Sex pistols vs stooges
- Thread starter luka
- Start date
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
Pistols
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Love them both to death but it has to be the stooges. I still can't shake the feeling I had when I finally got hold of a copy of Raw Power after reading about the stooges so much, and it actually exceeding my expectations. Then when I finally got funhouse (which took a fair bit of tracking down in the 90s) and that deadly riff from 'down in the street' kicked in, I was like, this is the coolest sounding record I've ever heard.
Whereas the pistols were just kind of always there, I didn't have to go looking for them. Everyone knows anarchy in the uk and Pretty vacant. So when I heard bollocks for the first time it didn't really have the same impact on me. And, as far as albums go, I think I prefer the clash's debut to the pistols', even though I think the pistols were the better band overall.
I'm probably not alone in preferring PiL to the pistols actually.
Whereas the pistols were just kind of always there, I didn't have to go looking for them. Everyone knows anarchy in the uk and Pretty vacant. So when I heard bollocks for the first time it didn't really have the same impact on me. And, as far as albums go, I think I prefer the clash's debut to the pistols', even though I think the pistols were the better band overall.
I'm probably not alone in preferring PiL to the pistols actually.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
Stooges were better than the pistols, but if the question was 'Lydon or Pop?', I'd go for the former, if that makes sense.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
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No challenge tbh.
No challenge tbh.
Leo
Well-known member
love them both but it's the stooges for me.
stooges were original nihilistic drug-crazed wild men, the pistols were a prefab boy band invented by mclaren in ripped t-shirts (style stolen from richard hell) and naughty words.
that said, the pistols had a greater impact on society at the time. hardly anyone knew the stooges during their three-album career (not counting the later reunion stuff), certainly not mainstream music fans and just regular people in general, whereas the pistols were in the charts and tabloids and on TV.
stooges were like the velvets: tremendous impact on music but all well after the fact, very few paid attention at the time.
stooges were original nihilistic drug-crazed wild men, the pistols were a prefab boy band invented by mclaren in ripped t-shirts (style stolen from richard hell) and naughty words.
that said, the pistols had a greater impact on society at the time. hardly anyone knew the stooges during their three-album career (not counting the later reunion stuff), certainly not mainstream music fans and just regular people in general, whereas the pistols were in the charts and tabloids and on TV.
stooges were like the velvets: tremendous impact on music but all well after the fact, very few paid attention at the time.
It was that constant lauding of the Stooges as "nihilistic", "drug-crazed" and "wild" that baffled me when I got round to finally hearing "Funhouse" and "Metallic KO". Which just sound like stodgy barroom blues recorded through a wall.
"Raw Power" is a great album though, mainly thanks to James Williamson playing guitar like a Vietnam vet going mental in a crowded shopping centre, but the first two LPs are way over-rated, leaden and boring. Stooges should have given "I Wanna Be Your Dog" to a better band.
Anyway Iggy was a genuine hippy into macrobiotic diets, and the Stooges had long hair and no Jamie Reid, so Sex Pistols win.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Re: the wildness and nihilism, perhaps this was a reputation more based on their live shows than their albums? I've read plenty about how Iggy would writhe around in broken glass on stage and fire ping pong balls from his arsehole into the drummer's face to catch him off guard and keep the rhythm section interesting.
Yeah, that might well be true.
It's just that after reading stuff like this
To be fair though, I've got a Pistols bootleg from '76 in Manchester (the same night I was born, that legendary Free Trade Hall gig) - musically it just sounds like a very typical and bland pub rock covers band (with all the Small Faces, Who numbers, etc) - even the versions of Pretty Vacant and Did You No Wrong just sound like an average 70s pub group; amazing to think everyone who saw this performance claims it changed their lives.
It's just that after reading stuff like this
I was expecting something that sounded like a Whitehouse gig, rather than sloopy boogie-woogie on a run-down tape recorder.
To be fair though, I've got a Pistols bootleg from '76 in Manchester (the same night I was born, that legendary Free Trade Hall gig) - musically it just sounds like a very typical and bland pub rock covers band (with all the Small Faces, Who numbers, etc) - even the versions of Pretty Vacant and Did You No Wrong just sound like an average 70s pub group; amazing to think everyone who saw this performance claims it changed their lives.
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Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I had the same experience with Metallic KO, totally overrated. You can't even really hear the supposedly angry crowd of Hells Angels baying for Iggy's blood. The addition of a piano player was definitely uncalled for too.
Funhouse is genuinely unhinged though, theres no way you can just lump it in with the admittedly fairly stodgy-in-places debut
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
even mick hucknall was there!
I'll have to check it out again - I just remember it sounding really muffled, like someone had run the tape under water? And then some long track that defeated me.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Is it this one?
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Hard to judge this cos the sound quality is awful, but does Rotten/Lydon really sound like a typical bland pub rock singer on here? I don't think the band were ever that special or different musically, it was Rotten who made the difference with his weird voice and appearance. The attitude in a performance can't be captured on tape, necessarily.
Also it's the context we can't necessarily empathise with, isn't it? In the same way impressionism paintings which look like tea-towel fodder these days were once considered extremely shocking and even offensive.
