Punk: The Perfect Beat

Punk explores two late 70's musical innovations that shaped rock and roll through the next decade: punk and reggae. In New York, members of Blondie, Talking Heads, Television and the Ramones tell how they inadvertently created the cynical, urban, stripped-down sound that became punk rock. In London, punk takes off with the Sex Pistols, and members of the Wailers and the Clash recall how Jamaican reggae, another musical form of rebellion, crossed international boundaries, deeply influencing punk and pop rock. The Perfect Beat begins at a time when megastars like Bruce Springsteen, U2 and Metallica filled arenas around the world and moves on to chronicle the rise of a new musical form: rap. From the Bronx to Detroit, from Chicago to Manchester, England, from Grandmaster Flash to Run-DMC, from De La Soul to British innovators New Order to the Beastie Boys, traces the evolution of this new sound in the 80's and early 90's. Shows how superstars like Madonna and Prince folded rap and its funky electronic offshoots, techno and house, into their music, and how MTV ultimately embraced it.