Who started punk?

Question

The Ramones or the Sex Pistols

Answer 1

Sod the whole lot of you tossers...sure there were a few "influences" but to me the Ramones jump started it and if you're a real punk like me, you'd know that that's how the Sex Pistols, the Clash and even my favorite band, the Damned got started in the first place....the Ramones made the fact known that you didn't have to be a Pro & opened the door to other interpretations from those who chose to follow them...even to this day!!

Answer 2

Tough question. A lot of debate about what the origins were on punk. Musically a lot of critics point to the MC5, New York Dolls, and the Velvet Underground all as listed to influences of people like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. It was possibly the "garage movement" of the late 60's early 70's that formed a lot of these bands that really "started" punk. In terms of your question, I think that really the bands mentioned, the ramones and the Sex Pistols kind formed around the same time but a ocean apart from each other so it would be difficult to attribute the start of a genre to either group.

Answer 3

The Velvet Underground and MC5- late 60s in NYC. The Ramones were formed in 69, I think... and the Sex Pistols sometime in the early 70s.

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Ok. After having looked at some of the other answers- holy ******* hell, some of them are long- I feel the need to edit mine slightly.

The Velvet Underground and MC5 aren't punk. However, they were huge influences (my brain is yelling at me to add an "especially the Velvet Underground", and I'm not sure that's true, but I personally think they're more innovative than MC5, so I will). Of the two bands you mentioned, the Ramones were one of the first punk bands, along with the Stooges (also great). British punk- including bands like the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, and the Jam- didn't come until slightly after this. A lot of people feel that punk died in 77 when the Pistols crashed and burned. I personally think that's a load of crap. The genre isn't dead- DEFINITELY wasn't dead in 77 or during the 80s- but is currently in a coma which is fueled by the constant poking and prodding of **** bands like Good Charlotte and Sum 41.

Answer 4

The first wave of punk aimed to be aggressively modern, distancing itself from the bombast and sentimentality of early 1970s rock.[1] According to Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone, "In its initial form, a lot of [1960s] stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll".[2] Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren recalls feeling "punk rock had to come along because the rock scene had become so tame that bands like Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel were being called rock and roll, when to me and other fans, rock and roll meant this wild and rebellious music".[3] In critic Robert Christgau's description, "It was also a subculture that scornfully rejected the political idealism and Californian flower-power silliness of hippie myth".[4] Some participants went even further, making a show of rejecting not only mainstream rock and the broader establishment culture it was associated with, but their own most celebrated predecessors: "No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones in 1977", declared The Clash.[5] That year, when punk broke nationwide in Great Britain, was to be both a musical and a cultural "Year Zero".[6] Even as nostalgia was discarded, many in the scene adopted a nihilistic attitude summed up by the Sex Pistols slogan "No Future".[7]

Punk bands often emulate the bare musical structures and arrangements of 1960s garage rock.[8] This emphasis on accessibility exemplifies punk's DIY aesthetic and contrasts with the ostentatious musicianship of many of the mainstream rock bands popular in the years before the advent of punk. A 1976 issue of the English punk fanzine Sideburns featured an illustration of three chords, captioned "This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band".[9]

Answer 5

Now for an answer from an historian that actually knows:

1. the earliest punk music originated in 1973-1974 in New York City with groups like Television, the Voidoids, Jonathan Richmond, the Heartbreakers, the Ramones, Blondie, and Patty Smith, who all played at CBGBs in the Bowery section of the city. Other groups like Black Flag and X followed shortly thereafter.

2. British groups came later and copied the angst, anger, and simplicity of the three-chord American punk scene.

3. The Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Slits, and others added various influences to punk, but they came after the American acts started it.

Answer 6

Punk became big in the late 70's but you can't say one band started it. Ramones, Misfits, The Dictators, The New York Dolls, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Blondie and The Sex Pistols.

Answer 7

Probably The Ramones, they Sex Pistol just simple made the lyrics and the music it self explicit.

Answer 8

Probably neither of those, but The Sex Pistols certainly raised the public profile / awareness of Punk music... you'll probably find that there were more bands playing that style locally in the UK though.

I remember seeing somewhere Deborah Harry and Blondie had something to do with initiating the punk movement too... listen closely to their music!

Answer 9

Ramones, Pistols were good but were a cooporate creation. The Clash was the best though

Answer 10

i think the first punk rocker was jerry lee lewis. greaser hair, faster music than what anyone else was playing at the time and he just didn't give an eff about anyone or anything.
that evolved the rock music of the mid 60's brits, like the who and the kinks that wrote songs that were the main influences in alot of punk bands. from there you have the mc5 playing louder and faster than anyone else, and that brings us up the early 70's newyork with the ramones and patti smith and the NY dolls.