When the POLL Comes Down: The Stones' "Some Girls"

someone bringing up corny rock crits lazily parading out the same old boring lines isn't actually a cue for some corny rock crit to lazily parade out the same old boring line.

unless you're lenny and squiggy (or maybe you're chiming in about lenny and the squigtones punk move).

Gotcha -- Unlike people whining about rock critics, which isn't corny or lazy at all. (In fact, it's never been done before, iirc.)

you've been doing that for a living for 25 years also right?

Nope, I just stick to the script.

ppl gotta eat

butthurt is so embarrassing

ppl gotta eat

― balls, Sunday, June 27, 2010

so chew on a dick.

people, people! brothers and sisters! everybody be cool! who's fighting and what for? (Mick Jagger, Altamont)

Queen? Hmmm...not so sure about that one. I don't know their music beyond the radio hits I flee from--I owned Night at the Opera in high school; "You're My Best Friend" still sounds good--so while there may indeed be a song or two on The Game that sounds vaguely punk, I'd be surprised if Freddie Mercury ever saw himself as a punk antecedent (which, for me, would have to be true to throw him in with Iggy and the rest--not even necessarily that he was a punk antecedent, just that he viewed himself that way). I can definitely see where Queen would belong to the whole old-folks-doing-new-wave moment that came along in '80 (Glass Houses, Mad Love), which I see as a connected but separate thing. (Should I be using quotation marks to keep Mr. Balls happy?)

i don't think anyone's arguing that queen were punk antecedents?

i mean there was mention of sheer heart attack in 77 but that was clearly on the bandwagon stuff

I'd be surprised if Freddie Mercury ever saw himself as a punk antecedent

well, does it matter? What matters is if we do.

But it does matter. Lou Reed, Johnny Thunders, the Rolling Stones, etc. all clearly believed they'd been doing punk long before the fact (and for someone like Ray Davies, I think he would have believed he helped shape the sound of punk). So they made music that was a response to their probably conflicted feelings over the Sex Pistols and the rest. If it's someone who doesn't have those conflicted feelings--someone like Freddie Mercury--then you're ascribing a response to him that doesn't exist. (I say this as someone who almost always argues on the side of it's not what the artist intended that matters, it's what I hear. But in this specific case, I think intent matters.)

Totally don't get Clemenza's logic here. The idea that performers who most considered themselves punk antecedents were most likely to be inspired by punk is his theory, not anybody else's here. And why you'd have to consider yourself a punk antecedent to have conflicted feelings about punk in the late '70s is beyond me; maybe you just thought "hey, this is a pretty good idea, to sound like that." (I'm also not sure how, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I'd know who considered themselves punk antecedents, but I doubt that's even relevant here.) In the case of Queen, it's hard for me to listen to "Sheer Heart Attack" (from '77) and think they weren't being inspired by punk somehow -- maybe they just thought "we can do that crap better than those idiots." Which, again, would not require them to think that they, in turn, had inspired said idiots (or non-idiots, whatever) to begin with.

I was specifically referring to your contention that The Game took lessons from punk; you've rather deftly switched over to "Sheer Heart Attack." If you want to connect that to punk, well, sure--I probably wouldn't, but go ahead. But, to reiterate, Street Hassle, So Alone, The Idiot, and David Johansen were all very specific reactions to punk by four people who I'm quite confident believed they invented punk; Some Girls and "Who Are You" were more oblique, but I'm equally confident that their creators felt both liberated and threatened by punk in roughly equal measure, and that punk was very much on their minds when those records were made. Neil Young's always off on his own plane a little bit, but Rust Never Sleeps very much fits in too, and (your idea initially, I believe) I can even see a case for Ray Davies. Do you really want to add Queen's The Game to that list? Freddy Mercury was show business and glamour and Cabaret, and I think your formulation above, that he probably had a kind of contempt for punk--which, whether you love it or hate it, was most definitely not those things--is quite likely the case. Which is fine, but is qualitatively different than what I hear in all those other records.

I hope I'm not being reductive in arguing for the results. If Some Girls, Squeezing Out Sparks, Who Are You, The Game sound punk or are punk-influenced, that's enough. I don't ever trust an artist's intentions.

