The Sex Pistols had a greater influence on todays Rock than the Beatles did.

[csm]

All new music is constructed out of bits of older music ... and we are influenced, at varying degrees of remove, by music we may actually never have heard. Comparatively few people are, these days, directly influenced by Chuck Berry ... but his influence on the likes of The Beatles, the Stones, AC/DC and many more means that the world would sound incredibly different if he had never lived. F'rinstance, in The Clash Mick Jones played 'Chuck Berry licks' all over the first album ... but in a way that sounded like he'd learned them from listening to Johnny Thunders ... who in turn sounded like HE'd gotten them off Keef.

 

The Pistols' noise was so distinctive that it was instantly recognisable as theirs ... and simultaneously almost completely derivative of The Stooges, The Ramones and The Who. Same applies to The Beatles ... whose early approach was a fusion of rockabilly and Motown, with The Everly Brothers' harmonies and Uncle Chuck's rhythm-guitar chug as the bridging influence.

 

Early, fundamental influences on the music of today may not be easily audible or recognisable ... but if you pull out those foundation stones, the whole enchilada collapses.

 

I raise my morning coffee mug to both The Beatles and the Pistols.

 

(Rotten was Lennon, Glen Matlock was Paul McCartney)

[Surrealistic]

Whilst I can't quite bring myself to agree with the OP, I would say that those who deride the Pistols as "manufactured" or say they couldn't play are, well, just plain wrong.

 

If you take McLaren's version of events as the truth then perhaps I can understand the charge of being manufactured but I think he vastly overstated his role in the band. Seems to me they used him at least as much as he used them.

 

As csm said they were fabulous on stage and totally dispelled any myth that they couldn't play. They were tight, powerful and exciting.

[metalheadUK]

Never mind the bollocks is one of the greatest Rock albums ever.

 

Dont care about the background of the band...they changed my life.

 

The Beatles were OK too...both bands have been a significant influence.

 

[BlackCat]

The Beatles > Ramones > Sex Pistols. Besides, The Beatles were punk before punk was part of the musical lexicon.

 

And before the Beatles there was

 

[Engl Kramer]

OP -Why those two bands anyway?

I love them both and they were obviously very influential but- its a bit of a cliche to award them stupid 'greatest ever' type tags.

There are plenty of other bands and also producers that have been 'influential' in perhaps less obvious ways than units sold or a nice hair-do.

 

CSM- I respectfully disagree about all music deing influenced by earlier artists.

I think that there have been too many generations and combinations of influence for that to be the case.

There surely has to be a point when you can credit a player with originality.

Otherwise all those dance artists who say that rock is dead and guitars are redundant are right.

For example - I fail to see how any Slayer tune relates to anything by the Beatles?

[csm]

 

CSM- I respectfully disagree about all music deing influenced by earlier artists. I think that there have been too many generations and combinations of influence for that to be the case. There surely has to be a point when you can credit a player with originality. Otherwise all those dance artists who say that rock is dead and guitars are redundant are right. For example - I fail to see how any Slayer tune relates to anything by the Beatles?

 

 

The point I was making is that influence travels through many, many musical generations -- like the way that Chuck Berry still influences people who've never heard him through the effect his music had on Stones, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Bowie, AC/DC ... and all those who've been influenced by them, and those who've been influenced by those who've been influenced by them, and so on.

 

The Beatles, Dylan and Hendrix, frinstance, were indeed true originals ... but it's easy to detect who influenced them. It's the way they put all those things together, filtered through their own particular sensibilities, that makes them unique. Nobody had ever fused rockabilly and Motown before The Beatles; nobody ever merged Woody Guthrie, Lightnin' Hopkins and French symbolist poetry before Bob Dylan, nobody ever combined blues, soul, jazz, rock and R&B with Dylanesque lyrics and Beatlesy production the way Hendrix did ... etc., etc, etc. It's EVOLUTION, baby ... DNA keeps recombining to create new and unique people out of the same old genes ... which is EXACTLY what happens to things humans create ... like music.

 

And -- with regard to Slayer -- even if no-one from Slayer had ever heard anything by The Beatles, the punk strand in thrash's DNA relates back to Motorhead and The Ramones ... and Lemmy is a MASSIVE Beatles fan, as were Da Brudders.

[Engl Kramer]

 

The point I was making is that influence travels through many, many musical generations -- like the way that Chuck Berry still influences people who've never heard him through the effect his music had on Stones, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Bowie, AC/DC ... and all those who've been influenced by them, and those who've been influenced by those who've been influenced by them, and so on. The Beatles, Dylan and Hendrix, frinstance, were indeed true originals ... but it's easy to detect who influenced them. It's the way they put all those things together, filtered through their own particular sensibilities, that makes them unique. Nobody had ever fused rockabilly and Motown before The Beatles; nobody ever merged Woody Guthrie, Lightnin' Hopkins and French symbolist poetry before Bob Dylan, nobody ever combined blues, soul, jazz, rock and R&B with Dylanesque lyrics and Beatlesy production the way Hendrix did ... etc., etc, etc. It's EVOLUTION, baby ... DNA keeps recombining to create new and unique people out of the same old genes ... which is EXACTLY what happens to things humans create ... like music. And -- with regard to Slayer -- even if no-one from Slayer had ever heard anything by The Beatles, the punk strand in thrash's DNA relates back to Motorhead and The Ramones ... and Lemmy is a MASSIVE Beatles fan, as were Da Brudders.

