Sonic Youth Gossip - punk roots poll..

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- - punk roots poll.. (http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/showthread.php?t=1527)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glice

Can I just get this one out - It probably belongs in the Unpopular Musical Opinions thread - PiL were good but not great and I fail to see how a London-Irish mewling over Can type arrangements (with subtly harsher guitar tones) makes something original. PiL were good for making a pop-kraut, but they certainly weren't original, especially next to some of the other things that came out of the post-punk era.

I see your point, but Keith Levene could play circles around most of his contemporaries, and they brought influences to the fore that were considered seriously uncool in the years immediately preceding their formation. Tone-wise, I think they have been quite influential. While they don't top my list of alltime superfaves, they were very good, and far more innovative than the Pistols.

And far more "original" than the Pistols as well IMO, influence-wearing notwithstanding.

Ah yes, point made and agreed with entirely. I'm not in the habit of reading posts properly, gets in the way of arguments if you ask me. But yes, I agree.

the sex pistols are fun to watch, but i get tired of them quickly.

the clash first album is amazin, then they went downhill, they became boring. joe strummer was a cool mofo, though.

the buzzcocks were better songwriters than both; the damned were punkier in that they were fun, funny, didn't give a shit and their music was grittier and more original.

influentially, the pistols only real contribution was the punk dress code; the clash's contribution: giving people who have very boring lives and no imagination the idea of writing bad political songs without a plataform or even a notion of what politics is more than any other band this side of bruce springsteen.

both bands took their music from the ramones pretty much by itself.

pil are much more challenging to listen than the pistols; any 12 year old into fall out boy can become a pistols fan immediatly; the fact that pil takes much more to get into alone makes the music worthwhile.

basically, punk was just garage rock with shock politics/values in england; it wasn't until it reached america again that the music once again took a progressive turn to be the most influential and vital music since the 80's.

my opinions, there they are

this is one of those trick questions, the real answer is....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Savage Clone

The first statement alone renders me unable to comply with the second.

Come on, those first three PiL records broke more true musical ground than the Pistols could have broken in five lifetimes.
Seriously, I love the Sex Pistols, but it's basically amped-up Chuck Berry riffs.
PiL in their early days were so forward-thinking and innovative, the two cannot even be compared.

I'm not contesting their innovativeness; I just for some reason don't like their sound. It's a quirk.

The Clash were the better band.

I love some of their stuff ('White Man in Hammersmith PAlais' and 'Guns of Brixton' are great songs), but I do have to say that I find their LP's tend to contain 50% top quality stuff and 50% dissappointing stuff.