The singer Patti Smith and Iggy Pop agreed was the greatest of all time
Burning down the musical establishment and rebuilding from the rubble, punk rock changed the rock and roll landscape forever, but its origin story is as chaotic and conflict-ridden as the average CBGB moshpit. Only one thing is certain: without Iggy Pop and Patti Smith, there would be no punk rock.
Depending on who you ask, punk rock had its roots in the Beat generation, the shock rock of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, or even the anti-war movement of the hippie age. Whatever the truth of the matter, the DIY ethos of punk was definitely forged during the garage rock boom of the mid-1960s, which birthed a litany of raw, energetic, grassroots rock and roll, including the endearingly abrasive sounds of Iggy Pop and The Stooges.
Offering an otherworldly alternative to the ‘peace and love’ attitudes of the Woodstock era, The Stooges reflected the darkness, alienation, and amphetamine habits of a new generation. Although the band never really troubled the mainstream charts, their trailblazing sound seemed to find the audiences who needed it most, including Patti Smith.
In the grimy Taxi Driver-esque streets of early 1970s New York, Smith was a true original, and she didn’t much fancy going along with the pithy pop rock sounds of the day. Instead, she made the East Side CBGB club a Mecca for the other outcasts, misfits, and DIY devotees of the city. In 1975, by which time The Stooges had already dissipated in a puff of funny-smelling smoke, Smith’s album Horses laid the core foundations for the global punk rock revolution, and nothing would ever be quite the same again.
Over the many decades that have passed since the people of New York first started spiking their hair and sticking safety pins through their noses, both Smith and Pop have been elevated to elder statespeople of punk rock, like guerrilla revolutionaries being given honorary positions in newly established states. To their credit, too, both have demonstrated an unwavering ability to keep their ears to the ground, lending their support to up-and-coming voices within the realm of punk and DIY music.
You would be forgiven for thinking, therefore, that if you asked both of these punk forefathers for their take on the all-time greatest performers, you would be returned a list of iconic or obscure figures from across the history of punk rock rebellion. In actual fact, when Rolling Stone asked a wealth of different performers for their list of greatest singers in history, both Smith and Pop had the same name at the top of their lists: Elvis Presley.
On one hand, the sequined jumpsuits and Las Vegas residencies of Presley’s later years arguably represented the antithesis of the punk scene which Smith and Pop had helped to establish, so he was potentially an unexpected pick from them both. Nevertheless, even the most ardent of punk purists surely couldn’t deny the importance and impact of Presley on the early days of rock ‘n’ roll.
Presley might not have been the first rock and roller to hit the airwaves, but he was essential in spreading the gospel of that cultural rebellion far and wide across the world, inspiring the likes of Iggy Pop and Patti Smith in the process. So, although it would pain any punk to admit, without Elvis, there might never have been The Stooges, The Patti Smith Group, or the trailblazing abrasion of the punk rock explosion.
