Punk or Metal?

[Folder]

 

Originally Posted by blue2blue

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.

 

That's for sure, but believe it or not I knew people who saw a huge difference between them 25 years ago. I had friends who hated Bon Jovi but liked Duran Duran and Vice Versa.

[Anderton]

Sounds to me like we need to throw "new wave" into the mix.

I was never into the "music tribes" thing. I remember listening to Genesis when the Sex Pistols and the Damned came out. I loved their stuff (still do - "Wait for the Blackout" needs a cover version, I think ) , but I didn't stop listening to Genesis....can't get much more opposite than that.

As to metal, I like titanium a lot, but aluminum is light and handy to have around.

[UstadKhanAli]

Originally Posted by UstadKhanAli

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.

I listened to punk and heavy metal and all the other genres that I listed and much more in high school. My friends often listened to different genres as well, or at least, things that didn't fit into either camp. That's why I keep pointing this out. I know you didn't start this thread to discuss music categories, but the point I'm making is that by creating this false binary choice, you're leaving out a lot of people who listened to both. Or neither.

The lunch table I ate at? Well, it was with friends who listened to Black Sabbath and Black Flag. It was with people who listened to only punk. It was with people who listened to only metal. It was with people who listened to New Wave. It was people who listened to all sorts of stuff. And you ask why I chose these tables? Because they were my friends, and they were fun, intelligent, hilarious. Some were popular, some had three friends. One guy listened mostly to funk and R&B and played on the football team. Another football player I was friends with listened to The Doors and Brian Eno mostly. Another guy who wrote for the school newspaper listened primarily to tons of stuff such as The Jam, The Who, Sex Pistols, The Police, Stiv Bator, U.K. Subs, and thought I was a "rivethead" because I liked Zeppelin and Sabbath.

I'm sorry if I'm not discussing what you were aiming for. I mean, I knew people who listened to one or the other, but I'm just saying that it was hardly a binary choice.

[Surrealistic]

Originally Posted by Folder

...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.

The point I was trying to make, and others have probably done a much better job of making, is that it's not quite as simple as that. Well, that and that the choices you made to support your point weren't perhaps the best choices you could have made.

If I were to ignore those choices and answer the OP directly then I'm down on the "punk" side by a long way*.

By the time the the likes of bands such as Judas Priest or Iron Maiden became popular I was pretty much done with metal. Apologies to fans of those bands but to me they were little more than rehashing stuff that had already been done and, whilst the original "heavy" music seemed fresh, exciting and interesting for a while, it eventually proved to be something of a musical dead end (for me anyway - obviously not for everyone).

* If we take "punk" to encapsulate all of the likes of the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Johnny Thunders, Television, Blondie, Elvis Costello, XTC, Ramones, Devo, The Jam, Buzzcocks, Magazine, Wire, UK Subs. Talking Heads, Ian Dury, Iggy ... and yes, some of those seem a real stretch with hindsight but were definitely considered somewhat "punk" at the time.

[Ryst]

Originally Posted by Folder

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

Yes.

[UstadKhanAli]

I listened to all of the above except for Bon Jovi.

At least, not willingly.

[chevybusa]

Well I was born in 81, so pretty much the only music I was listening to in the 80's were the MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, and Simpsons Sing the Blues cassetes I got for Christmas from my Aunt and Uncle LOL

I first heard Enter Sandman in 91 when the Black Album came out and that was IT, I was a metalhead for years and years after that....TBH I never really could get into punk at all, there were a few bands here and there that I dug but I was DEFINITELY a metalhead and all about Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Slayer, Sepultura, and tons of other metla bands, for quite some time that's all I listened to....

[dramey]

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.

This was my HS exactly. Even if you listened to the Carpenters and Barry Manilow at home, you were in to new wave or hair metal at school. I was in the head banging crowd though still a social outcast. I had a few new wavey friends, but I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to that stuff. I used to go to hair metal shows practicably every weekend, and yes even Bon Jovi but under duress though, I swear.

