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did the sex pistols kill punk rock?


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The difference between the Ramones and the Sex Pistols (well one of the differences anyway) is that the Ramones were original--authentic. The Sex Pistols were manufactured to copy what the Ramones, NY Dolls, Richard Hell, etc were already doing...The Sex pistols were part of punk as a 'pop movement'. The Ramones started out just making noise and leaving people flaberghasted. The leather jackets, the bowl-cuts, etc were all part of the fun, but also a way of expressing unity in any who opposed them (gang-mentality if you will), it wasn't about trying to be a part of a pop movement...

On the subject of the rise of the 12" single and the "commercialisation" of punk, I found the following interesting paragraph...

Marketing devices always work on a law of diminishing returns: as everyone else catches on to the gimmick, the stakes have to be raised in order to retain exclusivity. Simple 12" singles were soon swamped by coloured vinyl editions and special products like Phonogram's 12" for The Ramones' "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker", which had an extra track and a serrated cut-out badge. They were sold in numbered, limited edition just like a work of fine art. The effects of this short-term solution were far-reaching; they permeate the multi-mix, multi-format music industry of today. Creatively it helped to unlock a new generation of sleeve-designers but their impact would only come later in the year: in the early summer, these music industry ministrations only reinforced the extent to which record companies were asserting control over Punk.

Excerpt from "England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols & Punk Rock", by Jon Savage. (p.333) ,the book you recommended to us, Paul.

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Jon Savage also suggests that, as The Pistols undertook their ill-fated US tour...

...the more Lydon withdrew, the more Vicious hogged the limelight. The more limelight Sid got, the more uncontrollable he became. More problematically, Lydon was busy trying to short-circuit the audience's expectations. Most Americans had got their idea of Punk from the July NBC news report which had broadcast clips of the Sex Pistols and their followers throwing loud and dramatic poses. The Sex Pistols had become victims of their own history: Lydon's response was to insult and confound the audiences expectations by refusing to conform to the violent image. But if he was not to prepared to offer it, Sid was. "England's Dreaming"(p.450)

Now it strikes me that if most Americans had the wrong idea about the Sex Pistols before they even arrived in The States, is it any wonder, (given the amount of "bogus history" surrounding the band) that 30 years on, they're still none the wiser?

It's worth noting that by the time The Pistols visited America they had already shed one original member , bassist Glen Matlock , (arguably the "melodic core" of the band), replaced by "Sid Vicious": novice bassist and by this point also a heroin-addict. The band were at this point, "past their prime". Sid spent much of this tour either in cold turkey, attempting to escape the clutches of bodyguards hired by Warner Bros (Pistols US label), or being beaten up by said bodyguards. The band was in schism, due to split imminently and irrevocably. I think it's fair to say that ,on the whole, the American audiences did not have the good fortune to catch The Pistols on their best form...Any comments by "unimpressed figures within the US punk scene" might be better understood within this context.

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BF, Just becasue most americans think something, that doesnt mean its true (Weapons of mass destructin ring a bell?) Americans for the most part are pretty ignorant in fact. The truth of the matter is that Punk in the US was already past its prime by the time the Sex Pistols came over here.

As for your post about 12"--what's your point? And how does this detract from the fact that the Romones were innovaters and the SPs were immitators???

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BF, Just becasue most americans think something, that doesnt mean its true (Weapons of mass destructin ring a bell?) Americans for the most part are pretty ignorant in fact.

Well, you said it , Paul. That sort of reinforces my point.

On that occasion, based on selective news footage, most Americans formed the impression that The Sex Pistols were little more than a bunch of loud and dramatic posers, which, as you point out, doesn't mean it's actually true.

Despite this crass and reductive representation of The Pistols, it appears that the American public was strangely impressed. As Jon Savage points out...

