DVD Review: Punk In England

What happens when you set out to disrupt the established order and and somewhere along the way discover that you've become the establishment? After a couple of years of playing the same music over and over again that's what was happening to punk bands in England by the end of the 1970s. At least that's how Bob Geldof describes the situation in an interview near the beginning of Wolfgang Buld's Punk In England, the follow-up to his 1978 documentary Punk In London, now available from MVD Entertainment.

Geldof, who was lead singer of The Boomtown Rats at the time, claims that with the exception of The Clash, who were good enough to evolve without selling out, and the Sex Pistols, who imploded, punk bands by 1979 were at the end of the road. He says that by refusing to grow they allowed themselves to become the establishment which others wanted to overthrow because they had become boring.

While there is some truth to what Geldof says, there's also the fact that by 1979 major labels were catching on to the fact that there was money to be made from punk and began signing the more marketable bands to deals. After EMI's disaster with the Sex Pistols, labels weren't interested in real punk bands, they wanted bands like The Jam who could be marketed easily and looked nice. You only have to listen to the songs included on this disc by The Jam to hear how much different they are even from the supposedly evolved Clash. For while the Clash may have made their music more complex and slowed the tempo down somewhat, watching the clips of them included in this movie shows they haven't become any more commercial than they were previously. There's not many who would be prepared to call their music nice and safe and ready for mainstream radio play in the United States or other big markets. Sure compared to footage of them playing only the year earlier there's a huge difference, but listen to them compared to the Jam who appear soon after them in the movie and you'll see an even bigger difference.

While Geldof is right in saying that punk bands ran into a wall due to their own lack of creativity and new bands with fresher ideas did come along to replace them, the reality is that on the whole those bands who did come along and replaced them were a lot more commercially viable and less likely to lead a revolution. Sure there were some other bands at the same time like Spiz Zenergi but judging by the samples of their work we see in the movie, not only weren't they commercially viable, their music just wasn't that good. Bands like Ian Dury and the Blockheads, who are shown here singing their song "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" were more like the novelty bands of the '60s who had one or two songs that caught the public's attention before they vanished from the scene. "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll" might have sold quite a few copies and received air play on some FM radio stations, but it wasn't enough to guarantee Dury and his mates eternal popularity.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and The Unofficial Heroes Of Olympus Companion, both published by Ulysses Press. He has had his work published in print and online all over the world including the German edition of Rolling Stone Magazine and www.Qantara.de. …

Visit Richard Marcus's author page — Richard Marcus's Blog