Punk
Over the course of its three-decade history, punk has consistently taken rock and roll's inherent rebelliousness and politicism and made those qualities violent and explicit. Its most obvious roots lie in the aggressive, sometimes abrasive rhythms of '60s garage rock, the theatricality of glam rock, the ironic nihilism of New York's The Velvet Underground and The New York Dolls, and the raw, visceral power of Detroit proto-punk icons The Stooges and MC5.
Punk rock as a genre unto itself exploded in late '70s England when angry working class kids, frustrated with the rigid norms and class polarization that ruled their country, formed fast, loud, primitive rock bands with names like The Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Clash, and The Sex Pistols, through which they expressed their rage and alienation. Similarly minded bands emerged all over the U.S. -- The Ramones in New York, The Dead Kennedys in San Francisco, and X and Black Flag in Los Angeles. These bands had different aesthetics, different agendas, and different sounds, but they were all united by their rejection of institutional authority, their penchant for self-destruction, and their music's raw, wounded emotional power.
As you might expect of such a huge social phenomenon, punk has been endlessly co-opted by mainstream culture. But as long as smart kids with challenging things to say can get their hands on noise-making devices, punk rock will endure.
