A Quote by Paul Young

People forget that scenes and fashion trends changed very rapidly during the '80s. We went from glam rock to punk, to new romantic, to flashy sportswear... and this all happened just as I was coming up through the ranks.
Punk was sort of an angry stance against things that had happened just before, against the pop of glam rock, against progressive rock. Music had become very staid and it was about the playing and people obsessed. Eric Clapton was God and we needed an enema within the art form, and punk did do that.
Style has always been very important to us. We grew up in the '70s. Music was glam rock, punk rock and a very stylish movement.
Punk changed everything. It blew away all the dull, pompous stuff that happened before, like glam rock. Kids were getting involved in causes like Rock Against Racism and they needed music that reflected that. Something similar was happening in comedy too, with the Comedy Store and the alternative scene that I got involved in.
The music industry went through such a strange stretch in 1977, especially in this country, with the whole punk rock thing coming about. Punk was rebellious-and justified in that response-but it had very little to do with music, and so it created a highly-charged but frighteningly floundering atmosphere that I found very, very disheartening. Musical quality for me has always been an important part of rock'n'roll-and winning recognition for that has long been an uphill battle all the way. Punk seemed like rock'n'roll utterly without the music.
The 1970s was probably the most exciting decade to be a teenager, from discovering Little Richard at the end of the 1960s to glam rock to punk rock to electro music. So much happened in that 10-year span. There were so many musical revolutions. Some were happening at the same time. You had disco going on behind punk. You had Michael Jackson. You had the Sex Pistols.
People ask me: ‘What is punk? How do you define punk?' Here's how I define punk: It's a free space. It could be called jazz. It could be called hip-hop. It could be called blues, or rock, or beat. It could be called techno. It's just a new idea. For me, it was punk rock. That was my entrance to this idea of the new ideas being able to be presented in an environment that wasn't being dictated by a profit motive.
Punk hadn't even begun when The Runaways started, at least not in the US. We had our own sound, straight up glam rock.
DEVO was like the punk band that non Punk America saw as Punk and so when people who were really into Punk rock would be walking around on the streets the jocks who learned about Punk through Devo would roll down their windows and yell at the Punks: 'HEY, DEVO!!'
I was a child of the '60s basically, which is a real blank. I really started growing up, I think, in the '70s. I'm a glam-rock kid. But Dublin, Ireland in those days was a very dark place, as in it was a very poor, almost third world. Economically, the whole world is going through a recession at the moment. In the '60s, '70s, and the '80s in Ireland was a real recession. It wasn't a pleasant place.
I'm not an '80s fan. I'm more '70s New York pre-punk kind of thing and I guess I grew up with '90s grunge, post-punk pop music.
I'm not an '80s fan. I'm more '70s New York pre-punk kind of thing, and I guess I grew up with '90s grunge, post-punk pop music.
Is punk rock really music, or is it really just an attitude? I get into that discussion with people all of the time. I personally consider be-bop jazz to be punk rock. And prog rock would definitely fall in that category too.
Punk rock was the first thing I found in my life that made me feel acceptable. The thing that got me into punk rock was the idea, "You're fine just the way you are." It sounds kind of dorky, but you don't have to make excuses for who you are or what you do. When you find something like punk rock, not only is it okay to feel that way - you should embrace your weirdness. The world is totally messed up, and punk rock was a way to see that and work with it without candy-coating it. It was saying, "Yeah, the world is this way, but you can still do something about it. Take energy from that."
I can play punk rock, and I love playing punk rock, but I was into every other style of music before I played punk rock.
Punk is just like any other sub culture or music. Straight rock music has those elements. I grew up in a place where the punk rock kids fed the homeless in the town square.
People have not changed. The media and its love for the fashion world behind the scenes has changed, giving people more access to changing tastes and opinions everywhere. There has been a shift in the last few years, with the new exposure of personal styles on blogs and Instagram and websites, so people are more interested now in showing their own fashion sense and expressing their own style without copying an entire look from an ad campaign. Because of that, stores need to move toward more personal edits and styling.
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