It's funny these days that old new wave stuff sounds better than it used to, and though I can still rock out to a Ratt or Scorpions song for nostalgia's sake, that stuff isn't aging all that well. My musical taste is a lot more diverse than it used to be, but I wonder some times if all that teenage crap ruined me for life.

I envy kids these days. My nephew is lead screamer in a hard core metal band. His iPod has everything from old R&B, to classic rock, to country, to a little of everything else. The social stigma of, you are what you listen to, doesn't really exist anymore. Not like when I was a kid anyway. As much as I hate to say it some of that probably comes from the whole downloading thing. Kids can download everything and decide what they like instead of having to be choosy of where they spend their music budget. I'm not advocating copywrite infringement, but I bet it is a factor.

[Anderton]

Originally Posted by UstadKhanAli

I listened to all of the above except for Bon Jovi.

At least, not willingly.

But you have to admit, "Livin' on a Prayer" has the ultimate 80s hair band chorus of all time.

[BushmasterM4]

Originally Posted by dramey

This was my HS exactly. Even if you listened to the Carpenters and Barry Manilow at home, you were in to new wave or hair metal at school. I was in the head banging crowd though still a social outcast. I had a few new wavey friends, but I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to that stuff. I used to go to hair metal shows practicably every weekend, and yes even Bon Jovi but under duress though, I swear.

It's funny these days that old new wave stuff sounds better than it used to, and though I can still rock out to a Ratt or Scorpions song for nostalgia's sake, that stuff isn't aging all that well. My musical taste is a lot more diverse than it used to be, but I wonder some times if all that teenage crap ruined me for life.

I envy kids these days. My nephew is lead screamer in a hard core metal band. His iPod has everything from old R&B, to classic rock, to country, to a little of everything else. The social stigma of, you are what you listen to, doesn't really exist anymore. Not like when I was a kid anyway. As much as I hate to say it some of that probably comes from the whole downloading thing. Kids can download everything and decide what they like instead of having to be choosy of where they spend their music budget. I'm not advocating copywrite infringement, but I bet it is a factor.

I listened to everything from Johnny Cash, Charlie Pride, Frank Zappa, Scorpions, Sex Pistols, Herb Alpert and I was the music guy in my class (1980) and introduced new music on a weekly basis. But there were only around 40 kids in my class and maybe 180 in the whole high school. So in my home town there was no "clicks" or what ever you call these groups now a days. But I taught my kids to listen to everything and not be a part of a social group and Im proud to say they followed my guide lines. They dress the way they want and treat everyone with respect. I bet your nephew was raised the same. Good parents.

[Hard Truth]

In my fairly large city, in the late 70s-early '80s metal was mostly for male suburbanites, boys under 17 and lower proletarians. Punk was for art students, trendy people and outcasts/bohemians. New wave was for the trendy, and the relatively sophisticated college kids, the ones that used to like prog rock, but now denied ever liking most of it. The normals still listened to soft rock (esp. Fleetwood Mac) and some disco. The lines between punk and new wave were pretty fuzzy in the earlier days. When the LA hardcore bands such as Black Flag came out, many of the suburban metal heads switched to punk and very aggressive slam dancing became popular.

I've never really felt part of any scene and I enjoyed a wide variety of music. I checked out a lot of punk and new wave and liked some of the more clever new wave bands.

A few years later MTV changed everything.......

[UstadKhanAli]

Originally Posted by Anderton

But you have to admit, "Livin' on a Prayer" has the ultimate 80s hair band chorus of all time.

I have more appreciation for this now although I hardly seek this out on Spotify.

Some things, I hated when I was younger and either tolerate or actually like now. Disco would be an example of this where some of the disco stuff sounds really great to me now, but jeeez, when it came out, it just sounded like monotonous factory-made crap to me.