 

 

I see what you mean but surely these threads eventually become too tenuous to consider relevant?

The bands may be linked culturally (however distantly) but musically there are no remaining links between Slayer and the Beatles beyond the base ideas of using guitar/drums etc. or even the basic idea of music.

I just can't take the idea seriously that all modern music is eventually derived from monkeys hitting rocks together?!

[knotty]

OP -Why those two bands anyway? I love them both and they were obviously very influential but- its a bit of a cliche to award them stupid 'greatest ever' type tags. There are plenty of other bands and also producers that have been 'influential' in perhaps less obvious ways than units sold or a nice hair-do.

 

I never gave anybody any 'Greatest ever label'

 

Why those 2 bands?

 

I took a Beatles guitar music book to work on while on holiday.

I just watched the 'Pistols' live at Brixton academy (30th Anniversary).

It was a conclusion I came to for myself and just wanted other peoples opinions.

I think it has sparked an interesting debate, which is good yeah?

Making us all think a bit deeper about our music, if just for a while.

[knotty]

I just can't take the idea seriously that all modern music is eventually derived from monkeys hitting rocks together?!

 

Its taking it to an extreme but why not?

You could probably take language back to the same distant roots.

[Kevman]

Says you

[knotty]

 

Says you

 

 

Very insightful.

 

Yous dont says much.

[Engl Kramer]

Its taking it to an extreme but why not? You could probably take language back to the same distant roots.

 

Krikey.

 

What about human behaviour in general then?

Is everything we do copied and learned?

 

What about thought- any of that free?:poke:

[knotty]

Krikey. What about human behaviour in general then? Is everything we do copied and learned? What about thought- any of that free?:poke:

 

Thought can be programmed of course.

 

But it is free. (Best to check with me first though)

[Kevman]

I can only speak for myself. Sex pistols have had absolutely 0 direct influence on anything I write. I know this because I have heard the Sex Pistols only enough to determine that they really weren't my bag. If the bands I have been influenced by were influenced by them I got it indirectly. The Beatles on the other hand probably influenced the Sex Pistols.

 

Sorry, just don't care for them. Not crazy about the Clash either so...If I feel the need to connect to my inner punk,l I tend to turn to the Ramones. Maybe the fact that anarchy is such a horrible idea contributes to my general dismissal of the late 70's punk movement. Angst for the sake of having Angst is what modern punk strikes me as having. May as well be Blink182.

[crowguitar]

regarding the Beatles or Sex Pistols.... my 5 year old knows tons of Beatles tunes, but most people I know, of ANY age, the only song by the Sex Pistols anyone actually sort of knows is "Anarchy in the UK"... besides that they may as well be Miley Cyrus with dyed spiky hair...

[Gumkick]

Krikey. What about human behaviour in general then? Is everything we do copied and learned? What about thought- any of that free?:poke:

 

If you're trying to draw some kind of family tree, like:

 

Beatles>Hollies>Byrds>Eagles>???>Slayer

 

you're going to have a hard time but the Beatles' influence isn't like that. Their continuing success as they evolved and matured, more than their actual music, created like a Cambrian explosion of pop music in the sixties. Cream and Pink Floyd were allowed to put out weird albums and heavy psych and blues rock gave birth to heavy metal which, distilled and flavored with extracts of punk rock, gave us Slayer.

 

The Beatles influence is in everything on some level, and in that sense Elvis is probably their only peer. However the Pistols' influence is similar in a sense, in that it goes way beyond the particulars of their approach.

[PsdoRndNoiseGen]

if you have any doubt about the level of musical influence the beatles had and still have on modern music search you tube for "Howard Goodall Beatles" it's part of a TV series he did about the most influential musicians/composers of the 20th century

[lawnchair]

They were a stunt of course, but the implication that such is somehow inimical to punk rock, or to them being a valid band, is both wrongheaded and historically inaccurate. The Pistols in particular were steeped in Situationist theory, which both McLaren AND Rotten were versed in. The confrontational aspect of Situationism is now, albeit long divorced from it's philosophical roots, one of the pillars of what makes punk rock punk rock. The influence of McLaren, while large, does not detract from the validity of the band and what they were doing. Britrock in particular had had a long history of sometimes extremely "colorful" "empressarios" who rather carefully helped cultivate their bands' images-- the Beatles had their Brian Epstein, the Stones had their Andrew Loog Oldham, and the Who their Kit Lambert. (On the American scene, don't forget Elvis' "Colonel Tom Parker," who was neither a colonel nor actually named Tom Parker, not for that matter even in born in the USA.) Does the existence of these manager types lead us to question the validity of their groups' music? No, nor should it. I'd note that a punk band seen as much more "serious" than the Pistols, and the yin to their yang, the Clash, had their Bernie Rhodes, AND a connexion to a fashion store, Acme Attractions, Don Letts' store that provided the most serious counterpoint to McLaren and Westwood's "Sex" shop. To anyone with a revisionist historical bent claiming the Pistols "weren't punk rock:"

