Opinions on Punk

I was recently chatting with someone i know who enjoys prog rock like me and he brought up how punk rock was utter crap and destroyed the prog era. Granted that is true but i always wondered what other prog fans thought about punk past and present. Personally i never liked punk and thought it was utterly boring and crap but i would like to hear opinions from other people about the punk era in music. 

For me, punk was the first genre I discovered for myself, and it led on to the jazz-fusion and prog I listen to today.  Still listen to punk though as I enjoy the energy and sense of fun it conveys.

Punk only 'killed' prog because prog had got so far up its own ass that the public themselves stopped liking it - it was a conscious public decision.  It had become about standing around at gigs and having as little fun as possible.  It's not in the slightest bit surprising it died when it did.  It's why I love the metal influenced prog of today - it combines the compositional structures and technique of prog (in fact easily beats the technique of 70's prog) and combines it with the energy and fun ultimately passed down through punk via metal.

Punk did not kill prog. That is one of the oldest, and worse, urban myths in media representation of music. The very fact that we are discussing new prog bands on this site rather puts paid to that myth.

Punk was just like every other music genre. There was good and bad, although I personally found more of the latter than former. What made me tired of the whole thing, even as a young man then, was the commercialisation of the so called "angry generation" rising up against the nasty establishment and "shocking" polite society. It had been done many times before, will be done countless times in the future, and was, and still is, extremely tiresome, especially when you consider how much money art school idiots such as McLaren et al made out of it.

Slartibartfast wrote: Another punk discussion. I have better things to listen to.

Exactly this.I don't like punk very much.

Tony R wrote: This is the Prog Lounge for discussing Prog Rock. There is a forum for discussing music that is not Prog Rock...Please take time out to familiarise yourself with the forum layout, FAQs and rules etc before starting topics willy-nilly. I know it can be confusing for some. Moved from Prog Music Lounge to General Music Discussions.

I do have some stuff that might be classified as punk related:
PIL Compact Disc
Early XTC
The League Of Gentlemen
But I think the musicianship is really too good for Punk.

I like a lot of the precursors and outgrowths of punk, but I'm not much of a fan of the pure genre.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: I like a lot of the precursors and outgrowths of punk, but I'm not much of a fan of the pure genre.

Ditto. I don't have strong opinions about the music form of punk but I do object to the premise - regardless of whether the bands themselves or the media forwarded it - that ambition is bad and complexity and sophistication is soulless. That's just a load of BS and it's unfortunate that a whole generation then seemed to buy into that readily.  As for the comment on prog metal combining the best of prog and punk, actually I find it fails to capture the compositional intrigue of prog and the raw energy and aggression of punk or at least that metal music which punk spawned in the 80s.  The best band to my mind that combined both rock and roll energy and ambition was Hawkwind. Of course, the media must have been too busy crucifying prog to notice where Lemmy got to from Hawkwind.

what's utter crap is the continuing myth that punk destroyed prog

Punk was a good starting point for young 'uns that would delve into more abstract/synthesized realms in the late 70s and early 80s. Unfortunately, some people never outgrew the shtick. There's nothing quite as goofy as an old punk playing the same three chords and wearing the same old uniform.