[UstadKhanAli]

Originally Posted by Anderton

But you have to admit, "Livin' on a Prayer" has the ultimate 80s hair band chorus of all time.

I have more appreciation for this now although I hardly seek this out on Spotify.

Some things, I hated when I was younger and either tolerate or actually like now. Disco would be an example of this where some of the disco stuff sounds really great to me now, but jeeez, when it came out, it just sounded like monotonous factory-made crap to me.

[Folder]

The first rock album I bought in grammar school was Led Zeppelin II. From there as I progressed through High School I got heavily into what was then called Progressive Rock.

Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Nektar, Todd Rundren's Utopia, Pink Floyd etc... For my friends and I it was all about musical virtuosity. Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson were the musicians I most looked up to. As I got older I got into Jazz and Jazz fusion. Weather Report, Return to Forever, Pat Metheney, Dixie Dregs etc... but I also listened to pop music and the AOR rock of the sixities and seventies that we now call classic rock.

I don't remember exactly when I first heard about this new kind of music called punk rock but I do remember everybody I knew derided it. We thought it was awful. There was a skit on Saturday Night Live with Gilda Radner playing a stupid, drugged out, untalented, punk rocker that was supposedly based on Patti Smith. We thought it was hilarious and spot on accurate.

Punk rock was a horrible noise. It was offensive. It was worthless. It must be a joke.

When I was 18 years old I was offered a ticket to go see the Sex Pistols at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta. It was their American concert debut and one of their last shows. I turned it down. Why would anybody pay money to see a bunch of no talent punks who couldn't sing or play their instruments?

I still kick myself for missing that concert.

Fast forward a couple of years and I was at a small southern college studying Music Theory. There was a fellow musician on campus there who had a short spikey haircut and liked New Wave music. He was considered a weirdo.

One day he said that some friends of his had just started a band and were playing a gig in Athens, Georgia. He showed us a review written in the school newspaper praising their first gig. A week or so later on May 6th 1980 a bunch of us took a road trip to see this band. They were called R.E.M. According to the R.E.M. timeline this was only their forth gig ever and only the second time they used the named R.E.M.

About six months later I moved to Athens. The music scene in Athens in 1980 and 81 was like nothing I had ever experienced. At first I didn't know what to make of it. None of the bands played complex music and nobody was a virtuoso. Bands like Pylon, Love Tractor, The Method Actors, The Side Effects and R.E.M. were playing what I thought were simple, quirky, short songs and everybody was dancing.

It went against all my basic instincts but within a few weeks I was completely enthralled.

I tried to turn my friends on to this new creative music scene but was met with resistance. They told me that those Athens bands were a horrible noise. They were offensive. They were worthless and they must be a joke.

A couple of years later I was listening to the radio late one night and they played a new song by a band called Motley Crue. The introduction sounded kind of like seventies progressive rock to me so turned it up. A minute or so later heavily distorted rigid guitars came in and somebody started screaming shout at the devil.

This was the first eighties style metal music I had ever heard and I immediately thought it was a horrible noise. It was offensive. It was worthless. It must be a joke.

Little did I know it was only the beginning of a larger trend about to expode all over the radio and Mtv.

[Jimbroni]

Originally Posted by UstadKhanAli

I'll bet the people who listened to Whitney Houston and Circle Jerks didn't sit at the same table either.

Whitney Houston probably goes in the heavy metal camp because she has long hair and sings really high sustained notes.

Well your a loud mouth baby!
You better shut it up or I'll beat you up
Loud Mouth Mouth Baby!

Sorry just as I started typing and that song appropriately came on my shuffle.

Seriously, I wish the Circle Jerk's would have been round long enough to do Golden Shower of Hits part 2 and sing I will always love you.

Btw. loving your responses to this thread. I can remember this binary mentally, and I've been reading this thread laughing about how irrelevant this question is today. Yet it has made for interesting reading.