 

My statement about the Sex Pistols not being punk rock may seem harsh, but whenever I see them, its like watching the kids on the Disney Channel dress up like rock stars or something. Its all very cute.

 

And I know the topic is about influence not originality, but everything that SP did had been done before just possibly in slightly different context. When your predecessors include bands like the Stooges, the Dolls, the MC5, Ramones, etc. its kind of hard to be "revolutionary".

[csm]

 

And I know the topic is about influence not originality, but everything that SP did had been done before just possibly in slightly different context. When your predecessors include bands like the Stooges, the Dolls, the MC5, Ramones, etc. its kind of hard to be "revolutionary".

 

 

Just tell me who sang like Rotten before Rotten and we'll declare the matter closed.

[Fulham Fallout]

Just tell me who sang like Rotten before Rotten and we'll declare the matter closed.

 

Screaming Lord Sutch!

 

Only kidding (sort of). The premise of the original thread question is pretty pointless. I love the Beatles massively, but the Sex Pistols changed my life, because as an obnoxious 14 yr old in 1976, they spoke directly to me in a language I could understand. AND they made a BEAUTIFUL noise! Even though they released their recds on major labels, the punk movement as a whole mobilised thousands to make music and get it distributed and heard via the independant labels (Small Wonder, Rough Trade, Raw etc etc and later Fast, Factory, 4AD, et al). Breaking up the stranglehold of the majors is a massively important part of punk's and the Pistols' legacy.

 

Some facts - they weren't 'put together'. Jones, Cook and later Matlock were in an early version of the band (who's name escapes me) with Wally Nightingale. They did one or two gigs then Paul and Steve came to Malcolm's attention via his shop and they added Rotten after auditioning a few singers. In that respect they were no more put together than the Clash who added Woody Mellor, oops - Joe Strummer from the 101'ers after various short-lived incarnations with the likes of Tony James (Generation X), Brian James (Damned) and Rich Dudanski (later PIL, Raincoats). Anyway enough of the punk history lesson.

 

They were well produced when Chris Thomas got his hands on them - Bollocks is a huge sound, but the Dave Goodman demos sound closer to the spirit of punk and show that Jones/Cook/Matlock could all play pretty well. Paul Cook in particular is a tremendously powerful drummer. Steve Jones's stuff is all easy chords and simple riffs, but NOT easy to nail with the swagger that he did. He always sounded good live without the benefit of production and overdubs, which is no mean feat considering the chaos that was often going on around him. Have a listen to a decent quality boot or the Screen on The Green gig that's part of the 3CD box. Top guitarist.

[lawnchair]

I'm noticing a trend.

 

Maybe the real question is does anyone from the US like the Sex Pistols?

[Gumkick]

 

I'm noticing a trend. Maybe the real question is does anyone from the US like the Sex Pistols?

 

 

I like them OK, they're no Wire but they're better than the Clash, if just by virtue of their breaking up before trying to rap.

[3shiftgtr]

The Beatles changed songwriting FORM....The Beatles are the fathers of modern songwriting.....

 

Before the Beatles, song form wise, you basically had the great American songbook, swing, country/folk, blues and 50's rock and roll. The Beatles were the first to bring these elements together in a cohesive way. 16 bar forms, AABA forms, blues forms, etc were morphed in ways never heard before the Beatles. They changed FORM....that makes them the fathers of modern songwriting (that's right, I said it twice)

 

The Pistols were a fabricated concept band that had a major impact in the attitude and perspective of many rock bands that followed.

 

The Pistols were influential on the surface (with attitude etc), but the Beatles are influential at the CORE of how people listen to and perceive popular music through their invention of modern song forms.

 

Both are influential, but the Beatles are more IMPORTANT......

[Hubert Stumblin]

Early, fundamental influences on the music of today may not be easily audible or recognisable ... but if you pull out those foundation stones, the whole enchilada collapses.

 

Dang, Charles. If you're gettin' stones in your enchiladas then you gotta find a better Mexican restaurant. No more take out from El Cafe de Metafora Mixta!

[Preacher]

This seems to me to be a fool's argument, impossible to quantify. The responses seem to fall into 3 different categories:

 

 

 

They're probably all right. I don't understand what the big deal is. I'm as interested in a philosophical discussion of musical influence as the next man, but why shroud it in a silly match between 2 completely groups of artists (yes, I said "artists")?