AB celebrates 50 years of punk

In 2026, AB will celebrate fifty years of punk: the devastating storm that erupted in 1976 and changed music, art, and culture for good. That year: The Ramones released their debut album, Sex Pistols released the timeless Anarchy in the U.K., Sniffin’ Glue launched the DIY fanzine era and Malcolm McLaren’s legendary 100 Club Punk Special took place, with the likes of The Clash, The Damned and Buzzcocks.

Even then, punk was already much more than music: it was a creative explosion, a fist in the air, an angry shot at the established order, a global undercurrent of resistance and reinvention. Punk gave space to outsiders, to those in the margins. Punk was not neat, not polished, not intended to please. It was a raw echo of frustration, from young people asserting their place in a world that would rather not see them. It was the sound of freedom. It was abrasive, it was loud and it was honest. 

Punk defined DIY. While the world revolved around disco and glitter, punk pulled the plug out and shouted: ‘Do it yourself!’ Punk blew up the boundaries everywhere. Remember the revolutionary debut album Horses by Patti Smith, with which she wrote a manifesto for an entire generation in 1975: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.” This generation would reinvent itself using poetry like a knife and music as a battering ram. Punk became a way of living, a rejection of society, a refusal to conform. And, at the same time, also an invitation to start again after the destruction, to provoke radical change. 

Today, fifty years later, the young people of that time have grown up and the world has changed. But the spirit of punk is still alive and well. The genre continues to reinvent itself, again and again, and refusing to be contained by commerce or nostalgia. Even today, it remains a release valve for those who don’t identify with the rules, for those who reject cynicism, apathy or inequality. Not as a style, but as an attitude. Not as a genre, but as a contagious concept. In the underground, in attic rooms, in basements, in small venues and on digital forums where new rebels find their voice. 
 
Punk has evolved, but it never grew up. Thankfully, because punk is not a genre, it’s a way of life. 
With Punk 50, AB honours the rich past, the vibrant present and the future of punk.  Expect film screenings, talks, book presentations, workshops, a label market, take-overs by grassroots organisations and especially a hard-hitting line-up of concerts. Don’t expect nostalgia, rather pure punk energy: club concerts curated by Stadskanker and Aurélie Poppins (Cocaine Piss), a mini-festival to honour fifty years of The Kids and an evening that breathes new life into Crass‘s Feeding of the 5000 – loud, sharp and uncompromising. 

Punk 50 will be no nostalgia-fest. It’s a statement. A reminder that art only really has meaning when it dares to tear something apart. That imperfection is actually a strength. That noise sometimes says more than silence. It’s a celebration of fifty years of chaos, freedom and bold expression. No museum full of archive footage, but a moshing pit of counter-culture.