What's you're opinion on the Sex Pistols?

[HEyHEY]

I know alot of people love to knock them as a "made up group" who couldn't play. But I've always loved their music.

What's your opinion on them?

[htuttle]

1. They're so pretty

Pretty vacant!

[Taverner]

2. Overrated product punk band

They were assembled by a newspaper ad, just like the Monkees.

The Clash is a much better "father of punk" type band.

[HEyHEY]

4. The Pistols came first though didn't they?

[jonnyblitz]

3. I liked them. solo sid vicious 'live from max's kansas city"

was pretty horrible though.

[coloradodem2005]

5. Prefer The Clash or The Ramones.

The Ramones had a very early Rock and Roll spirit, especially on songs like Blitzkrieg Bop and The Clash gave us London Calling and Combat Rock as albums. They Rock the Cashbah. Don't care for the Sex Pistols.

[Wat_Tyler]

6. Great as a force of chaos, great singles - the rest wasn't really up to

the legend. Still, they were very, very necessary.

Like lots of other people will say in this thread, I prefer The Clash.

[nine23]

7. Changed my life forever.

As a teen in the mid-seventies, we were listening to Bowie, Lou Reed, Eno and Pink Floyd, etc., but nothing was really kicking ass in (what was soon to be) the mosh pit.

Then they came along, with The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, New York Dolls and The Ramones. They changed everything.

It was attitude. And we were bored suburban kids...

[HEyHEY]

9. Same - I discoverd them when I was 15 in 1994

Music BLEW ASS and I stumbled across them... then I got totally into punk - real punk not this blink182 emo shit. Opened my eyes to a lot of things.

[nine23]

13. And we saw them all at The Commodore. Under age.

Golden years. It was a blast. If I had the opportunity to "change anything" re: my youth, I'd change NOTHING. It was perfect.

[RevolutionaryActs]

8. I love them,

No one can deny that they were one of the first punk bands (and one of the greatest IMO), and that they did pave the way for most of the bands we know today and of course so did The Ramones and The Clash. :)

[Calanus]

10. Same here. Far, far better than those poseurs, the Clash

Sandinista, my ass.

[Wat_Tyler]

11. If it's gonna be a discussion of Best Original-era Punk Band....

It's the Saints.

Welcome to DU, btw.

[Calanus]

14. Thanks. Hell, if we go back early enough, it could be the MC5

[Wat_Tyler]

16. True - the MC5 and the Stooges both measure up.

[tuvor]

32. What's wrong with Sandinista?

Nothing that patient repeated listenings can't address.

Make sure you come up with a good answer, or JimmyJazz will...Gosh, who knows WHAT she'll do???

[Calanus]

34. It sucks. Sorry, I forgot that bit.

I hate basically everything they did with the exception of Safe European Home, and can't stand their politics and posing.

I met Jones a few times at some parties in Hollywood. An obnoxious alcofuckingholic.

[Osamasux]

12. They were alright but it was all well underway before them.

I prefer the bands I used to catch on the Lower East Side, like Television, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Johnny Thunders, Patty Smith.

[Wat_Tyler]

15. You can go back even further, of course.

Through the Dictators, to the Stooges, to Blue Cheer, to the Kingsmen, all the way back to that primeval garage where the first guy with a fuzz-box knocked out three chords on a crummy guitar.

[HEyHEY]

17. BLUE CHEeR DOES NOT COUNT

Don't even mention them here

[Wat_Tyler]

18. Any particular reason? Have they wronged you?

Did they run off with your woman? Stiff you on a coke deal?

[HEyHEY]

19. They offended me with their shitty cover of Summertime Blues

[Wat_Tyler]

23. Oh dear. Did it have subliminal insults directed at you?

Like 'HEyHEY wears little girlie panties - it's true-oo-oo!'?

[HEyHEY]

24. Does your mother tell you everything?

[Wat_Tyler]

26. Only when you ain't been paying her.

[nine23]

20. Regardless of how far you go back...

YA GOTTA HAVE THAT SNARK ON YOUR FACE, OTHERWISE NONE OF IT COUNTS.

