04-06-2008, 22:03
To be sure, punk itself is a very simple form of music... Three chords, simple basslines, and elementary drumming played at fast speeds, usually for no longer than three minutes... I think a lot of the coat tail punk bands were fairly talentless, but punk has changed in a lot of ways since the days of the Sex Pistols and The Ramones. The early 80's had the post punk movement, music that had the sort of punk attitude but utilized in a more atmospheric way... If you look at The Birthday Party, a premier post punk band... They've influenced musicians in all areas of music, be it as technical as progressive rock or as simple as the noise rock (punk) of the early 90's/late 80's. You can't forget Black Flag's influence on punk and music in general... And if you listen to their later stuff, the actual music became complicated with its more blues/jazz influenced musical style.
I don't think you can really place punk in the same league as a lot of other types of music, merely because it is supposed to be a way of removing the pomposity out of music, just as post-modern visual art was supposed to (even though they're selling avant-garde paintings at galleries for thousands of dollars now; don't get me wrong, I love avant-garde art, but that removes the purpose of it). Perhaps in a musical sense, punk takes little to no musical talent; I do think it takes talent to make captivating music within the parimeters of punk rock, though.
I don't think you can really place punk in the same league as a lot of other types of music, merely because it is supposed to be a way of removing the pomposity out of music, just as post-modern visual art was supposed to (even though they're selling avant-garde paintings at galleries for thousands of dollars now; don't get me wrong, I love avant-garde art, but that removes the purpose of it). Perhaps in a musical sense, punk takes little to no musical talent; I do think it takes talent to make captivating music within the parimeters of punk rock, though.