Well, not really. It depends on whether you want to sell records or kill your audience. If you wanted to do both, then I suppose it is a paradox.

A follow up would have been difficult though...and a tour would have diminishing returns...

Now THAT's punk, man!

Yes, it`s what I meant. Punk was a reaction, the reaction can not be reinvented. Punk had musical rules so strict it could not evolve. Which other genre has imposed such rules on it`s self? A further question is, who imposed the rules of punk? I would say, surely not the artists, but the magazines, scenesters and impersionators two weeks later from the first hit. Again, this is my outside view on the punk genre.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Punk was doomed from the begining. The entire concept itself could only be done once. One of the best aspects of punk music is its story about how the movement began, how this overwhelming feeling came over many people and how they expressed that. Punk was a 'fuck you' to everyone...but you can only really say it once. After that it just becomes reduntant as the music now proves. You can take alot of things from punk and evolve those into their own which i think the post-punk and other movements did, but you can't try and keep that original spirit alive. I've been listening to alot of noise bands lately and i can't even imagine these bands existing without the punk movement. I think what sets punk music aside from other music genres is it was tied to the culture. You couldn't have one without the other. And to answer the original qustion i think any amount of good art no matter how much shit art it brings with it is better than no good art at all. So today punk music is just digging itself a bigger grave. Punk is dead. Time to move on...

wow, this has turned into another lame discussion about how 'punk' 'died'. its already been discussed before. i even believe i started a thread like that way back.

anyway, punk evolved. just as any style of music has/will.
rules? who wrote rules? punk-ass kids roaming the streets in ripped jeans and leather? fuck them. i still hear 'punk' when i listen to dillinger escape plan, or the promise ring or the yeah yeah yeah's or whatever. i wouldnt want a band today sounding just like the germs... or wait, maybe i would.

writing this, i realize just how much i despise the phrase "being punk".
so i will end this now

BTW...does 2 times 'minus' make it 'plus'?

whoa there. while Rancid aren't an anomaly of the said genre, they draw from The Clash & The Specials way more than the Pistols.

Joe,

Hell man, I even consider the fact that mediocre bands can carry on through a Fugazi style work-ethic a plus. It doesn't hurt me or anything else that punk can carry on even if it really shouldn't. The Clash still sound the same in my headphones! I'm happy for people who can eek out a living playing crappy punk rock.

And was punk a plus or a minus???

A huge huge plus!!! Like someone else said before about punk rock helping him through high school. Punk rock was like my spiritual and political guiding light. It's not that it taught me what to think but it helped to explain to me what I instinctively already knew.

The only way I can really take your argument or what you're saying is do the crappy new bands out-weigh the original masters. No way!

Sorry I joined this conversation late...punk was a plus...the stuff since Green Day and all of those other ones is and will always be a minus...


The End.

Major Tom hasn't posted since his last post in this thread. He's still circling Mars, as I understand it.