"America is a country which responds to loud, simple forms: Vicious was the most understandable Sex Pistol. Cook and Jones had normal names and stayed out of the way. Lydon as Rotten was weird and sarcastic, alternating between withdrawal and and a brief,flaring egotism. That left Sid Vicious, with a violent cartoony name, which he was determined to live up to". England's Dreaming, p448)

So...it was actually Sid that made a "positive impression". :crazy:

My point, I suppose, is this: given the spectacle with which America was presented, it is perhaps unsurprising that some American commentators, such as your good self, have a jaundiced view of the Sex Pistols.

My argument is (and I'm getting a bit fed up of repeating myself)...

1) that much of the received history of The Sex Pistols (upon which such jaundiced views are often founded) is simply untrue or highly subjective account.

2) that The Sex Pistols were not mere "copyists" but, like most bands, were influenced by a range of British and American bands from the previous two decades of pop/rock history. However, they clearly possessed distinct characteristics, which distinguished them both from their UK contemporaries and from any US/UK antecedents who may have provided some influence or inspiration.

3) (perhaps most significantly) the extent of their impact upon British music/art and society cannot be understated. We are not discussing a mere passing fashion, (even less a marginal sub-culture, a la US punk)so much as a watershed moment in social/cultural history.

The latter point seems to be something you either refuse to believe or do not perceive as significant, since I have emphasised it repeatedly, without acknowledgement.

I personally find it hard to believe that your reading of "England's Dreaming" has not led you to a better understanding of British society in the late 70s, and the significant position of The Sex Pistols within that context.

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3) (perhaps most significantly) the extent of their impact upon British music/art and society cannot be understated. We are not discussing a mere passing fashion, (even less a marginal sub-culture, a la US punk)so much as a watershed moment in social/cultural history.

The latter point seems to be something you either refuse to believe or do not perceive as significant, since I have emphasised it repeatedly, without acknowledgement.

I personally find it hard to believe that your reading of "England's Dreaming" has not led you to a better understanding of British society in the late 70s, and the significant position of The Sex Pistols within that context.

This ought to be good. Just how did the Sex Pistols change England?

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NOT a response to the above challenge, just something I add to the pot for interests sake.

Paul Nelson, RollingStone, issue 259

"When the father-house burns....Young men find blisters on their hearts" — Old Ukrainian Proverb

If it's not clear to you now, it's going to be: the rock wars of the Seventies have begun, and the Sex Pistols, the most incendiary rock & roll band since the Rolling Stones and the Who, have just dropped the Big One on both the sociopolitical aridity of their native England and most of the music from which they and we were artistically and philosophically formed. While a majority of young Americans are probably going to misunderstand much of the no-survivors, not-even-us stance of the punk-rock New Wave anarchy in the U.K. (compared to which, the music of the Ramones sounds like it was invented by Walt Disney), none of us can ignore the movement's savage attack on such stars as the neoaristocratic and undeniably wealthy Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger, Elton John, et al., whose current music the Pistols view as a perfect example of jet-set corruption and an utter betrayal of the communal faith. It's obviously kill-the-father time in Great Britain, and, if this is nothing new (after all, Jimmy Porter, England's original Angry Young Man, spewed forth not unlike Johnny Rotten as far back as 1956 in John Osborne's Look Back in Anger), it certainly cuts much deeper now because conditions are unquestionably worse. And when one's main enemy is an oppressive mood of collective hopelessness, no one learns faster from experience than the would-be murderer of society, I suppose.

In a commercial sense, however, the Sex Pistols will probably destroy no one but themselves, but theirs is a holy or unholy war that isn't really going to be won or lost by statistics, slick guitar playing or smooth studio work. This band still takes rock & roll personally, as a matter of honor and necessity, and they play with an energy and conviction that is positively transcendent in its madness and fever. Their music isn't pretty—indeed, it often sounds like two subway trains crashing together under forty feet of mud, victims screaming—but it has an Ahab-versus-Moby Dick power that can shake you like no other music today can. It isn't particularly accessible either, but, hard to believe and maybe not true, record sales apparently don't mean much to the Pistols. (They never do when you don't have any.)

