I challenge this. After the Bill Grundy incident everyone in the UK had heard of the Sex Pistols, a few cognoscenti would have heard of The Ramones. I’d say that Bowie was more of an influence on most early punk bands than The Ramones, punk being as much (more really) about style than music.
I was a Pink Floyd/Zeppelin/Who fan back then, the Sex Pistols were the only punk band I had time for, there were a lot of very poor imitators.
I challenge this. After the Bill Grundy incident everyone in the UK had heard of the Sex Pistols, a few cognoscenti would have heard of The Ramones. I’d say that Bowie was more of an influence on most early punk bands than The Ramones, punk being as much (more really) about style than music.
I was a Pink Floyd/Zeppelin/Who fan back then, the Sex Pistols were the only punk band I had time for, there were a lot of very poor imitators.
Bloody hamsters.
As I was talking about upthread, there was Bowie, and bands like Gary Glitter, T.Rex and The Sweet, whose musical influence was most important. And of course The Dolls, through Malcolm McLaren gave the Pistols a lot of their sound. The style was more from the CBGB scene: bands like Television and The Modern Lovers.
You seem intent on limiting punk to British punk, which is, if I may borrow the phrase, bollocks. Reread Subterraneanus’s post keeping in mind that in to many the Ramones are quintessential punk – they may not have had the whole brit-punk look, but what the hell does that matter? If dressing punk made you punk, then Good Charlotte and Avril Lavigne would be a punk. They’re not. What does that tell you?
Wow, I didn’t think that this thread would inspire such an animated discussion…I just thought that Rotten’s letter to the Hall was amusing.
“Never Mind The Bollocks…” was a shot in the arm for rock ‘n’ roll. We need another group like the Sex Pistols today, if you ask me.
bolding mine
Sorry, this post is more specifically what I was referring to in my last post. You’re just wrong to say there was no punk before the Pistols. Calling the Ramones and the Stooges “punky-type” is ridiculous. See also saoirse’sm post and the influence of the CBGB’s scene.
this post and the others in this direction are spot on. Let’s be clear about this: “Punk” as a phrase, concept, style and sound originated in NY, having been influenced by activity all over, but including Detroit (MC5 and Stooges) and Cleveland. Read Please Kill Me - the author is the person who coined the phrase which led to a magazine called Punk which led to the naming of the stuff going on in NY. It is a truly great book and fills in the blanks.
The Clash and the Sex Pistols LOVED the Ramones. See the Clash documentary Westway to the World - Joe and Mick dicuss going to see the Ramones during their tour in '76 (I think, based on the posts above) and being completely transfixed - it changed their lives.
The fact that the Sex Pistols sensationalized and politicized Punk is undeniable and the main reason we are having a discussion about a 1-CD band making it into the RRHOF. The Ramones - see THEIR documentary End of the Century - again, truly brilliant - discuss how the nasty, controversial nature of the British punks like the Sex Pistols limited the Ramones ability to break big. The term “punk” was taken over, if you will, but safety pins, cutting yourself and just outrageous behavior for the sake of being outrageous. The point being that punk didn’t originally start that extreme but was taken their via the Britpunks. But it started in NY…
You’re confusing the music business with music. They’ve never been the same thing. Learning the difference is a big step toward adulthood.
According to this site, Steve Jones didn’t seem terribly moved.
I meant Paul *Cook.
Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and John Paul Jones all share the same brain cell in my head.
Cook. I suck.
you sure that shouldn’t read same jail cell?
Hey! Don’t speak of Ms. Faithful like that!
Okey doke. This site indicates that Cook wasn’t especially interested either.
Exapno - I hope over the course of many, many posts you have seen that I respect your POV and hope you have some respect for mine. I also see what you are trying to say about differentiating between the business of music and music - as a semi-pro musician currently and friends with a few folks who have made a living at various levels in the music biz, your point makes sense.
But your immediate dismissal of the Sex Pistols is clearly 100% YMMV - you are welcome to your opinion, but to assert outright that they were no good and their music sucked is flat-out wrong and inappropriate, IMHO. I am happy to back may statement up with a discourse on the evolution of punk rock, making parallels between the Ramones’ use of distortion to inexpensively replicate Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound production approach - which clearly influenced the Pistols and happens all the time in music if you look at Chuck Berry innovating with double-stop guitar licks in an attempt to inexpensively re-create Louis Jordan’s full horn section or rappers using samples. But if someone CHOOSES to listen, the Sex Pistols songs are fun, well-constructed, melodic songs that happen to be immersed in tweaking the nose of the Establishment.
