Punk

While punk rock can be traced to earlier times, significant roots are found in the mid-1970s. This culture, containing an anti-establishment message, has been viewed as a reaction to the disco and hippie era. The scene was made popular by bands in the United States and the United Kingdom, such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Ramones.

Punk music can be characterized as loud and fast, often with distorted guitar chords, loud drums, and screaming vocals. At performances, crowds would frequently pogo, which involves jumping up and down to the music, and slam-dance, which involves pushing other people in the crowd around, or what is currently called “moshing.” Punk clothing includes do-it-yourself (DIY) fashion, such as Mohawks, piercings, bright-colored hair, combat boots, and leather jackets adorned with safety pins and spikes.

The influence of punk music can be seen in genres of music that developed over the years since it first began, including straight edge, a reactionary movement emerging from punk rock in the early 1980s. This scene embraced the music's sounds while rejecting self-destructive behavior, such as drug abuse, and other hedonistic behavior and nihilistic attitudes that existed in the music scene. Another adaptation of punk is grunge, a Seattle-based alternative sound that peaked in the early 1990s with bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, who credited punk rock's inspiring distorted sound. Pop-punk, made more widely known in the 2000s by bands such as Green Day, Simple Plan, and Good Charlotte, maintains some punk fashion, but the music is more accessible and usually less controversial.