Punk rock (or simply punk) is a subgenre of rock music that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the overproduction and corporate nature of mainstream rock music. Typically producing short, fast-paced songs with rough stripped-down vocals and instrumentation and an anti-establishment theme, artists embrace a DIY ethic with many bands self-producing and distributing recordings through independent labels.
During the early 1970s, the term "punk rock" was originally used by some American rock critics to describe mid-1960s garage bands. Subsequent developments such as glam and pub rock in the UK, alongside the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls from New York have been cited as key influences. By the mid-1970s, the term "punk rock" had become associated with several regional underground music scenes, including the MC5 and the Stooges in Detroit; Television, Patti Smith, Suicide, the Dictators, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Ramones in New York City; Rocket from the Tombs, Electric Eels and Dead Boys in Ohio; the Saints and Radio Birdman in Australia; and the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned and the Buzzcocks in England. By late 1976, punk had become a major cultural phenomenon in the UK, giving rise to a punk subculture that expressed youthful rebellion through distinctive styles of clothing, such as T-shirts with deliberately offensive graphics, leather jackets, studded or spiked bands, jewelry, bondage clothing and safety pins.