A long back-and-forth is no way to spend a Sunday evening, so let me put it another way before I go back to my movie. Lou Reed sees the Sex Pistols, is very affected by what he sees (more than he might even be willing to concede), and goes off and writes Street Hassle. That makes sense to me. Freddie Mercury sees the Sex Pistols, is very affected by what he sees, and, after a couple of years of mulling things over, he goes off and writes..."Crazy Little Thing Called Love"? If you two guys sincerely believe that, then, well, we just disagree.

But would you say, "Paul McCartney sees the Sex Pistols, is very affected by what he sees (more than he might even be willing to concede), and goes off and writes `Getting Closer.' That makes sense to me"?

I'm not being glib. "Getting Closer" to my ears is as hard as "Junior's Farm" or "Girls Schoo" -- which is to say, not particularly punk or punk-influenced, but part of Wings' tuffer catalogue.

It's up to the critic to make the case. Rod Stewart's "Young Turks" totally sounds like he's attempting New Wave, but I'm willing to read someone else cite, I dunno, "Ain't Love a Bitch" or "Passion."

I don't think I know that song...so I'm not even sure what you mean! Generally speaking, I think the ex-Beatles were unusually immune to most everything that happened after their break-up, sometimes to their credit, sometimes to their detriment. (And not always--I can hear glam in some of their '72-'74 stuff.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G59EpuqmHs

Thanks. Pretty good song, though I much prefer "Junior's Farm," probably my favourite Wings single. Do I think "Getting Closer" has anything to do with punk? No--it's just Paul being Paul! Which is kind of my argument; if someone tried to sell me on the idea of "Getting Closer" as a response to punk, that just wouldn't make sense to me.

And let me add (every time I want out, they pull me back in) I totally agree that it's up to the critic to make the case. But making the case is more than just asserting something to be true. If you or Chuck can make a convincing case that The Game is a response to punk, I'm willing to listen. It'll have to be a very good case. So far I haven't heard it.

Only Geir Hongro can resolve this very complicated issue.

Thanks. Pretty good song, though I much prefer "Junior's Farm," probably my favourite Wings single. Do I think "Getting Closer" has anything to do with punk? No--it's just Paul being Paul!

oh yeah I totally agree. But watching that video (skinny ties! shorter hair!) and listening to the song (clipped rhythms!) you would be forgiven for thinking, "Hey, it's 1979, and Paul is obviously influenced by punk." Like I said above, it doesn't sound much different from what he'd tried for years (and he was always a super-sponge: do you think "Goodnight Tonight" sounds like any disco you and I know?).

you've rather deftly switched over to "Sheer Heart Attack."

No, actually (as somebody else pointed out a few posts up) I mentioned that song here on this thread long before I mentioned the The Game (and you also mentioned Night At The Opera in the post in which you more or less shrugged the band off, so I didn't realize '70s Queen's apparently punk influences were suddenly off limits.) As for The Game, as I said before, there do seem to be new wave influences there (and sure, doing a rockabilly song in 1980 might well be one part of it.) Though I think I've lost track by now of why exactly that matters. (I could also argue that Mercury could well have thought the nihilism of "nothing really matters to me" in "Bohemian Rhapsody" in 1975 was somehow an emotional antecedent to "no future for you" or whatever -- in fact, I may have made that connection in a book once. Or maybe he didn't. But again, whether he did is kind of immaterial.)

By the way, I'm not sure I understand how, e.g., Street Hassle (which I admittedly haven't heard in a long time) or David Johansen (which, if anything, has basically struck me as a less ferocious version of what he'd early done with the Dolls) are "specific reactions to punk." But I'll take your word, if they sound like that to you.

I missed it earlier, but rockabilly formed a crucial part of the punk/New Wave ethos. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" doesn't sound any crazier than Elvis C and the Clash's experiments, not to mention the Polecats and Stray Cats a few years later.

I still think you're making my case for me. You're saying that "Getting Closer" has some of the superficial signs of having been punk-influenced--something I'll readily concede with regards to The Game, and probably a ton of other stuff from that time--but really isn't punk-influenced at all, it's just Paul doing what he'd always been doing. Yes. Whereas with Street Hassle and the rest, I believe the connection to punk goes much deeper than the superficial.

