I never did like Punk much . Yes it was different and different is good. Added a new dimension to music and there was much about the new wave that followed that was good. Re evaluating I thought I'd missed out by being too dismissive of it at the time but really most of it was rubbish. I always quite liked the Stranglers , ( terrible live) and The Dammed. As for classic NMTB, Pretty Vacant was great so was God Save The Queen , Anarchy ok, the rest not much of it. A handful of bands had a handful of good stuff but the vast majority of them have been forgotten and rightly so. Few have stood the test of time. Some were good and the style was clearly influential with really good stuff developing from it.
So , it's not so much the music that gets up my nose but the I really think a false and accepted history has been created. All that stuff at the time about anarchy , hating everything , all music being crap especially the monster prog bands was fine at the time because its all about image , fashion , illusion which is what pop / rock has done for years, but now over 40 years on the lie and image persists. One thing it did not do was sweep all the all guard away. There is a belief that because punk came along it changed everything, all the old bands got swept away and only a few could survive . I have heard that time and again. The old punk fans, journalists and even major prog stars have said so but I seem to be in a minority of one in thinking that's utter bollocks. Look at the charts before during and after , full of disco and the usual rubbish. Yes things changed but they always have. Punk was no different from any other new genre. Mod, psychodelic , 80s/90s dance ,rave, progressive you name it. They all created new ideas , fashion , styles , and young people got into new things. Fine good. None of them have created any myths about sweeping away all the old guard. No bands / artists blamed any other counter culture for their own faltering. The punks claim a success in getting rid of the old pompous snobby prog bands and everyone seem to believe them . I read an interview with Kevin Godly talking about the massive commercial failure of Consequences and the fact that they (Creme and Godly) had ignored the new seismic change in music culture. He ignored the fact that that it was overly expensive inaccessible tripple pack. ( I liked it!) Also Creme and Godly did fairly well afterwards! 10cc continued at the time to do very well. I stopped buying at Bloody Tourists , (probably their most successful time) not because of punk but because they were just not as good. 10cc faltered because they just weren't as good creatively. That's the reason any and all the band's at the time went into decline. . 10 years is a long time for a band to maintain creative success, also many bands struggle to keep together anyway for that long. Many old prog bands were simply not as good any more . Admittedly they had a shock when these underground counter culture.bands.of the 60s were being told they were now establishment, but most simply burned out. Pink Floyd and Genesis went on to be bigger than ever. Yes faltered a little but that had little to do with punk and went on to stay massive. Rush! There's quite a list of established bands that continued. New ones cropped up. The mini boom of new prog in the early 80s .The wonderful Kate Bush . NWOBHM bands were probably bigger than punk and certainly longer lasting.
There was also a real anti snobbery attitude and something about keeping it real and genuine. Something I still hear today from them and about them. Truth is Punks were are probably the biggest musical snobs and fakes of all time. They had/ have a huge chip on their shoulders and look/ looked down their noses freely telling everyone else how crap / boring they are / were. That was fine at the time young people image conscious etc but to keep it up all these years is ridiculous. Genesis in particular were singled out for their public school background. There were many accomplished musicians and educated middle class people amongst the punk fraternity but that was kept away from the public in favour of the rebellious working class image. The establishment did go bizarrely beserk over it all as they did in the 60s with the Stones. Punks didn't want us to know they could play well. Genesis never pretended to be anything other than what they were nor did any of the others of that ilk . They were much more real and genuine than many of the punk bands.
So that's my mini rant . My view. But the hell does an old rocker / prog fan.know anyway?