[Wat_Tyler]

22. Stooges, then.

[Placebo]

21. Grand daddy of all punk.

All hail the Sex Pistols, they ain't no human being... ;)

[CanuckAmok]

25. They did what they set out to do.

They managed to capture the nihilist zeitgeist of mid-seventies Brisish underclass society and focus it into a force which completely derailed the conventions of the media. And they did it to turn a profit, which is what they did (the debateable fairness of the division of said profit notwithstanding).


Ultimately, their most influential contribution to presenty-day society is probably not a favourable one: it's the pre-emptive way the music business controls the manufacture AND distribution of popular music, in order to no be taken by surprise as they were in 1977.

If you get the chance, see Julian Temple's documentary "The Filth and the Fury". It's probably the best punk RETROSPECTIVE documentary ever made.

[HEyHEY]

27. Seen it - it was good

I agree with what you said..they made an actual difference...something Backstreet will never do..so people who compare the two are idiots.

However they did get ripped off by their manager.

[nine23]

29. I totally agree. Even with "The Filth and the Fury" years later...

But at the time, we didn't care about the sociological details. We were just so fucking sick of hearing the Allman Brothers and Kansas on the radio.

"They did what they set out to do." For me they certainly did.

[CanuckAmok]

35. On thing in particular has stayed with me.

I was ten in 1977, and was in London for that summer. It was Jubilee Year, and basically what the Labour Government (who were supposed to be about the working class) did, was to take that devastated, bankrupt and decaying society and slap a coat of fresh paint on it for the tourist dollars. They didn't try and remedy any of the nation's ills, they just isolated them into areas away from the world's media, and created a sideshow of horse-drawn parades and Union Jacks everywhere.

The Sex Pistols, and punks in general, were just regular British poor urban kids, and they managed to grab the headlines, with a mantra of "we're ugly, we're poor, we're angry, and we're the future...your future".

It was all about timing. As much as I love the power and the energy of punk music, it really was a style/art movement, not a music movement.

Don Letts' safety-pin through the Queen's Jubilee portrait was genius. There was no way for anyone in the UK to look at the legitimate portrait (which was everywhere, from busses to airplanes)the same way after seeing it as Letts modified it.

[Wat_Tyler]

36. Wasn't it Jamie Reid who did the safety pin portrait?

I know Don Letts was the Roxy DJ, I didn't know he did art also.

[CanuckAmok]

37. Hmmm...now I'll have to go and look it up.

Although Letts was more than a DJ...he even shot a film called "Punk", which is supposedly the first documentary on the subject.


on edit: he also worked at Acme Attractions.

[Wat_Tyler]

38. I think he directed 'Rude Boy' as well.

Not that that's any good, mind.

[CanuckAmok]

40. It probably was Jamie Ried, not that you mention it.

The Letts documentary was called "The Punk Rock Movie" and it centred on an X-Ray Spex concert at the Roxy... Super 8mm.

I'd love to see that, even though I don't like X-Ray Spex.

[nine23]

39. I've even kept all my fanzines from the era. (boxes of 'em)

And I'm not talking Rolling Stone or NME. Really obscure shit from Vancouver, Toronto, NYC, UK, Ireland. I cherish them, keep them stored in plastic. Hilarious to look back.

As I said earlier in this thread, I wouldn't change a thing about my youth.

PRE-AIDS ERA + FREE LOVE + CHICKS IN TORN FISHNETS? AND I'M SIXTEEN? WHAT'S TO CHANGE?

[Skittles]

28. I liked their image but

musically they sucked

[tuvor]

30. They made their point and disintegrated. What more could you ask for?

Except for the great tunes!

The bad thing was their reuniting for the Filthy Lucre tour. I avoided it on purpose, even if there was no way I could have seen them in the old days.

[Joe Power]

31. An amazing record

There isn't a weak track on "Bollocks" and their decision to tour the south on their first (and only) American tour pretty much dismisses the "fake" label,

[nine23]

33. Totally agree. "Fake" in that era was Bay City Rollers.

Sid and Nancy were not fake.