The “beautiful” 1985 punk song Dave Grohl called perfect
People call punk a lot of things, but “beautiful” isn’t one of them.
For a lot of rock stars who made a name for themselves in the 1960s and ‘70s, punk was the antithesis of the genre. After all, it was essentially made to try and retaliate against some of the major rock bands at the time who were making music that was becoming bigger and more grandiose than ever. Psychedelic and prog rock were topping the charts, which a lot of listeners loved, but future punks thought they were over the top and inaccessible.
As such, you had this new movement rise to the surface, which saw bands strip their sound back and opt for a more back-to-basics approach. No longer were people worried about effects and atmosphere, but rather, they just needed three chords and as much distortion as an amp could handle. For many, it was a breath of fresh air, but for others, it was dull and ineffective.
“[Punks] were locked into selling anarchy, like a political thing. To be honest with you, the first time I heard the word ‘anarchy’, I had to get a dictionary to look up the fucker! I’m limited, meaning a limited education, so that wasn’t communicating anything to me,” said Angus Young when discussing the genre, “We would get punks showing up, and spitting, and when anyone got hit by gob, we’d be in the audience punching the shit out of them.”
Young’s opinion is representative of a lot of artists from the ‘70s who weren’t big fans of what punk music was doing. However, you’ll find that when you look at the rockstars who rose to prominence in the decades following, their connection with punk was a lot more true. This doesn’t mean that rock artists from the ‘80s and ‘90s aren’t also fans of AC/DC, but they grew up in a time when all of this music was happening at once, and so their taste incorporated both the stripped-back approach and the complex one.
Grunge is a great example of that. What you have with it is a genre that never strays too far from the basics, as the chord structures are simple, and the way that songs are put together makes complete sense. However, the solos, vocal runs and a lot of the narrative contained within these tracks spread their wings in order to incorporate something a lot more grandiose into a track; it’s a great blend of the two.
It’s no surprise then that a lot of famous grunge musicians have confessed to being huge fans of the movement. Eddie Vedder, for instance, is such a big lover of punk that he even gave a speech for the Ramones when he was inducting them into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, during which he praised their aggression, imagination and longevity, saying, “They existed for 22 years with the same level of intensity for the whole time. They may not have gotten along the whole time, but that was touring together for 22 years in a van for fuck sake. So, you have to understand.”
Meanwhile, Dave Grohl, a man we would today consider a rock musician but who originally got his start in grunge, has praised plenty of different bands from the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s who made punk music. He doesn’t just see the energy in the sound, but is able to strip back the few layers that make songs up and find beauty within them. One of his favourites, he admitted, was the 1985 track ‘For Want Of’ by Rites of Spring, which certainly had that punk sound at its heart, but by utilising melody and poetry, it opened the door for Grohl into something much more profound.
“They came with this perfect mix of melody and poetic lyrics,” said Grohl, “This is a heartbreaking love letter with beautiful, reckless music behind it”.
While a lot of musicians prior to punk might have hated the genre, there is no escaping how much it shaped the rock stars of tomorrow.
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