Pre-Disagreement Chuckle: I hope you, too, find it amusing that you're accusing me of "blinders" about punk when I've just named a punk recording as one of my five most influential albums. Here is my PDC: heh.
Post PDC Disagreement: Okay, I'll give you The Clash. They were and are influential. On the other hand, they came out of punk in roughly the same way that the Beatles came out of skiffle. Both The Clash and the Beatles are important not because of where they started but because they changed and grew over time.
Rock and Roll was a product of the transistor radio. As you note, it started in the Chuck Berry era. Pissed off teenagers have continued to be a major aspect of rock ever since. (And in music before, too; eg Mozart. But that's a different story.)
The capital-P-Punk movement succeeded in its stated goal of keeping wastrels on the dole in pre-Thatcher England. The music was a by-product of the larger movement, and I can't really get beyond the safety-pin-through-the-nose business. Ugh. The whole point of Punk was to be bad and undesirable... and ephemeral.
The music tried to be less ephemeral. Most of the punks claim older rockers as their influence, and I believe them. Current punk-influenced bands can cite who they want, but the roots are obvious to my ear. Where you hear The Stooges, The Buzzcocks and Stiff Little Fingers, I hear Jerry Lee Lewis, The Rolling Stones and early Who. (Not that I've ever heard much of the first three; from what I've heard of the Stooges, I don't want to.)
Debbie Boone's deep catalog continues to sell. I'm happy for her.
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Re: Punk
Date: 2009-04-02 12:23 pm (UTC)Post PDC Disagreement: Okay, I'll give you The Clash. They were and are influential. On the other hand, they came out of punk in roughly the same way that the Beatles came out of skiffle. Both The Clash and the Beatles are important not because of where they started but because they changed and grew over time.
Rock and Roll was a product of the transistor radio. As you note, it started in the Chuck Berry era. Pissed off teenagers have continued to be a major aspect of rock ever since. (And in music before, too; eg Mozart. But that's a different story.)
The capital-P-Punk movement succeeded in its stated goal of keeping wastrels on the dole in pre-Thatcher England. The music was a by-product of the larger movement, and I can't really get beyond the safety-pin-through-the-nose business. Ugh. The whole point of Punk was to be bad and undesirable... and ephemeral.
The music tried to be less ephemeral. Most of the punks claim older rockers as their influence, and I believe them. Current punk-influenced bands can cite who they want, but the roots are obvious to my ear. Where you hear The Stooges, The Buzzcocks and Stiff Little Fingers, I hear Jerry Lee Lewis, The Rolling Stones and early Who. (Not that I've ever heard much of the first three; from what I've heard of the Stooges, I don't want to.)
Debbie Boone's deep catalog continues to sell. I'm happy for her.