First-Wave / '77 Punk
First-Wave / '77 Punk is punk's first named explosion: short songs, cheap guitars, confrontational vocals, stripped arrangements, anti-establishment posture and a visual language of leather, torn clothing, badges and provocation. The sound could be fast and crude, or arty and nervous, but it rejected the scale and polish of mid-1970s rock. Its core gesture was compression: rock-and-roll, garage, glam, reggae, art rock and teen frustration squeezed into two or three urgent minutes.
History
New York's CBGB scene and London's 1976-77 punk explosion formed the public template, with Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, Richard Hell, Blondie, Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, Buzzcocks and X-Ray Spex defining different lanes. Independent labels, fanzines, small venues and scandal-driven media turned punk into a replicable network. By 1979 the first wave had already splintered into post-punk, new wave, hardcore, oi!, power-pop and countless local scenes, but the '77 model remained punk's most recognizable face.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Please Kill Me oral history
- England's Dreaming punk history
- AllMusic punk and new wave overviews
- CBGB and London punk histories