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The Beatles "made it" by playing Chuck Berry covers and a style of music that was rooted in the Chuck Berry/Elvis tradition

After the breakup of the beatles, John Lennon began mixing with the London music scene that was early punk.

This better explains the work he was doing with the Plastic Ono Band. Not that it excuses it

That's an interesting period. After the Fabs, flower power, and heavy metal ran their course, you had this musical hermetic stew percolating alchemically looking for solutions. Experiments with Blues, etc. A number of concept albums like The Who's Lifehouse which never quite saw fruition. Super-rock stars looking for smaller clubs and the start of the "unplugged" sound.

I think there was an article in National Review MANY YEARS AGO (more than I can remember) but..roughly...back in the '80s somewhere thereabouts which mentioned Iggy Pop's claim to being the first "punk." I am going to guess this was an article by D. Keith Mano, but I really can't remember. The timeframe for this "proto-punk" Iggy would have been something like '67 or '68. A hypoglycemic neurotic coming down from a Speed or Cocaine crash could probably rant and rave with about as much pure rage as a punk. "Helter Skelter" in the White Album with its mega guitar distortion certainly has some similarities. I think pop musicologists have occasionally accorded The Kinks the honor as well.The beating Townshend gave to that poor SG at Woodstock also scores well on a Johnny Rotten Rage Scale, although the satirical targets were different then.

At any rate, there was an Angry Young Men sound BEFORE "punk" proper. Correct. Themes of social subversion and the inversion of authoritative power structures have a long history. Although The Pistols, Ramones, and Patti Smith were one of a kind. Phenomenon sui generis.

Some scholars might want to relate Plastic Ono to the absurdist nightclub acts of Weimar and Berlin in the '20s. Maybe Astrid Kirchherr could help us out there. Help! (the film) was actually a riot and well worth studying for the relevant clues.

Someone told me a real howler once - that Yoko was a KGB agent sent in to take the Fabs out because they were building up too much international good feeling for the West and the English language! LOL!

And on that "proto-punk" psychoarchaeology, let's not forget Gene Vincent, Link Wray, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

[After the breakup of the beatles, John Lennon began mixing with the London music scene that was early punk. This better explains the work he was doing with the Plastic Ono Band. Not that it excuses it]

Heh heh heh!

:^)