How the Sex Pistols inspired Neil Young’s greatest reinvention: “He pissed off a lot of people”
Punk music was born out of a newfound hatred for overcomplicated rock, a disgust of pretentious music, and a rejection of societal values, where people were no longer spending hours at mixing desks trying to perfect a guitar tone or pondering over pads of paper trying to pen poignant lyrics.
Instead, songs were bashed out quickly, anger and energy lay at their centre, and they provided audiences with a much-needed aggressive release, which a lot of people loved.
They felt that this new sound was the kind of shift that the music industry desperately needed. People weren’t relying on complicated recording techniques, but instead, it was time to go back to an era where bands would jam and songs would be recorded within a matter of moments.
However, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, given this was such a new musical direction for a lot of people, there were plenty of listeners who absolutely detested the sound. They felt that this back-to-basics approach wasn’t a sign of rebellion, but was instead lacking any and all kinds of substance. A lot of singer-songwriters turned their noses up at the sound, saying it didn’t really offer the listener anything.
David Crosby, for instance, wasn’t a fan of this new style of music stemming from London. When he was asked on social media if he wanted to share his thoughts on the genre, he simply responded with “no”. Before adding that it was “pretty much all dumb stuff” with “no musical value at all and mostly childish lyrics”.
Interestingly, though, one of his songwriting counterparts and former bandmates, Neil Young, was quite a big fan of what punk bands were doing. His opinion on the sound itself isn’t made clear, but he liked the fact it shook up the industry a great deal. Young always despised people trying to get too involved with his work, whether that was having input on the sound itself, how an album should be created, or when an album should be released.
Young wanted to crack on with his work and go where the wind of inspiration took him. Too often were the sails brought down, and the ship left stagnant thanks to record executives meddling with things. The back-to-basics approach that punk inspired gave Young a new sense of fire, one that allowed him to take advantage of the new urgency within the music industry. This all ultimately led to the creation of his record, Rust Never Sleeps, as the entire theme of the album revolved around how it was better for artists to burn out from doing too much than to sit around doing too little.
“I never met Johnny Rotten, but I like what he did to people,” said Young, “He pissed off a lot of people who I think needed waking up. Rock ‘n’ roll people, who in the ’70s were asleep and thinking they were just so fucking cool, and they knew what had to happen. They were telling me why don’t you make a real record. People became aware that there was more to it than perfection and overdubs.”
He continued, “I think art is a private thing. I’m not sharing my creative moment with whoever’s in the hallway. Rust implies you’re not using anything, that you’re sitting there and letting the elements eat you. Burning up means you’re cruising through the elements so fucking fast that you’re actually burning, and your circuits, instead of corroding, are fucking disintegrating.”
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