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Dog 3000 wrote: But Rotten had to struggle to get his ideas heard in the Sex Pistols -- Malcolm wanted titilating songs about bondage, while Steve & Paul just wanted to be the Heartbreakers or the Ramones. I would argue it wasn't til Johnny got into the more "progressive" PIL that his music became "extraordinary."
(In a lot of ways Sex Pistols career almost seems based on the Monkees anyway: Svengali gets together 4 "charismatic" young lads, creates an image for them, and works the media to produce instant fame. Band breaks up when one of them gets "serious about being an artist" instead of continuing to act like a cartoon character according to the original plan. Face it, the Pistols were always more about the marketing than the music.)
The Pistols made one great album, the rest was just grubbing about to part the punters from their cash, not everything that punk was responsible for was a good thing. But NMTB was as far as I'm concerned the point at which the lead singer as a pretty boy who could sing died, fair enough there were bands before who easily fitted the role but punk & Rotten were mainstream.Your granny knew who Johnny Rotten was, even half the punks in 77 didn't know who Iggy was, Rotten was exceptional from the start, I was no great punk fan myself but the Pistols, Damned & Magazine completely rewrote the book for me
Dog 3000 wrote:
The Damned were great, but kind of retro (60's and Stooges covers from the get-go.) A classic punk band in that they were a throwback to 60's garage rock, which is not progressive it's reactionary! "They did it better back during the golden age."
As KeithA has pointed out The Damned were way more than some 60s revisionists, I'm honestly wondering what you are listening to if you think such a thing, dig out a copy of the first album and tell me that that came from the 60s!!!
Dog 3000 wrote:
The Clash did Sandinista! . . . why, that's almost a prog-punk album. Longer than Tales From Topographic Oceans! They are sort of the exception that proves the rule (and so it's no wonder they're probably the most popular and influential of their peers 30 years later -- unlike most of those UK punk bands, they were "progressive".)
Of course a lot of bands were derivative, what's new, so were 99% of all prog/metal/hiphop/you name it acts, but using your Clash/Yes comparison look at the range and bredth of musical styles covered by each band, well fuck me the somewhat derided and ''unoriginal'' Clash win by a country mile
Dog 3000 wrote:
Punks (the popular class of '77 bands in particular) generally did not push the envelope MUSICALLY -- whatever "cultural" impact that movement had (hairstyles, clothing, making it cool to start your own band, etc.) is sort of beside the point, at least to me. In a lot of ways I think the concurrent DISCO trend was much more important! (Popularizing beat-driven and DJ/producer music, which leads to hiphop and house and rave and all that . . . what did punk lead to, MTV? Hair metal?)
Actually they smashed the mould entirely musically, and much as we would all like it to be just about the music it isn't. I would say that punk led to the massive growth of independent labels, the general acceptance that you could release one single that led to the wider spread of dance music. It also rised the public awareness of Reggae a thousandfold.
As for MTV, Hairmetal, the bad things that came from punk areas numerous as the good things, SAW,Simon Cowell both owe their livelihoods to the ripples that punk started in the big music lake, for every Joy Division there is a Simple Minds.
U2,Guns N Roses,Madonna love 'em or loathe them they exist because of 77. You could argue that they would have existed anyway but not i think as we know them
Dog 3000 wrote: And yes there are a zillion more exceptions -- Lydia Lunch, Wire, Black Flag, Chrome, etc. -- even in a scene that strives for extraordinary-ness (or it's opposite), there are always some who are going to be more extraordinary than others. ;-)
Anyway, happy new year all!!
Indeed there are, and a lot of punk can be traced back to the Stooges, Krautrock, The Bay City Rollers et al. But IMHO the class of 77 were the ones who stood up and took the flak like no o0ne had since probably 67 or before that Elvis in 57.Prog may have pushed the envelope but it was already on a path well trodden, in 77 punk drove a brand new motorway right up rocks flabby arse and the shit is still flying today
happy 2009 everybody
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