Old School Punk

Punk's Old School is populated by its original shock troops and those steeped in their sound: the Ramones in the U.S., plus a veritable army in the U.K. including the Buzzcocks, the Clash and, of course, the infamous Sex Pistols. The Old School Punk of the 1970s was fairly straightforward in its delivery. If it broke any new musical ground, it was in showing that a song could be grand without being grandiose, a notion that had been lost in the heyday of heavily produced rock acts like Styx, ELO, and Journey. Old School Punk's guitars, vocals and rhythms were ragged, but the music's fervent intensity jump-started a revolution. The Old School influence is clearly evident in the sound of the late '90s Punk-Pop acts like Rancid and Green Day.