Anarchy in the music industry: How did the DIY ethos of punk arise?
When punk rock hit the scene in 1976, it hoped to dismantle the musical establishment and start anew. A rejection of the profit-driven complacency of pop music, punk was built upon unavoidable anti-capitalist and anti-pop principles. Inevitably, though, this rebellion proved to be short-lived, with the music industry soon warming to punk once they realised its potential for profitability. As a result, the only way to remain truly punk was to operate entirely under a DIY ethos.
Punk was always rooted in independence, going back to the proto-punk roots of garage rock. Mainstream record labels and radio stations weren’t interested in playing rough-and-ready music created by stoned teenagers, especially not when pop factories like Motown and RCA were putting out records by the shed-load. So that’s where the DIY element of punk comes in: if you don’t put out our music, we will do it ourselves. Hence, countless low-budget independent labels sprang up in the mid-1960s, releasing a handful of tracks from obscure artists never to be heard of again.
Given how influential those early garage rock tracks were on punk progenitors like The Stooges, Patti Smith and the MC5, the adoption of their production techniques within the wider punk movement seemed an inevitability. With the first ‘official’ punk releases arriving in the UK in 1976, kicked off by The Damned’s ‘New Rose’, independent record labels seemed to be the logical way to go. After all, there was no way the stuffed shirts at EMI or Warner would ever put out music by bands like ‘Johnny Moped’ or ‘Slaughter and the Dogs’.
Of all the many independent labels to spring up in the wake of punk, two of the most all-encompassing were Stiff and Rough Trade. Both labels would find an audience for their unique ways of operating, rejecting the capital-centric ethos of major record labels. For a punk band, to be on an independent label was not only expected but celebrated. In fact, when The Clash signed to CBS in 1977, many sensationalists heralded the decision as ‘the death of punk’, with anarcho-punks Crass using it as inspiration for their seminal track ‘Punk is Dead’.
While many of punk’s bigger names, like The Clash and Sex Pistols, jumped ship to the major labels, the more principled punks remained dedicated to independence. In early 1977, Mancunian band Buzzcocks changed the musical landscape forever when they self-released their debut EP, Spiral Scratch. This decision took all the power away from record label executives, putting creative control entirely in the hands of artists. The production of Spiral Scratch would go on to inspire countless independent artists and labels, often hailed as the record that birthed ‘indie rock’.
Ultimately, punk’s adoration for independence went much deeper than record labels. To be a punk meant complete rejection of the norm, operating entirely on your own terms. With this as a blueprint, punks would adopt DIY in almost all aspects of life – from living off-grid in dingy squats to hand-making their own clothes. Punk music was so much more than a musical genre. It was a complete cultural revolution.
Even the music press during the punk days was dominated by DIY, as various independent fanzines started up around the country – with perhaps the most notable example being Mark Perry’s ‘Sniffin’ Glue’. These zines would, in turn, promote and celebrate independent artists and record labels, creating a self-fulfilling, cyclical music scene free from the shackles of corporate greed.
Although the first wave of punk was fairly short-lived – it seems there’s only so much you can do with a manifesto of ‘here’s three chords, now start a band’ – its DIY legacy is incredibly wide-reaching. The subgenres that split off from punk, including hardcore, queercore, and riot grrrl, all held the DIY ways of operation very close to their hearts. Riot Grrrl especially embraced fanzines and independent labels as a means of escaping the male domination of mainstream music industries, showcasing a continued need for independence in music.
Outside the abrasive world of punk, movements like indie, grunge, Britpop, even acid house and similar underground dance scenes all took a page out of the punk playbook, operating predominantly through independent record labels. Nowadays, the vast majority of these early independents are now under the ownership of major record labels like Sony or Universal. However, there are still countless grassroots labels around the world, continuing to showcase weird and wonderful tracks by music’s greatest outcasts. Punk certainly isn’t dead, as long as you know where to look.
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