With their conspicuously violent, horror-core sensibilities, the Misfits confounded audiences in the late 1970s—mainly childlike onlookers come to witness the primordial fatalism of East Coast punk rock up close. The Misfits greatest songs encapsulated a minimalistic post-Ramones translation of rock ‘n’ roll invoking peculiar 1950s doo-wop harmonies delivered straight from the warm coffin of Elvis Presley…
In 1977, the Germs set out to destroy the detached, artificial tone of pop. The popular music of their time corresponds with sadly predictable accuracy to what lives on the radio today—like what is propelled like a cannonball from passing SUV windows or crawls from cell phones with the nasal tremors of a vengeful mosquito. Punk rock music, by contrast, was especially vibrant because it was performed by human beings in modest recording studios…and it spoke to the origins of American folk music.