So is learning to control your condescension.
The attitude that the Sex Pistols are “not music” always sounds to me like, say, an Eric Clapton fan dismissing someone like Son House as “untalented.” It’s a valid opinion, I guess – House is pretty rough and, being essentially an unschooled amateur, he plays a lot of “wrong” notes and is often out of time – but in some sense it just seems to me to be applying the wrong set of criteria in order to invalidate something you personally dislike. Just like to dismiss Duchamp’s Fountain as “not art” is sidestepping the question of why the perpetrator would think to present it as art in the first place. Maybe épater le bourgeois gets tiresome after a while, especially if you’re the bourgeois being epatted, but for some reason a lot of people find that kind of thing inspirational, just like Clapton found his inspiration in people like House. So you dislike that attiyude – that’s fine. I’mnot much for the setimental, but I wouldn’t argue Norman Rockwell wasn’t making art. And nobody said that the best rock and roll is only made by faux-thuggish social critics in black leather. The Hall of Fame has its share of Norman Rockwells.
So of course it’s frickin’ music, even though it might not be something you’d want sitting on the metaphorical mantelpiece, or something that you’d pay two dollars for a flea market. Not everything can be judged the same set of rules. Why do the Sex Pistols need to be dismissed because they were amateurish musicians (like any number of bluesmen), because they were led by a Svengali with a mission (like the Beatles), because their frontman thinks he’s too clever for the room (like the Who & the Rolling Stones), because the concept worked better on paper than on vinyl five times out of six (like every band I’ve read about in the last 15 years), because other people did it better, or tighter, or more profitably, or for longer? That would disqualify a lot of music that I really like – and I am a schooled musician, and I’ve been over adolescent angst for quite a long time.
And as far as confusing the music business with music goes, your previous post was:
You’re the one doing the confusing. The music business is about marketing and making money, like any other business. Since “talent” is entirely subjective it can’t work as a definition of music. I would say often the passion of the amateur overcomes lack of “talent.” There’s little I hate more than a hippie drum circle made up of people who wouldn’t know a 2/3 clavé pattern if it bit them on the ass, but I wouldn’t say it wasn’t music or that anyone was ignorant for enjoying it.
I started listening to popular music in 1963.
I started paying attention to popular music history when I was in college.
I had a good understanding of music and the business and its wild and vulgar and brilliant and often sordid history by 1976.
I’ve studied it in even more depth since. And not just music but the entire spectrum of popular culture starting in the 19th century. A few people here know more on individual aspects of popular cultural history than I do - that’s the fate of all generalists - but I’m convinced nobody knows more about it overall. My opinion is an informed one, for whatever that’s worth. It might be worth little on the specialized subject of punk rock, but then again, maybe not.
Here’s my opinion.
I though the Sex Pistols were crap in 1977 and nothing I’ve read or heard since has made me change my mind.
Attitude and talent can co-exist. In this case, it doesn’t. Attitude does not last. Talent lasts. The Sex Pistols did not last, in any sense of the word. QED.*
You must be kidding. This Sex Pistols in a very real sense lasted. The Sid and Nancy myth, part of the Pistols lore, lasted. Ask any average middle aged American to name one punk band and my guess is you get one of two answers: the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. I am not arguing for or against the Pistols’ talent, but it’s hard to deny the fact that the Pistols, at least in some sense, lasted. Go to the nearest mall and find a Hot Topic or Urban Outfitters, go to the fake retro t-shirt section and see how long it takes you to trip over a Pistols’ t-shirt. Stumble over to the counter and get poked by a Pistols’ button. For many, and I think this is very unfortuante, the Pistols and their style are synonymous with punk rock. How do you define “lasted” anyway? and hell, if the music industry is your bag, it seems to me like the whole Pistols myth has been marketed quite well.
And on top of all of that, there’s the fact that they were going to be admitted to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Considering that just about the only person in this thread who thinks that the RnRHoF has any sort of cultural or social relevance is Exapno himself, you’d think that would be a pretty solid argument in their favor to him.