Punk Rock

In comparison to David Bowie, who was political more so as a person than through his music, punk rock emerged as a political genre of music. This was the case due to the struggle between fascists and anti-fascists in the 1970’s in Britain. With the 1970’s largely being a decade of instability in Britain, it seems as if punk rock was the perfect genre to convey these frustrations and uncertainty. The Sex Pistols, with songs like “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen,” were one of these punk rock bands that chose to demonstrate their political stances through their music. Though Bowie was still performing at the same time and even said in his interview that he believed in “himself, sex, and politics,” I wonder why punk rock artists like the Sex Pistols chose to make their music political while other rock artists like Bowie chose to not. Perhaps, this was simply the nature of punk rock music; as a genre of the working class, artists may have began making music in order to spread their political frustrations whereas artists like Bowie were simply artists. It just seems surprising to me that there were artists like Bowie making general music while there was such political unrest at the time, but that may be why punk rock was so short-lived whereas other rock music stood the test of time.