Fifty years ago, Gina Birch found herself at the Sex Pistols’ first-ever gig at St Martin’s School of Art. An aspiring young artist from Nottingham, she had been in London scouting art schools. But that November 1975 show — featuring a set that lasted only 15 minutes — changed the course of her life.
‘At that time, punk felt like it belonged to the young people,’ Gina explains to M now. ‘It was ours and our way to belong.’
Packing up her things, Gina moved into a west London squat and began hanging out at shows by the likes of The Clash, The Slits and Buzzcocks. Suitably inspired by the spirit of punk, she formed the experimental post-punk band The Raincoats with fellow artist Ana da Silva in 1977. The group would go on to influence the likes of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon.
Punk gave Gina a kind of freedom she hadn’t felt before. ‘To me, punk meant that if you had the desire and the guts to do something — however inexperienced you were — as well as a creative brain and a little courage, now was the time to give it a go,’ she adds.
'Punk was our way to belong.' - Gina Birch
Punk has endured in the five decades since it first emerged from the bars and squats of New York and London, though attitudes have changed with the times. In 1975, you could easily terrify your nana by showing her a gang of punks swearing on live TV. Fifty years on, though, that same contrarian shock value has faded. The original definition of punk has, in many ways, merged with the establishment, and is more readily associated now with nostalgia-driven anniversary tours and retrospective events at the London Museum and British Library.
Yet punk lives on, with a new generation of music creators and creatives maintaining its anarchic spirit and political might. Who Let The Dogs Out, the debut album by Brighton’s Lambrini Girls, broke into the UK top 20 in January 2025, while Australian pub rock rousers Amyl and the Sniffers played their biggest-ever headline gig at London’s Alexandra Palace in October and earned their first Grammy nomination at this year’s ceremony.
But this kind of wider recognition inevitably raises questions about what punk is meant to resist. Although bands like Margate-based Pink Suits enjoy seeing their punk contemporaries experience this kind of success, they are wary of what happens when the genre edges towards more general audiences. ‘A lot of what I think of as punk is very anti-mainstream,’ says drummer Ray Prendergast. ‘It’s cool to see bands break through, but then you’re like, “Oh, this isn’t an underground thing any more.”’
Present-day punk certainly isn’t defined by a singular sound. From pop-punk — which stretches as far as recent Glastonbury headliner Olivia Rodrigo — to its high-energy collisions with hip hop, rap and grime (such as Bob Vylan), the genre is more elastic than ever. For creators like Hyphen, who blends UK rap with raw punk energy, that hybridity simply reflects how artists and audiences are engaging with music today.
‘Nostalgia is a very current thing,’ Hyphen tells M, emphasising how many artists are currently referencing music from the nineties or noughties in their work. ‘Punk is more fluid than it used to be, but then so is everything.’
‘A lot of what I think of as punk is very anti-mainstream.' - Ray Prendergast, Pink Suits
This fluidity is so pronounced that some contemporary artists in the UK scene didn’t even intend to start a punk band when they formed. Pink Suits’ Ray explains how, when their band started, they were solely motivated to make music about politics and social issues. It was only when other people in the scene identified them as punk that the duo began to see themselves that way.
‘Initially we used to backcomb our hair and think we were glam rock,’ they add. ‘Then we were like, “Let’s stop wearing leotards, it’s kind of weird.”’
There are still some punk bands who draw direct influence from that first wave of punk. Essex duo The Meffs, for instance, have been openly inspired by the likes of Buzzcocks, Sham 69 and UK Subs when formulating their own ‘Britpunk’ aesthetic. But, for Meffs vocalist and guitarist Lily Hopkins, some aspects of that original era remain difficult to relate to.
‘When I look back at that time, there weren’t particularly many people [involved about] who I could say, “Oh, they’re like me,”’ Lily tells M. ‘They were just men playing 4/4 punk, singing about topics that I don’t know about.’
Punk foremothers The Raincoats, The Slits and X-Ray Spex’s Poly Styrene — one of the few Black women to operate in that original punk era — were notable exceptions to that norm. Today’s punk scene, however, features far more bands fronted by women, people of colour and queer artists. That shift reflects generations of artists who have pushed the genre to evolve, alongside a DIY community that has increasingly sought to create space beyond the straight, white male archetype long associated with punk.
For bands like the Bristol-based Menstrual Cramps, who take their cues from the nineties riot grrrl and anarcho-punk subgenres, the close-knit nature of the DIY punk community allows bands — particularly those from marginalised communities who would struggle to make it in the homogenous music industry — to share information, find new opportunities and work together.
‘The music industry likes to keep a lid on it and keep quiet,’ singer Emilia Elfrida opines. ‘I think that sort of community space, where you’re all sticking together and looking after each other, is really important.’
‘Punk is about standing up against the norm.' - Emilia Elfrida, Menstrual Cramps
London-based Brazilian punk duo Yur Mum, meanwhile, say community is the most important part of the punk scene. ‘It’s something that’s beyond the music,’ drummer Fabio Couto explains. ‘It gives you a reason to stay.’
Political activism remains one of punk’s defining principles, with the music itself giving creators a platform to challenge the establishment.
‘Punk is about standing up against the norm,’ Emilia declares. ‘It’s about being very vocal about what’s going on in the world; being a community, a voice and a space for the otherness of ourselves, our friends, the world and the possibilities of what that could be like.’
Today’s fraught political climate — not unlike the bleak landscape from which the original punk scene emerged — may also explain why younger artists continue to gravitate towards the genre. As Hyphen deftly summarises: ‘When you feel like you can’t do anything else, what do you do? You shout, you jump, you dance and you march.’
'Each new generation finds a way to deal with the issues that confront them in dynamic and brave ways.' - Gina Birch
Over five decades, punk has evolved as an ethos while continuing to reject conforming to a set, commodified sound. It is exactly what the genre was meant to be, Gina notes: ‘[Punk] is constantly changing because it is about the voices that are vital, honest and direct. Each of us has our own way of expressing that.’
The future of punk is in the hands of those who have already adapted the genre to meet modern-day needs. For artists like Gina — who was present at the original eruption of punk — there is no concern that it will become obsolete any time soon.
‘I think each new generation finds a way to deal with the issues that confront them in dynamic and brave ways,’ she says. ‘That’s the punk spirit.’
This article is taken from the latest issue of M Magazine, which you can read in full here.
