Quote:
Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Why is it that being a pioneer is so often confused with being among the best in one's chosen endeavor? Just like your first high school sex, the first is usually not the best. Things tend to get better as you build upon the model.
I didn't say the Ramones were not important or innovative. I said they weren't as talented or as good as the critics claim. It is noteworthy that the Ramones were pioneers, but that fact neither refutes nor addresses my point. They just couldn't hold a candle to the Clash or the Pistols.
I fully recognize that its popular to overstate the Ramones influence at the moment while downplaying the Pistols'. I don't know why that's become religion among the critics lately, but my guess is it has to do with speaking positively of the dead, and the fact that Johnny Rotten routinely calls critics asses and claims to have always wanted to "sell out" anyway. I guess that makes the crityics a bit angry, since it makes them look foolish for all those articles lauding the Pistols as revolutionaries.
Critics are asses. I'm not being a critic here. I just don't like the Ramones and offered some facts about why I don't like them and they're not as good as some of their contemporaries.
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I wasn't confusing the issue, but when you frame the argument this way, you might as well argue about which ice cream is better, chocolate or vanilla, because you are simply arguing matters of taste.
I offered one reason why the band means something. They basically created a fucking idiom. Someone needed to build the model before it could be "improved" upon.
And maybe you need to define "talented" and "good" then, because none of the bands that you mentioned are going to ever be considered models of musicianship. You want to get into a discussion over the relative merits of Joey Ramone, Johnny Rotten and Strummer and/or Jones as
singers? Or maybe your complaint is about "message," if that's important to you. One band was better at conveying the alienation of young people than the others? You're nuts.
I was neither overstating the importance of the Ramones or downplaying the importance of the Pistols. Each was important in their own way.
This
is your argument. You don't like them and offered your
opinion as to why you don't. Anybody who disagrees with you must be wrong. Chocolate/Vanilla.
