The band who killed punk, according to Paul Weller
One night in London, Sex Pistols guitarist Glen Matlock was giving a talk on the punk movement as a whole, during which he said that the Ramones, after The Beatles, were the most important band of all time.
We can debate how correct or incorrect this statement might be until the final guitar string on a battered Stratocaster snaps, but regardless of whether you agree wholeheartedly or not, you have to concede that he has a point. The Ramones brought with them not just an excited and exuberant sound, but also a stage presence that was unlike anything people had seen prior, one which was littered with chaos and excitement.
In the same vein, punk is one of the most important genres of music that has poked its nose into the mainstream. While the peak of punk might have come and gone quite quickly, there are still plenty of ways that the unique and rebellious sound can be heard in modern music. Whether we are talking about political bands or just the attitude of some artists, punk is alive and well, and its influence remains pretty unmatched.
There are plenty of bands that helped push punk music onto the masses and show people just how much of an impact it could truly have. These include the likes of Sex Pistols, The Buzzcocks, and of course, The Jam, a massive part of whom was Paul Weller. A lot of the punk bands that made a name for themselves around the time the genre was developing have been lost in time because they stayed so strictly close to that original punk sound. Paul Weller did no such thing.
He was a guitarist who was constantly looking for different ways that he could evolve his instrument and his playing style, something which is important to do when it comes to having longevity as a musician. However, whilst you evolve and develop, you also need to stay somewhat true to the style that people associate you with in the first place. In the case of Paul Weller, this meant making music that may sound different to his previous project, but still has that punk energy, venom and authenticity.
The minute a punk band starts to present themselves as anything other than authentic, they lose what it means to be punk. Paul Weller believes that it was when icons of the genre, The Clash, started doing this that the genre itself started to well and truly dwindle. It wasn’t that they had become a bad band, but they were acting like any other rock outfit, and that lack of individuality was a problem.
“When did punk go wrong?” Said Weller, “When The Clash became just like any other rock band. All those pictures of them in biker jackets with their hands in their pockets, like, ‘We might be holding a gun’. Or a fucking water pistol.”
There are little to no rules when it comes to punk; the genre has always and will always remain pretty elusive in that sense. However, one of the most commonly held values amongst lovers of the genre is that bands and artists need to be putting forward the most authentic version of themselves. When The Clash stopped doing this, Paul Weller knew that everyone was in danger of losing sight of themselves.
