shirts. Maybe a concert shirt here or there. The mid eighties is when the look came into play. By then I was married with kids smile.gif

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Quote Originally Posted by girevik View Post
But you said you were in high school in the 70s. Maybe 10 years after you got out of high school (my time) things were different at your high school biggrin.gif
Ha ! Actually I was in both high school and college in the late seventies.icon_lol.gif
I don't know when the Scorpions were popular. I think they were making records in the seventies. My point was that in Athens, Georgia in the late seventies, early eighties if you were into the B-52s you probably were not listening to the Scorpions.

PS. You just reminded me of a roommate I had in Athens in 1981 who liked the Scorpions. If you liked the Scorpions in Athens, Georgia in 1981 you were pretty much an outcast.
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Quote Originally Posted by girevik View Post
I remember a punk vs. metal conflict in the 80s - metalheads dissed punkers for lack of technique, punkers dissed metalheads for being corporate slaves or what have you. A conflict that has been dead for years of course...

I wasn't really into punk or metal when I was a kid though, other than what ruled the Top 40 airwaves at the times. Punk was represented by The Clash and metal was represented by Def Leppard, Scorpions, and Whitesnake. The bands that hit the Top 40 from the new wave angle were considered "post-punk" (no angry anti-corporate lyrics, etc.) rather than punk and so didn't really count to me - these would include New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, early Cure, etc.
Of course, these terms are highly plastic, but as someone who was in with a post-punk crowd in mid-80s LA/OC, I would consider post-punk to be bands like Husker Du, BH Surfers, Tex & the Horseheads, Firehose, and the like. New Order, E&tBm, Cure, and the like, I'd call Brit new wave (although clearly NO was well in the synth pop camp, unlike their quite different progenitor band, Joy Division), along with outfits like U2 and the Police.

Mind you, there would have been a time I was uncomfortable calling those bands "new wave" -- because I really liked the term in the late 70s -- but as it ended up being applied to power pop and other 'lite' bands, I abandoned it. So, while I considered Magazine 'new wave' when they came out, as the term has evolved, I found it necessary to start using other terms; I finally settled on a corruption of my own, calling the darker, but not punk stuff (like Television, Magazine, JD and others) from the late 70s 'no wave' -- a term that, properly, refers to the no wave pop scene of late 70s New York, James Chance and the Contortions, Lydia Lunch, etc. Bout, like I said, that's a corruption, too. But, you know, it's kind of ridiculous to call a band like Television by a term that makes people think of the Romantics or the Police.
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Quote Originally Posted by Folder View Post
Ha ! Actually I was in both high school and college in the late seventies.icon_lol.gif
I don't know when the Scorpions were popular. I think they were making records in the seventies. My point was that in Athens, Georgia in the late seventies, early eighties if you were into the B-52s you probably were not listening to the Scorpions.

PS. You just reminded me of a roommate I had in Athens in 1981 who liked the Scorpions. If you liked the Scorpions in Athens, Georgia in 1981 you were pretty much an outcast.
The Scorpions hit the Top 40 towards the end of my junior high school years - about 1983 or 1984. In 1981, I was listening to more R&B (they called it "soul" back then) - Kool and the Gang, George Clinton/P-Funk, etc. That would have been elementary school - nobody at my elementary school knew anything about rock, let alone the difference between punk and metal, beyond Top 40. One 6th grader told me (I was in 5th) that "pop" music was "you know, the hard stuff, with loud guitars". LOL!

I was an outcast in jr. high because I got away from soul music and was more into new wave and other flavors of rock - the notion of "acting/talking like a black kid = cool" had already started then. I felt much more in my element when I got into high school.
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Quote Originally Posted by Folder View Post
Exactly. But I think that you could argue that Bon Jovi was out on the same branch as metal while Duran Duran was on the punk branch.

I could have titled the thread "Alternative or Hard Rock" but from my recollections Punk/ New Wave and Heavy Metal were popular terms in the eighties.

I think alternative became the popular term in the nineties for bands like U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies. But in the eighties I think these type of bands were still considered mostly New Wave. I myself would consider bands like Guns and Roses and Kiss hard rock, but for a lot a people hard rock is music from the 60's and 70's.
Out here in LA, alternative was applied to indie, non-commercial and non-mainstream bands. At first, it meant what you wouldn't hear on a 'Rock of the 80s' station like KROQ. But after a while, it became the marketing label of choice for a wide range of rock and pop rock bands.

I have to say that, in the sense one is guitar-centric and one is synth-centric, you could say that DD is on the same limb that punk branches off and that Bon Jovi is on the same limb which metal branches off... but, really, that's as far as I can go down that road. Duran Duran is the antithesis of what punk was initially about and BJ has pretty much the same non-relationship to metal. Both Bon Jovi and Duran Duran are closer to each other in many ways than they are to either punk or metal. I mean, they are both light pop led by pretty boys with large female followings.


But, sure, I do get the social polarization thing, I'm sure that it was just as you describe for kids coming up in the 80s. thumb.gif
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Quote Originally Posted by girevik View Post
The Scorpions hit the Top 40 towards the end of my junior high school years - about 1983 or 1984. In 1981, I was listening to more R&B (they called it "soul" back then) - Kool and the Gang, George Clinton/P-Funk, etc. That would have been elementary school - nobody at my elementary school knew anything about rock, let alone the difference between punk and metal, beyond Top 40. One 6th grader told me (I was in 5th) that "pop" music was "you know, the hard stuff, with loud guitars". LOL!

I was an outcast in jr. high because I got away from soul music and was more into new wave and other flavors of rock - the notion of "acting/talking like a black kid = cool" had already started then. I felt much more in my element when I got into high school.
Yeah, I watched as hip hop slowly seeped out of the black community. We were lucky here in LA, because KDAY (interestingly, half-owned by Stevie Wonder at the time) started playing rap pretty early. By '80 or so they were playing about half rap and half club R&B. I was a long time fan of Jamaican dub (I had pals who'd go down to JA on singles buying trips in the early-mid 70s and I was hooked by '75 or so), so I was already familiar with toasting, it was natural for me to start listening to rap, as well. I also liked the mutant disco scene out of NY and Europe, Material, Was/Not Was, later Nina Hagen and so on.


PS... I went through a bit of a Scorpions phase, as well. When I first started hanging out in punk record shops, a lot of early adopters would dump all their old prog and import rock albums -- so I picked up all kinds of first wave metal and avant-garde prog stuff (Can, Magma, Faust) often for a dime on the dollar.
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