Music Critic Calls The Clash “Lame”
Apparently, The Clash suck. So does Metallica, Nirvana, The Doors, The Beatles… some of the most influential and well-known bands in the world.
I’m not sure if MSNBC contributor Dave White was attempting to be humorous with “The rock ‘n’ roll hall of lame”, but if so, I’m afraid he fell ridiculously short.
Let’s forget for a moment that he had something negative to say about practically every band that mattered to their respective scenes.
Mr. White doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
His commentary is a bunch of fluff that doesn’t truly focus on the musical output, but rather the circumstances surrounding the bands.
For example, this is what he had to say about The Clash:
“…it’s not so much their music that irritates as it is the chorus of hosannas that, 30 years later, still follows them around like a car alarm that won’t shut off.”
It’s not the music? Then don’t put them on a contrived list of bands that suck. Let’s completely overlook the fact that The Clash were one of the most highly influential punk bands to hit the UK scene… ever.
Not to mention the scores of bands that followed afterward who clearly took their inspiration from The Clash, who helped to bring punk music forward into the mainstream.
I realize this was a commentary piece. But next time, I think Mr. White needs to realize that just because a certain band might be popular does not automatically make them fodder for a “Lame” list.
9 Comments
The Clash are a fricking awesome band, the guy is talking crap!
Their sound was ahead of it’s time and a lot of their songs are still relevant today.
Agreed! I don’t think the guy knows anything about The Clash… or the punk genre, at that!
“still follows them around like a car alarm that won’t shut off.”
Good lord… who is this moron?
They aren’t the Grateful Dead––the Clash broke up 25 years ago!
Well, to be fair the Clash ran down their fair share of great bands: the Beatles, Led Zep, Rolling Stones.
Actually punk in general ran down some pretty amazing bands and we’re partially responsible for turning them to syrup eg Genesis – once were a great band then punk came along slagged them off, so in response Genesis turned into absolute garbage, and started Phil Collins crummy career. Thats the reason why Led Zep’s last album was pretty poor because the Clash ran them down and made them ‘uncool’ at the time. So frankly I don’t care about the Clash being run down it serves them right for trying to destroy so many incredible, adventurous bands and turning them into MOR syrupy pop.
MD,
Thank you for your reply. However I will respectfully disagree with you – I do not believe the Clash “ran down” any bands during that time period.
The Clash were instrumental in the formation of punk, which it appears you aren’t a fan of to begin with. If anything, punk was “uncool” and, if you recall, was not considered part of the mainstream for some time.
DSHIVELY, I respect your level headed response and will take your opinion into account when looking at music history this is the image in my mind so far: a muddled one, but the Clash did ridicule Led Zep, A lot of punks also we’re closet prog rock fans because it was unfashoinable, Prog rock was considered boring and self indulgant, yet its funny at the same time they like Van der graff generator, Henry Cow, Hawkwind, Gong, Neu! and Can. Siousix and the Banshees were heavily influenced by prog acts such as Henry Cow and Rush but the Siousix stated -”If I had my way I’d have Genesis torched” – not really promising for a prog band.
It was a strange period for music, Johnny rotted claimed he hated prog yet after the Sex Pistols broke up he tried to join the German prog band Can, they also tried to get Syd Barrett to sing with the Pistols,only recently did John Lyndon admit he liked some of Genesis. Many prog rock bands and classic rock bands had to transfer into new wave or dissappear, the results were disasterous eg, the Who’s, Yes, Jethro Tull, Genesis post punk albums are just plain embarrasing, but they had to to survive, I mean thats why 80s Genesis is such crap.
RIO -(Rock In Opposition) was formed in the late 70s by Communist prog acts to face the crisis of rejection of labels more interested in punk rock, this stuff was the unfashoinable edgy political music that was ignored by the mainstream. If you recall the Sex Pistols debut did go NO# 1 on the charts.
I’d like nothing more than clarity on the late 70s music its seems such a confusing period, eg Talking Heads were considered Punk but yet were also considered “Artsy and Intellectual” at the same time?
I wish music history could be more straight foreward.
Eg Prog was considered lyrically to ba away with the fairies but as I said earlier there were plenty of political prog bands and plenty of political prog songs, as I mentioned earlier the insane anarchic music of Henry Cow, was all about communism, Genesis had a song called the knife about the unnecessary violence that revolutions cause, the drummer of Soft Machine Robert Wyatt was an open communist, German prog/ Krautrock (an enormous in fluence on punk) were all strongly left wing.
So I’m confused about it all really, its all up in the air about punk and prog etc to me, some of them sound so alike you can’t tell them apart yet they were both supposed to hate each other.
Also don’t forget the Clash did say “No Beatles no Rolling Stones by 1984″
And wasn’t the original bass player from the Pistls kicked out because “He liked the Beatles”
[...] may recall the post I did awhile back, when a music critic called The Clash “lame.” If you don’t, that’s why I linked it for [...]
THE CLASH SUCK! There are many people who have been creative with the chord 1, 4 and 5 format that the clash and lots of bands before them heavily rely on e.g Ramones Daniel Johnston but the clash are not in this group of people. Sure they influenced a shitload of bands but how many good bands? Green day? The Living end? a bunch of bands whose only ambition was to do their hair all nice, get paid and get told by arenas of screaming idiots that they’re the best thing since sliced bread. Joe Strummer’s voice irritates the fuck out of me. There’s always been something that strikes me as really fake about it. His lyrics are really cheesy, ridiculously sentimental and not provocative at all unlike the far more superior Sex pistols. They’re so sincere.