(Fwiw, I'd say I hear more Cars or even, uh, Flying Lizards -- again, see "Another Ones Bites The Dust", which is a weird, spare dance-oriented rock track, unlike anything Queen had done before -- on The Game than the Pistols or Ramones. But inasmuch as the Cars and Flying Lizards would probably have been unthinkable for lots of people without punk happening, I don't think that evolutionary line doesn't matter. Should also mention, what the hell, that I haven't played The Game in a while, and could be totally wrong. I'm not even saying it's an especially good record or anything. But as with lots of proggy bands tightening up in the early '80s, I always detected a new wave influence there; didn't even think that was controversial. Favorite song, "Dragon Attack," is probably more funk-metal actually.)

The new-wave angle, absolutely. I conceded that upthread. So maybe we're really into one of those pointless is-it-punk-or-is-it-new-wave? arguments here, which I've often made fun of in the past, even though sometimes I think it's a meaningful distinction, like right here.

x(And I mean, obviously "Another One Bites The Dust" is a mainly a Chic ripoff. But it doesn't especially sound like Chic, as a whole, or even like '70s Queen ripping off Chic. It sounds like something totally new.)

Does it? From the unfunky bass to the shouted gibberish it reminds me of mid-period Roxy Music (not necessarily an insult, mind you).

Anyway, you've both convinced me. I was surprised last year when my "I Invented This Stuff" poll didn't generate more than the dozen or so votes that it did, but I realize now that my own shortsightedness was the problem. I'm going to repost tomorrow, and you can vote for either Lou Reed's Street Hassle, Iggy Pop's The Idiot, Johnny Thunders' So Alone, David Johansen, or Queen's The Game. I'm out of here!

Some of you guys hate romance, I'm sad for you

You can't make shit like this up

"Queen and The Sex Pistols were recording albums in London's West End when Sid Vicious wandered into the wrong studio to find Mercury alone at the piano. 'Ah, Freddie Mercury, still bringing ballet to the massses are you?' hissed Vicious. 'Oh yes, Mr Ferocious, dear,' Mercury bit back. 'We are doing our best.'"

welcome back!

I'll just add that were I ever to compile a CDR of "punk songs which predate punk," this would be in there, for sure (though I might want to fade it before the proggy bit).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdUKi3_QntE

[BTW, that's from 1974]

Also, Queen did their "God Save The Queen" more than a year before the Pistols one, right?

Sounds familiar, but I'm hazy on that.

Would you guys not agree (excuse me if this point has already been raised) that virtually all mid-70s glitter rockers can claim at least SOME credit for how punk ended up sounding? Queen seemed to flit back and forth between glitter and prog, and they undoubtedly landed much more frequently in the latter camp than in the former, but, as maybe "Brighton Rock" attests, at least, they weren't immune to a certain strain of musical chaos.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Queen and The Sex Pistols were recording albums in London's West End when Sid Vicious wandered into the wrong studio to find Mercury alone at the piano. 'Ah, Freddie Mercury, still bringing ballet to the massses are you?' hissed Vicious. 'Oh yes, Mr Ferocious, dear,' Mercury bit back. 'We are doing our best.'

this is totally made up

Sid's dead, Freddie's dead, and they were alone together - who's doing the quoting?

Or maybe there wasn't anyone sitting at the piano with him.

after careful deliberation - listened to the album over the weekend - voting "when the whip comes down." but the whole holds up while being SO of its time w/o sounding dated. (every college party I attended in 1978 featured this LP & talking heads "buildings & food" and DEVO!) guitar sound is crisp & funky: arguably the last all-out stones classic.

'When I die I'll go to heaven, cause I've spent my time in hell' is cribbed from a Korean war vet motto, isn't it?
― calstars, Friday, June 25, 2010 8:04 PM

It may well be an Army thing from way back, but it was definitely used by guys in Vietnam - I distinctly remember the slogan being referenced in Michael Herr's "Dispatches" which came out in '77.

http://www.vspa.com/images-zippo/zippo-bt-levinson-2-1969-1970.jpg

http://www.camosurplus.com/images/tour_jackets/vietnam_qui_nhon.jpg