Parents stood at the venues, protesting the awfulness of the music, the awfulness of the nihilism and attitude, insisting it called for the eventual downfall of society. Most of the dates were canceled (Temple 2005).
McLaren organized an American tour with bands from New York included (Traub 2001). It went well and the Sex Pistols were greeted by fans but their image and reputation stayed mostly negative due to their deviant behavior (Temple 2005, McNeil & McCain p. 332). Because of McLaren's publicity and pressure on the band to perform, as well as the growing social stigma against them and punk itself, they played their last show in San Francisco in 1978.
This is considered the fall of the first wave of punk. Since the music and the culture were universally decided to be immoral and obscene by mainstream society, there was no outlet for it. The lifestyle, which was known for heavy drug use, superfluous nihilism and a lack of personal politics and respect for authority, managed to alienate almost everyone it came in contact with; the mainstream culture clearly did not share the vision. This lifestyle also had a reputation for churning out dead rock stars; Sid Vicious, the bassist for the Sex Pistols, died of a heroin overdose shortly after their breakup. Billy Mercura of the New York Dolls died before McLaren went back to England (McNeil & McCain p. 129), and Johnny Thunders of Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, as well as the New York Dolls, died around the same time as Vicious (p. 399).
People, and young people especially, have a social need to form in-groups and out groups. They feel safe within the in-group. Youth culture is a product of interaction. At a time of political nightmare in England and rage at popular culture in America, youth formed a microcosm of an in-group and clung to it with tenacity.
This would be the first and last time the punk underground broke down because of societal pressures and drug burnouts. Subcultures go through processes of retreatism and separatism; older members break away because they disagree with new tactics and start new groups of retreatists. Many participants decide they think it should be done another way and form groups of separatists (Skelton & Valentine 1998, p.126), who change what they dislike about the subculture. This is the way punk has grown, but its original idea was quickly picked up by larger record labels - they recognized that punk was popular with young people and disregarded that much of mainstream culture was already disgusted by it.
In the offshoot subcultures to come, the initial breakdown happened due to loss of credibility and inability to find closure for members of the culture, causing retreatism and separatism. Tracy Skelton and Gill Valentine (1998) explain this process:
In long accepted formulation, “cultures” and certainly “local cultures” were understood as locally produced systems of social interaction and symbolic meanings. Cultures which felt themselves to be under threat would conduct a kind of archaeology in search of origins, a search for what was “authentic” and essential to that cultural formation. (p. 123)
New Wave, which sounded like punk lite, was the first punk offshoot, and it came already embraced by major record labels. Bands like Blondie and the Talking Heads, who were popular in the CBGB's scene, banked on their previous notoriety and changed their music enough for it to gain popular appeal (Traub 2001). Performers like Elvis Costello and bands like Devo and Flock of Seagulls were groomed to make this new music, which sounds like punk lite, and younger teenagers latched onto it immediately, thanks to the music industry's publicizing.
Although the music sounded like punk music -- it was shorter, vocals were similar, chord progression was simple -- the culture of New Wave was completely different. It was made in the image of punk but included no elements of local unifying area, or any early adopting fans. The emphasis here was on feelings, breakups, parties, having fun, and dancing; it's geared very specifically for teenagers. The style was neater and put-together and resembled a more tailored and brightly colored teddy boy uniform. Fetish clothing was abandoned (Skelton & Valentine p. 207).
Because New Wave was essentially funded by major labels who wanted to bank on the deviant attitude of punk but needed to make it softer for popular consumption, the music sounded more and more like music that was found on the pop charts (and New Wave bands, of course, scored many hits on these charts)(Savage p.487). It eventually became amalgamated so completely into popular music that the teenagers who had been previously into New Wave gave it up by either amalgamating themselves into popular culture or retreating into more independent music that reflected the original ideas of punk but retained a New Wave taste. New Wave influenced popular music and continues to do so; it is a precursor to more punk-related, label-affiliated musical movements in the future.
