Don’t Dictate: How DIY Punk Changed Music
Defiantly anti-establishment, punk’s DIY stance shocked the music industry in the 70s, but its influence can still be felt today – as uDiscover reveals.

After the UK’s premier punks, Sex Pistols, lambasted presenter Bill Grundy during their expletive-stuffed slot on Thames TV’s Today show in December 1976, the music industry received a short – but very sharp – shock.
Suddenly, punk appeared too hot to handle. Yet while this defiant new genre’s very existence apparently posed a threat to the music industry’s established status quo, it ultimately dissipated with a whimper, rather than a bang. Having eventually signed to Virgin Records, Sex Pistols split in disarray in January ’78; their nearest rivals, The Clash, set their sights on America; by the turn of the 80s, “punk” had been neutered and hijacked by hordes of identikit, Mohican-sporting Exploited clones.
DIY, however, figured prominently in punk’s manifesto right from the start. Indeed, the UK’s first official “punk” 45, The Damned’s manic ‘New Rose’, appeared on the small (if upwardly mobile) independent imprint, Stiff Records, on 22 October 1976, beating Sex Pistols’ EMI-sponsored ‘Anarchy In The UK’ to the punch by five weeks.
Not so the tiny New Hormones label, which was established specifically to release Mancunian punks Buzzcocks’ debut EP, Spiral Scratch, on 29 January 1977. Recorded and mixed in just five hours with future Joy Division producer Martin “Zero” Hannett at the controls, Spiral Scratch was entirely self-funded by the band (who borrowed around £500 to cover costs) and its release was a watershed in the history of independently released music: not least because it eventually sold out its original 1,000 pressing and then shifted a further 15,000 copies.
Suitably inspired, Rough Trade quickly established their own label, issuing their first 45, ‘Paris Maquis’, by French punks Metal Urbain, late in ’77. Taking a similar approach, a crop of newly established independent imprints then began to mushroom on both sides of the Atlantic.
A similar pattern emerged in the UK, where Fulham-based record shop Beggars Banquet followed Rough Trade’s lead when they self-released West London punks The Lurkers’ first 45, ‘Shadow’, in July ’77. Over the next 18 months, the floodgates opened, with trailblazing provincial independent imprints such as Factory (Manchester), Zoo (Liverpool) and Edinburgh’s short-lived Fast Product joining the fray and releasing seminal early discs by now iconic punk and post-punk outfits including Joy Division, Teardrop Explodes and The Human League.
Such was the avalanche of independently released and distributed vinyl releases on the cusp of the 80s that the UK’s first weekly independent chart was published on 19 January 1980. That inaugural chart found Spizzenergi’s quirky, Rough Trade-sponsored ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’ at No.1 in the singles listing and Adam & The Ants’ Dirk Wears White Sox topping the LP rundown.
Other emerging genres of music also tapped into punk’s hardline DIY aesthetic. A whole new breed of British metal/hard rock bands had begun playing at grass-roots level parallel to punk, but their music was largely ignored by the press, save for Sounds’ hard rock correspondent Geoff Barton, whose review of a May 1979 London gig featuring Iron Maiden, Samson and Angel Witch appeared under the headline “New Wave Of British Heavy Metal”: a handy, catch-all term which eventually defined the entire movement.
Punk’s DIY aesthetic has since been detectable in much of the future-embracing music that’s been made over the past 35 years. This very self-sufficiency, for instance, was arguably the central tenet of fiercely independent imprints established during the 80s and 90s, among them anarcho-punk stronghold Crass and Washington, DC-based hardcore punk label Dischord, both of whom successfully produced all their own albums and sold them at discount prices without financial input from major distributors.
This same DIY passion was also a cornerstone of the best of the UK’s pre and post-C86 indie imprints such as Creation and Fire. Indeed, maverick Creation supremo Alan McGee’s punk-era education influenced virtually everything he did, from setting up his first London club night, The Living Room, through to the way his label marketed seismic, controversy-courting acts such as The Jesus & Mary Chain, Primal Scream and Oasis.
In the post-Y2K world, too, the DIY aesthetic is arguably more relevant than ever before. In 2007, Radiohead’s acclaimed In Rainbows made headline news around the world when the band released the album on a “pay what you want” basis via their website. With other global stars such as Nine Inch Nails (whose Ghosts I-IV was initially directly downloadable for just $5) since releasing records and circumventing the industry norm, it seems the pervasive DIY spirit of ’76 won’t go back into the bottle anytime soon.

