Isabella_deL said:
I'm not sure I'd class Iggy pop or velvet underground as punk
The Stooges (Iggy's first band) were proto-punk and along with the MC5, pretty much the first of their kind. I'd definitely class them as a punk band, yo. The only reason they weren't labelled as such when they were first starting out was because punk wasn't a thing yet. From the Stooges and MC5, you got the Ramones and the New York Dolls and from there you got the Sex Pistols and Malcom McLaren using punk as an identifier and a marketing slogan. But really, the Sex Pistols weren't doing a whole lot that those bands before them hadn't already done, they just had a much more singular identity that people could easily recognise and adopt.
Also, punk is kind of like indie, in that it's an all encompassing term. An indie band like Oasis sound nothing like an indie band such as Broken Social Scene for example. Punk as a genre has many, many sub-genres (proto-punk, old school punk and ska, punk rock, post-punk, pop punk, hardcore, post-hardcore, etc.) but really, it's more of an ethos. Any band or artist that does things outside of the box, that rejects musical paradigms, that builds an underground following outside of the mainstream, could lay claim to being "punk". The Velvet Underground, especially on their early albums, did all of those things.
Sorry, I be a music nerd :-D