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let’s compare
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+sex+pistols+top+songs
vs
https://www.google.co/search?q=the+monkees+top+songs
I guess I have to slightly give it to the Pistols, but it’s pretty close actually. And anyway I like the Monkees better as people.
What was it Vonnegut said about being careful what you pretend to be? The Pistols pretended to be stupid jerks who didn’t like anyone, not even themselves, and the Monkees pretended to be personable humble people who liked to have fun and generally be pleasant and unoffensive. It’s true I may be more of a Pistol but some times I really wish I was able to be a Monkee.
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Might have been better if literally every other post wasn’t already a variation on that… but then again, I like the Monkees and the Sex Pistols…
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I’ve never understood why the Ramones get so much praise. They made some catchy songs. But I never felt like they did more than that. And that is fine. Plenty of bands are just entertaining.
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Meh; turns out that guy pictured is actually a douche who believes his own hype.
I’ll take an honest annoying asshole over a fake ‘Nice Guy’ opportunist, any day of the week.
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I always liked them, but I got to see them in 1996 and better understood why people loved them so much… They were amazing to see live, even though they were all well into their late 50s by that point. I’d say the same about Bauhaus, too. Seeing them live when they toured in 98 really cemented what made them great.
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And then there was the time that the Sex Pistols covered the Monkees.
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Some books on subcultures and punk (focused primarily on the London scene) that some of you might like to read:
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I had a few close friends in high school that were obsessed with them. I just never felt a connection with the music. It was nice well crafted songs. But it didn’t make me want to dance like a spaz or swell with joy or headbang in my car or swoon with love… it was just nice music that played and then I forgot about it immediately. But I never saw them live. I’m not criticizing them as musicians just saying as a listener I never had the deep response that some others did.
Those same friends had the same love for Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. And I had the same response of meh. I could see why they liked them but they just never had the emotional impact I look for.
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Oh, I understand! I was just telling you my experience of them. I’d still take the Sex Pistols over them, TBH. It’s a nice reminder that musical tastes are (like all art) deeply subjective, what speaks to you won’t necessarily speak to me… seems to be quite a few folks in this thread who have forgotten that! 
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…playing amped-up Chuck Berry.* I remember someone suggesting that Sonic Youth’s Confusion Is Sex should be considered the first punk album, given its more original stylistic leap. I might’ve said the same about PiL’s Metal Box (while also realizing that that wasn’t the point of the Sex Pistols).
*IIRC, that’s all that Lemmy ever claimed that Motörhead was doing.
I guess that depends on how you define punk?
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The ‘98 Bauhaus tour was a real treat. Seeing them play “Telegram Sam” live was the highlight of the night for me. One of my favorite songs of all time.
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Yes, that is what I was trying careful to convey. Just because they didn’t spark a fire in my head or heart doesn’t take a way from other people that they had a major impact on.
It’s funny, because with both of the bands I mentioned I appreciated their technical skills. But I struggle to understand why some bands effect me profoundly while other, very talented get a tepid response.
The Sex Pistols may have been built rather than organically formed but when I first heard them, they exploded my world permanently. Whatever the intent behind them was, way back then, it was a profound experience for me. For me punk was the start of the journey. I spent less than a year listening exclusively to punk and then branched out in every direction possible and never looked back.
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Yeah, except for me it was more goth/industrial and I branched out (and back) from there.
Roger that! It was great live!
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That’s where I went after punk. I didn’t take me long to go from seeing punk smashing the constraints of main stream, to seeing the many constraints punk still had. Goth/industrial/new wave collectively connected more with the emotions and ideas about the self and mind and sexuality I was having than punk had for me.
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Word, I get ya on that! Goths had their own bit of hang ups, too. Pretty much any subcultural group concerned with infiltration from outside are going to end up like that. But yeah, especially with the advent of second wave punk (hardcore), it was a far more masculine, macho scene… which was disappointing. Viv Albertine talks about some of the gender/sexuality stuff in her book:
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I’m glad you mentioned that. Originally when I got into the scene, it was all of us weird kids against the world. Fast forward several years later some of us (including me) were exploring a blend of masculine and feminine traits and emotions while the others had shaved heads or military hair cuts and solved everything with threats and fists.
There was a lot of homophobic name calling. Some people got jumped by former friends. After a major stand off between maybe a dozen of us one day I just realized the skater/punks had become alt jocks. As we all diverged, the music score in the background diverged as well.
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Yeah, I wasn’t comparing the Sex Pistols to the Monkees to diminish either of them. I like to listen to them way more than to people who don’t get them at all. I just felt people’s reactions to them are similar.
They both had elements of self-reference that people got really mad at, because people resent too much untidy three-dimensionality and myth-breaking.
They’re music fans that want to stay tight in the sweet spot of having plausible deniability of the fakeness of pro wrestling.
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