Punk rock is a music genre that came to prominence in the 1970s, particularly in New York, London, and Los Angeles. The music was inspired by scrappy, countercultural 1960s rock bands, such as the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, and was popularized by acts like Patti Smith, the Ramones, and the Clash.
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The classic 1981 track brought hip-hop culture to new wave. Influential DJ Grandmaster Flash was supposed to appear in the video, but he didn’t make it to the set, so Basquiat filled in, standing at a turntable as Debbie Harry rapped. Check him out at the 1:52 mark.
The Beach Boys' sunny sound profoundly influenced early punk acts like the Ramones, who took Brian Wilson's sugary hooks and ramped up the tempo.
After "Born to Run," Springsteen's songwriting turned darker on subsequent albums "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "The River," as he began exploring the harsher realities of adulthood and working-class life, but "Nebraska" was his most gothic, featuring haunted songs partially inspired by the abrasive proto-punk duo Suicide.
When Bob Dylan was asked to appear on David Letterman’s relatively new late-night show, he decided to call an audible. He’d been intrigued by LA’s exploding post-punk scene and had spent time jamming with one of its bands, the Plugz, whom he decided to bring to Letterman as his backing band. The appearance sounds unlike anything else in his catalog and is one of his more fascinating creative reinventions in a career loaded with them.
Postmodernism is an artistic movement (in architecture, fashion, music, literature, and more) that embraced fragmentation, eclecticism, pastiche, and pluralism. The movement's practitioners reacted against modernism, which valued Enlightenment ideals, high culture, and clean aesthetics.
Dwight Yoakam was among the most popular country music acts of the 1980s, praised for his upbeat rockabilly and neo-Bakersfield sound. In this interview, Yoakam explains why he left the Midwest for California and began playing in punk clubs, including with an iteration of the legendary LA punk outfit X.
Here's something for your pop-culture bingo card: According to Mark Hoppus, the singer and bassist for long-running pop-punk band Blink-182, he helped the United States military find and capture Saddam Hussein. In his biography, Hoppus claims he met with a Navy admiral and offhandedly suggested a method for finding Hussein. A few months later, the Iraqi leader was captured.
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Art, music, sports, entertainment, movies, and many other subjects—these elements define who we are as a society and how we express ourselves as a culture. Take a deep dive into the topics shaping our shared norms, values, institutions, and more.