Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

Byrne’s remark frames punk less as a set of sonic traits—tempo, guitar tone, or vocal style—than as a posture toward culture: impatience with received taste, suspicion of virtuosity as gatekeeping, and a do‑it‑yourself willingness to make work with limited means. Read this way, punk becomes portable across genres and scenes, explaining why it can surface in art rock, new wave, performance art, fashion, and independent publishing. The line also implies that attempts to define punk purely by musical markers miss its social function: a challenge to authority and to the idea that legitimacy must be granted by institutions.