Punks were one of the largest youth subcultures of the twentieth century. Punk rock emerged from the underground music of England and the United States. Clubs of the New York City promoted such bands like the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls which played the particular genre of anarchist music. Late twentieth century was the time when numerous youth subcultures appeared all around the world, and the arrival of punks was inevitable. Artistic revolutionists, they promoted the spirit of sexuality, violence, and destroy. Punk rock was a form of artistic and social rebellion which greatly resembled avant-garde movement in art.
From the very beginning, punk is described as an anti-bourgeoisie and anti-capitalist movement. Artists united under this subculture were strongly tied to the American and English working class. They undermined political idealism and traditional corporate “feel-good” culture with their revolutionary songs. Bands lost interest to love songs and chose social life to sing about. In this dimension, they somehow resembled rappers from inner cities. At the concerts, punks showed an extreme deviation from the established norms: they went down into the crowd and interacted with the public. Concerts were arranged in small crowded spaces which could be found in the notorious neighborhoods. Performers, in their turn, lacked training and sophisticated instruments.
The subculture of punks can be easily recognized by bizarre spiky hairstyles, very informal clothing, and hard-edged rock melodies. Garage bands such as the Sex Pistols and the Ramones were on the top of the punk rock music in the late twentieth century. Punk rock gave a rise to the alternative rock and other post-punk tendencies which remain popular today.