Punk Pioneers

Widely credited with providing the foundation for the Punk insurrection of the late 1970s, pioneering artists shared a desire to forge a new path of artistic acceptance outside the standard parameters of pop and rock, although their sounds and musical vocabularies varied widely. Celebrated late '60s bands like the Velvet Underground, the Stooges and the MC5 gave way to Punk Pioneers like the Modern Lovers and Patti Smith. All are widely cited as forebears of Punk's raw sound and its philosophy of rugged individualism.