AboutCaleb Expertise I'm happy to help you with suggesting bands to listen to, or resolving questions about the history of punk. I end up telling most people to listen to the Velvet Underground - definitely check them out of you haven't yet.
Question Hey. Who actually WAS the first punk band? And why do people think bands like Good Charlotte and the NEW Green Day are punk? I dont think they are: they're too corrupted by fame now but in the old days green day was great. What are a couple of other bands that have been corrupted by fame, and what are some bands that HAVENT been? thanks.
Answer There was not really a first punk band, but i think the Ramones were about the first of the famous ones... the New York CBGBs punk scene was around before the british scene (which is why the Sex Pistols didn't go to New York because they already had punk, they went to the south instead where most people hated them).
Some say that Helter Skelter by the Beatles was the first punk song. Some say Waiting for the Man or Sister Ray by the Velvet Underground. Some say the Stooges' first album was the first punk album. And it wouldn't be too out of place amongst punk music. But the term "punk rock" wasn't really around until the 70s.
The music, though, was only a few steps further than garage rock of the 60s and songs by the aforementioned as well as the Kinks (You Really Got Me in 64 was credited with inventing hard rock, as it was the first song to find fame using power chords and distortion), Love, the Rolling Stones and plenty of others.
So you can't really trace the beginning of punk unless you take it back to garage rock, pop and blues. And you can't trace the beginning of those either... All types of popular music spawned from the blues, but the blues spawned from African and European folk music traditions which went back thousands of years.
People think Green Day and Good Charlotte are punk are because that's what they are marketted as. Good Charlotte listen to a lot of 80s punk, Minor Threat, Social Distortion etc, and they try to dress punk, whereas Green Day are into the Clash etc but their last two albums seemed more influenced by the Kinks (Warning) and the Who (American Idiot). Green Day cynically capitalised on the new craze of the "punk" image with American Idiot but most of that album wasn't really punk (or even pop-punk [which is another stupid term because punk has always been poppy, except when it turned to shit in the 80s]).
I think all of Green Day's albums have been quite good (including American Idiot) but none of them have been legendary. They have written some great songs though. I used to be into Good Charlotte in my youth, not really anymore, but I still think their first album was pretty good. They're not as bad as Simple Plan or Panic at the Disco.
Punk has so many different clashing (pun intended) definitions that you can't really say cateogorically that a band isn't punk.
Hmmm most bands tend to become corrupted by fame these days, for example Rage Against the Machine who are notorious for their anti-capitalist politics while being signed to a major label. And sometimes people can write good music when they're "nobodies", but when they get famous they can't seem to do it anymore... they've lost the lifestyle that was their muse. A few bands have been able to carry on making great music for years to come after getting famous (and even improve)... the Beatles for example.