[elsongs]

Originally Posted by chevybusa

Well I was born in 81, so pretty much the only music I was listening to in the 80's were the MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, and Simpsons Sing the Blues cassetes I got for Christmas from my Aunt and Uncle LOL

I have to say, I actually really liked Lisa Simpson's rendition of "God Bless The Child."

[Philter]

The best thing I can say about listening to heavy metal and punk growing up in the late 80's is that I heard enough and moved on. I would have to admit to being mostly metal... Black Sabbath, Rush, Primus, Led Zep, Pink Floyd. First concert I went to was Bon Jovi, Skid Row opened (at least I can say a girl invited me to go.) I saw Anthrax open for Iron Maiden, saw the Metallica snakepit tour, saw Pink Floyd on the Division Bell tour, saw Rush a bunch of times, with Primus opening. Almost all of the music I liked then sounds pretty stupid to me now, except for Pink Floyd and a few other things here or there. I still like some of the grunge stuff that I liked in the early 90's. Luckily I had my mom's huge vinyl collection of world music and great rock/folk from the 60's to listen to when I didn't have to act cool... otherwise I might still think "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" was a great work of art.

[blue2blue]

 

Originally Posted by Folder

That's for sure, but believe it or not I knew people who saw a huge difference between them 25 years ago. I had friends who hated Bon Jovi but liked Duran Duran and Vice Versa.

 

I get that. It's like being a Democrat or a Republican. (Just kidding. There are differences. But maybe not nearly as many as many of us -- on either side -- would like. )

[girevik]

Ok, I was a Duran Duran fan and disliked every Bon Jovi song I've ever heard. But I also liked songs by equally "bad/uncool" hair metal bands like Ratt, Night Ranger, and Winger. My dislike of Bon Jovi had more to do with my dislike of their songwriting than dislike of metal.

[UstadKhanAli]

Originally Posted by blue2blue

I get that. It's like being a Democrat or a Republican. (Just kidding. There are differences. But maybe not nearly as many as many of us -- on either side -- would like. )

Right. Part of what is interesting in this thread is not only the differences but similarities as well.

The loud repetitious din of an event, the blatant disregard for morality, the lurid sexual activity...

And I haven't even begun discussing punk and metal!!

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Originally Posted by girevik

Ok, I was a Duran Duran fan and disliked every Bon Jovi song I've ever heard. But I also liked songs by equally "bad/uncool" hair metal bands like Ratt, Night Ranger, and Winger. My dislike of Bon Jovi had more to do with my dislike of their songwriting than dislike of metal.

 

I like metal, but like every other genre, there's good stuff and then there's Winger.

[blue2blue]

PS... going back to the early, heady days of the 'new music' revolution in the last half of the 70s, I'd like to cite one very notable band that very much seemed to be a new kind of metal band (although they're typically classified as neo-psychedelic/new wave these days apparently) -- the Soft Boys, which featured Robyn Hitchcock and several of his mates who would later rejoin him in the Egyptians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soft_Boys

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robyn_Hitchcock

[Folder]

Originally Posted by blue2blue

I get that. It's like being a Democrat or a Republican. (Just kidding. There are differences. But maybe not nearly as many as many of us -- on either side -- would like. )

A lot of the hard rock/metal guys turned out to be big right wingers. I'm thinking Ted Nugent, Dave Mustaine, Gene Simmons.

A lot of the new wave/punk guys turned out to be big left wingers. Bono, Michael Stipe, John Lydon and others.

Among my friends most of the guys who were into metal are all now fox news junkies
while the ones who were into new wave/punk are driving priuses with Obama-Biden stickers on them.

[blue2blue]

There may be some overlap, and one might be tempted to connect some dots regarding cultural and sociosexual attitudes... but, sometimes, I'm thinking, in the game of sociology, the riskiest play is from the armchair.

[UstadKhanAli]

Let's see which political party uses the most punk or metal on their campaigns and decide from there.