The classic rock band Patti Smith said were “spoiled kids”
If there was one cardinal rule surrounding every punk rocker in their prime, it was the importance of credibility. Most of the mohawk crowd could pick out the posers within the first few seconds of them being onstage, and while Patti Smith may have predated the punk movement by a few years, she knew the difference between musicians and attention-seekers.
But Smith was never one to play up her musical credentials by any stretch. She relied on her voice to get her through some of her best songs, and while she always fashioned herself as a poet rather than a singer, there was no doubt that people could feel every single word she sang when she cranked out Horses or Easter. Somewhere in between the punk movement and the art rock prime of New York City, though, Ramones were already setting the stage for what the movement would become.
Clad in denim jackets and torn-up jeans, Joey Ramone practically invented the uniform that any punk rocker could look like on their debut album. It was a while before the rest of the world caught on, but even when they were playing pop songs, hearing them play at a thousand miles an hour whenever they stormed onto the stage was what made rock and roll feel exciting again after putting up with progressive rock bullshit.
This was the kind of approach to rock and roll that Smith thrived on, but people forget that punk rock had two different births. Although Ramones officially started the movement from New York, it took a while before reaching the opposite side of the pond, but when Sex Pistols started to take over every single tabloid in England, they weren’t exactly Smith’s idea of what punk should be.
Her whole process seemed to have more to do with free expression, and while John Lydon did indeed express himself, it felt like more of a performance even when he was off the stage. No man can remain that angry forever, and despite having some fairly decent music under his belt, Smith had to admit that most of what Lydon was doing felt like it was all for show rather than coming from the heart.
As far as punk is concerned, passion is everything, and all Smith could see was a bunch of adolescent angst being channelled on the spot whenever Sex Pistols played, saying, “I thought the Sex Pistols were great dressers who had great energy but were really spoiled kids. I liked them, though. But I think that their next duty is to do something positive about it — to see what they can change. They have to make their complaints, spit on it all and transform it into something positive. And I don’t know if the Sex Pistols have transformed anything into anything positive.”
And while Lydon did seem to understand the idea of needing to change, the real tragedy is the fact that Sid Vicious never bothered to learn about musical evolution. He was content to be a degenerate for the rest of his life, and while he did go out like the punk version of Elvis Presley for many people, the mythology surrounding him shouldn’t discount the fact that he lost his soul to being a junkie.
That’s probably why some of the greatest successors to people like Smith are the ones that are using their position for change, whether that’s Green Day rallying against Bush in the 2000s or the riot-grrrl movement giving a voice to feminist rights. It’s one thing to be able to get your foot in the door, but the minute that music gets a platform, it’s the artist’s duty to try and use that power for good.