It seems to me that instead of exploiting the commercial potential of revolution, the Sex Pistols have chosen to explore its cultural possibilities. As Greil Marcus pointed out, they "have absorbed from reggae and the Rastas the idea of a culture that will make demands on those in power which no government could ever satisfy; a culture that will be exclusive, almost separatist, vet also messianic, apocalyptic and stoic, and that will ignore or smash any contradiction inherent in such a complexity of stances....'Anarchy in the U.K.' is, among other things, a white kid's 'War ina Babylon.'"

But before we make the Sex Pistols and their cohorts into fish-and-chips Zapatas, and long before sainthood has set in on Johnny Rotten, we should remember that this band has more on its mind than being a rock & roll centerpiece for enlightened liberal discussion. First of all, they're musicians, not philosophers, so they're probably more interested in making the best possible mythopoetic loud noise than they are in any logical, inverted political scripture. They're also haters, not lovers, a fact that may worry many Americans since the idea of revolution in this country is usually tinged with workers-unite sentimentality and the pie in the sky of some upcoming utopia. Johnny Rotten is no Martin Luther King or Pete Seeger—he's more like Bunuel or Celine. He looks at it all and sees right through it, himself included. While he's ranting at England ("a fascist regime") and the Queen ("She ain't no human being"), he doesn't exactly spare his own contingent: "We're so pretty, oh so pretty—we're vacant/... and we don't care."

Musically, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is just about the most exciting rock & roll record of the Seventies. It's all speed, not nuance—drums like the My Lai massacre, bass throbbing like a diseased heart fifty beats past bursting point, guitars wielded by Jack the Ripper—and the songs all hit like amphetamines or the plague, depending on your point of view. Rotten's jabbing, gabbing vocals won't leave you alone. They either race like crazed, badly wounded soldiers through fields of fire so thick you can't tell the blood from the barrage, or they just stand there in front of you, like amputees in a veterans' hospital, asking where you keep the fresh piles of arms and legs.

Johnny Rotten may be confused, but he's got a right to be. He's flipped the love-hate coin so often that now it's flipping him. Overpowered by his own psychic dynamite, he stands in front of the mirror, "in love with myself, my beautiful self," and the result is "No Feelings." You say, "Holidays in the Sun," and he says, "I wanna go to the new Belsen." On "Bodies," he doesn't know whether he's against an abortion ("screaming bloody f****** mess") or whether he is one. Rotten seems to stroll right through the ego and into the id, and then kick the hell out of it. Talk to him about relationships and you get nowhere: "See my face, not a trace, no reality."

That said, no one should be frightened away from this album. "Anarchy in the U.K." and especially "God Save the Queen" are near-perfect rock & roll songs, classics in the way the Who's "My Generation" and the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" are. And, contrary to popular opinion, the Pistols do have a sense of humor. They're forever throwing out musical quotes, many of them outlandish (the beginning of "Pretty Vacant" echoes the Who's "Baba O'Riley," the chorus on "EMI" is a direct steal from Jonathan Richman's "Road Runner," and "New York" completely trashes the Dolls' "Looking for a Kiss"), from groups they obviously at least half admire. If Graham Parker can come away from a Sex Pistols concert saying it was just like seeing the Stones in their glorious early days, just how many contradictions are we talking about?

Those who view the Sex Pistols only in eve-of-destruction terms should remember that any theory of destruction as highfalutin as Rotten's also contains the seeds of freedom and even optimism. Anyone who cares enough to hate this much is probably not a nihilist, but—irony of ironies—a moralist and a romantic as well. I believe it when Johnny Rotten screams, "We mean it, man," in conjunction with destruction, but, in a way, his land's-end, "no future" political position is the most desperately poetic of all. We want to destroy everything, he says, and then see what's left. My guess is that he believes something will be.

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PaulEdwardWagemann said:

This ought to be good. Just how did the Sex Pistols change England?

I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request...(means "No!")

Sod this for a game of soldiers. There are two main problems....

a) is not "lack of evidence", but "where to start?". This question requires a thesis for an answer: chapter, verse, bibliography, the lot. I have two jobs, a wife and three kids to support.

