No punk rock: WI

(Or, maybe a different evolution for punk rock, at least.)

Somewhere on this board, or elsewhere on the interwebs, I remember seeing a thread where someone posited the question of how the Beatles' music might have evolved had they not gone psychedelic; in other words, how might it have grown more sophisticated without going the acid-rock route?

This is a similar idea. It's 1975. A lot of the big Sixties stars have gotten or are getting long in the tooth but are still big stars (the Rolling Stones). Heavy metal/hard rock is a major thing (Kiss); so is prog-rock (Yes, Pink Floyd). There's a lot of poppish stuff like the Carpenters in the air, and disco is just starting to catch fire ("The Hustle" was a number one hit that year). Various big stars have emerged from the glam-rock movement of the early Seventies, most especially Elton John (peripherally) and David Bowie. That's what's happening; in about a year IOTL punk comes along and begins changing the picture.

Let's say that doesn't happen, or at the barest minimum, it happens very differently. It's hard to make a cultural POD from one event, but just to start a discussion, let's say Malcolm McLaren gets busted for some kind of cash irregularities at the Sex shop (it's Malcolm McLaren; would it be that surprising?) and he goes to the pen. John Lydon never gets his big break, and John Ritchie (aka Sid Vicious) ends up dead in a gutter in London from an overdose.

How does popular music evolve post-1975 in the absence of, or in the considerable alteration of, the punk scene?
 
How does popular music evolve post-1975 in the absence of, or in the considerable alteration of, the punk scene?

Slows the UK scene a bit, but not NYC and West Coast in the States

In New York, you still get The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, and Talking Heads. Oh, and New York Dolls, of course.
Out West, Flyboys and Dead Kennedys
Between them, Alice Cooper, MC5 and the Stooges

So..UK gets another US invasion.
 
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