Anyway isn't this a Pink Floyd thread? I think your taking yourself a tad too seriously and over analyzing? Its Music you either like or you don't.

In the real world it is an exercise in making money by exploiting the young's need to latch onto a trend. You can dress it up as something more significant if you like but in reality "Punk" allowed people with very limited talent to produce music, in some case independently of big record companies. A lot of so called "Punk was not Punk at all. Just artists jumping on the bandwagon of the trend to sell records, often directed by their record companies.
The late 70's was the era of trends but like most youth culture it has all been wildly exaggerated. There were never many Punks or Teds, rockers or mods for that matter. It was mostly just media hype.

I have moved onto Tubular Bells.

People must have been smoking s*** loads of Moroccan sticky in the '70s to make this s*** sound good.

Certainly true, for some. its very hard to take bands like the Sham 69 seriously as Punk along with bands like the Stranglers, Jam and Clash as well (who I quite adore) - who all seemed to kind of get thrown into that melting pot (and some may have more cynically thrown their lot in with some Punk stereotypes to shift some s**t records - Toyah Willcox etc).

I quite like the DIY philosophy of Punk, and the way that seeing the Pistols, resulted people forming much better bands. Much as I like them, the Pistols were s**t, and the best thing they ever did was steal Sid from Souxie and the Banshees.

But a result of the great 'Rock and Roll Swindle' that is the Pistols are bands like the Banshees', Buzzcocks the Damned, The Cure, Joy Division etc.

Well the Stranglers were my favorites in the new wave catagory back in the day but they were hardly "Punk". They were a pub band who jumped on the bandwagon like so many others.

The Banshees, Pistols and the like wore the Punk fashion but often were streets apart musically.
Personally I thought the Damned, The Buzzcocks etc were garbage. The Stranglers had attitude and some memorable songs, Elvis Costello and The Boomtown Rats actually had some ability to write, even if Geldof did a second rate Jagger impersonation. The whole scene did liven things up at the end of the seventies and offered an alternative to Disco but most of it was cobblers. There were actually some great albums released between 1976 and 1980 and very few were New Wave.
Having said that, Never Mind the Bollocks is actually very good.

Well the Stranglers were my favorites in the new wave catagory back in the day but they were hardly "Punk". They were a pub band who jumped on the bandwagon like so many others.

The Banshees, Pistols and the like wore the Punk fashion but often were streets apart musically.
Personally I thought the Damned, The Buzzcocks etc were garbage. The Stranglers had attitude and some memorable songs, Elvis Costello and The Boomtown Rats actually had some ability to write, even if Geldof did a second rate Jagger impersonation. The whole scene did liven things up at the end of the seventies and offered an alternative to Disco but most of it was cobblers. There were actually some great albums released between 1976 and 1980 and very few were New Wave.
Having said that, Never Mind the Bollocks is actually very good.