B) what would be the point?

You have already read "England's Dreaming"; or I assume so, since it has been recommended by you at least twice. This exhaustive volume alone tells you more than you need to know about the questions you have asked. You appear to have read this book with blinkers on, choosing to believe only those features which lend support to your pre-existing and entrenched views, whilst ignoring the rest. This despite it having been authored and researched by a highly intelligent and skilled writer, who was also actively involved in the London punk scene from its earliest days. Why should I assume that any argument I put to you, however coherent and insightful (having experienced our changing musical, social and cultural landscape at first hand), will not be disregarded in the same manner?

It's nothing personal, Paul. There's something about your unshakeable conviction in the face of a mountain of compelling contradictory evidence that I find admirable, touching even. I sometimes wish I could be less open-minded. :bow:

So: how about a lyrical interlude...

a great acoustic track by Husker Du, from their classsic double album "Zen Arcade"

There are things that I'd like to say

But I'm never talking to you again

There's things I'd like to phrase some way

But I'm never talking to you again

I'm never talking to you again

I'm never talking to you

I'm tired of wasting all my time

Trying to talk to you

I'd put you down where you belong

But I'm never talking to you again

I'd show you everywhere you're wrong

But I'm never talking to you again

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Paul Nelson, RollingStone, issue 259

First of all, Paul Nelson = an american (and youve already established that most americans view of the SPs is wrong)...

Second of all, Rollingstone = embarrassing shill for the Corporate music industries slave masters...

The Ramones, and other early punk bands were not overly concerned about politics. Posing as politacl spokemen for a generation was in fact a large part of what they were against. The Sex Pistols killed that aspect of Punk by trying to come off as poltical. This may have caused a stir in the UK, but in the US their politics did not matter one iota. They were seen as a novelty, freaks who cut themselves up on stage and talked in funny accents--much more entertaining than Jackson Browne and the Eagles feel good 'sensative guy' rock that was dominating the radio waves in thelate 70s....

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First of all, Paul Nelson = an american (and youve already established that most americans view of the SPs is wrong)...

Second of all, Rollingstone = embarrassing shill for the Corporate music industries slave masters...

Hi, Paul. Nice to hear from you so soon.

I assume Paul Nelson to be American, on the grounds that he was a journo on Rolling Stone back in 1977 when "Never Mind The Bollocks" came out.

I've never established that most Americans view of The Sex Pistols was wrong, only posited that at the time, impressions of the band may have been influenced by 1) selective use of imagery in the media and 2) the dire state of the band by the time they actually toured the US. It was you, as I recall, that described most Americans as "ignorant".

I only posted this review as it seemed a reasonably incisive and insightful review of the band, untainted by the stench of historical revisionism so common to retrospective critiques. I did not post it here because it particularly supports my platform or undermines yours, although I did enjoy the bit where he suggests "a majority of young Americans are probably going to misunderstand much of the no-survivors, not-even-us stance of the punk-rock New Wave anarchy in the U.K. (compared to which, the music of the Ramones sounds like it was invented by Walt Disney)".

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I did not post it here because it particularly supports my platform or undermines yours, although I did enjoy the bit where he suggests "a majority of young Americans are probably going to misunderstand much of the no-survivors, not-even-us stance of the punk-rock New Wave anarchy in the U.K. (compared to which, the music of the Ramones sounds like it was invented by Walt Disney)".

I disagree with that entirely. I would say that the Sex Pistols Music sounds like it was invented by a bunch of snot-nosed brats with empty innerlives and therefore complain that everything is bore-ring. And exactly how do you see having a no-survivors, not-even-us mentality as being anything other than idiotic? They were just a bunch of spoiled juvenile who didnt get enough attention from mummy and daddy, so they were throwing a temper tantrum--not good entertainment in my book.

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I am not going to try to even come close to participating at length in this passionate dissertation of Punk's most notorious (and possibly most influential) 'band'. That they were 'manufactured' is second to the issue. The point was, my parents, (like all other parents of the era, weaned on Elvis, Beatles, on and on...) hated them. And so did the jocks I went to school with at the time, the jocks listening to Journey, Supertramp, REO, Pink Floyd, Boston, and all of those other 'name-brand' supergroups. But there were millions of non-jock misfits who didn't care that they were manufactured, didn't know the back-story of the band, and didn't care. "Never Mind The Bollocks" was seething with audible rage. Lydon's "No future, no future, no future for you!" was inspired by the bleak economic / social outlook at the time, and translated as no future for the misfits on this side of the ocean who didn't conform to the jocks who would no doubt fill the future boardrooms. The jocks who had the cool cars and the hottest girlfriends. There were different reasons to embrace them. I don't believe they killed punk. They altered it, but did not kill it.

And one can only wonder what Lydon would make of this discussion...

"Aaaaaahahaaa. Ever feel like you've been cheated?"

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The point was, my parents, (like all other parents of the era, weaned on Elvis, Beatles, on and on...) hated them. And so did the jocks I went to school with at the time, the jocks listening to Journey, Supertramp, REO, Pink Floyd, Boston, and all of those other 'name-brand' supergroups. But there were millions of non-jock misfits who didn't care that they were manufactured, didn't know the back-story of the band, and didn't care. "Never Mind The Bollocks" was seething with audible rage. Lydon's "No future, no future, no future for you!" was inspired by the bleak economic / social outlook at the time, and translated as no future for the misfits on this side of the ocean who didn't conform to the jocks who would no doubt fill the future boardrooms. The jocks who had the cool cars and the hottest girlfriends.

Did you rip that post off from a Homer Simpson monologue?

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And exactly how do you see having a no-survivors, not-even-us mentality as being anything other than idiotic?

Ummmm...those weren't my words, Paul, they were somebody else's. In any case, it was the bit about The Ramones sounding like a Disney-creation I enjoyed...If I thought there was nothing more to the "No Future" lyric than a "no-survivors-not-even-us" mentality, I would probably tend to agree. However, personally I believe the perception of the Pistols stance/Lydon's lyrics as pure nihilism has been over-played. I read the "No Future" lyric as a trenchant critique of a nation in decay; more of a "wake-up call", really.

They were just a bunch of spoiled juvenile who didnt get enough attention from mummy and daddy, so they were throwing a temper tantrum--not good entertainment in my book.

Right on the nail: excellent analysis. Good to see all that reading didn't go to waste.

...Damned good temper tantrum though, eh?!

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In any case, it was the bit about The Ramones sounding like a Disney-creation I enjoyed......

The Ramones sounding like Disney? Paul Nelson's comment is retarded. The Ramones wer ethe ral deal--DeeDee picked up tricks on 53rd and 3rd then killed them, Johnny was basically a Nazi Fascist, and Joey was a 7 foot tall mongoloid pinhead...the sex pistols were just a bunch of whiney mamma's boys who were annoying--not entertaining at all...

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Second of all, Rollingstone = embarrassing shill for the Corporate music industries slave masters...

Uh...yeah...so what? You'll have to excuse me for quoting from the contemporaneous music press. I found that many of the independently-produced, non-profit-making, hand-written fanzines of the time do not have Internet archives...

The Ramones, and other early punk bands were not overly concerned about politics. Posing as politacl spokemen for a generation was in fact a large part of what they were against. The Sex Pistols killed that aspect of Punk by trying to come off as poltical.

Make your mind up, sunshine-boy. All throughout this thread, you've been insisting that The Sex Pistols were mere copyists. Now you're saying that they introduced a factor that distinguished them from all their antecedents, namely "political consciousness".

Incidentally, though, I would dispute the suggestion that The Pistols were particularly "political" in any overt sense, even though they did comment upon a society in crisis. Their "cri de coeur" was more of a philosophical/existentialist bent rather than "political" as such. That "social realism/political spokesman for a generation" thing was much more The Clash's bag.

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removal of "descent into pettiness"
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