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Had this conversation with a friend today as we sat through "End of the Century." I love love LOVE the Ramones -- they helped get me through high school and I was even fortunate enough to have seen them play 2wice (great, but still no Rocket From the Tombs) -- but I've gotta give the edge to the Pistols. I mean, the Ramones were great at what they did, but what they did seemed to me more about musical sensationalism than anything as epic as what the Pistols managed to accomplish. Which isn't to say that a song like "Chinese Rocks" or anything else the Ramones did isn't profound (the couplet "the plaster's falling off the wall / and my girlfriend's crying in the shower stall" may be my favorite in all of rock), but that stuff just pales for me next to something as horrifying as the vapidity depicted in "Pretty Vacant" or the mass ignorance in "God Save the Queen" ("they [the monarchy/gov't] made you [everybody] a moron / and England's dreaming [the world is asleep at the wheel]"). That Pistols stuff seems more culturally relevant to me now than ever. Meanwhile I still see veritable gaggles of clueless kids clad in Ramones shirts purchased at Gadzooks in the mall. (Which isn't the Ramones' fault per se, but still -- infuriating somehow ... ) Get pissed. Destroy.

Me and Chris D could fight to the death on this sucker.
Ramones.
Because stupidity, AFTER intelligence is a given, is the key.

Aha! The gauntlet has been flung!

(Or something ... did I get that right?)


Wait'll the "Funhouse" vs. "Raw Power" thread ...  ;)

there would not be a sex pistols without da ramones, plus da Ramones do a mean California Sun

I just found out The Clash did "Rock the Casbah"... that's a great song.

I'm not a big punk person (for many reasons... 'I don't get it' being the main one) but I can actually listen to the Ramones and occasionally enjoy them.

I can't even listen to the Pistols.

Shoot me. :)

In terms of finally defining punk, it must be Sex Pistols and I think it has something to do with them cutting their hair which was a kind of reverse Beatles, the final FU to the hippie generation, who used to connect that with nazism and so forth. Ramones was more like an updated version of ShaNaNa and in a way they fit very well into the hippie scheme of things.

Søren

The Ramones all the way.

The Sex Pistols only had one album.   
The most overrated album of all-time.

Being that both bands are unusually important and merited for different yet closely-related accomplishments makes this just a matter of taste. And while I love the Pistols' LP and acknowledge it's and their worthiness, the Ramones catalog has provided me with more smiles and months more listening experiences. I say the Ramones, those non-dreamboats.

The Pistols for me. Love 'em beyond all reason. In fact, my last CD purchase was The Professionals album (Cook and Jones post-Pistols band.) And I've got 3 Pistols discs on the way from eBay as we speak.

No slight to the Ramones, though.

Both are equally  as happenin, I dig the Ramones  more, the  sex pistols rock my world tho...

Thats like askin some one to pick between the Crystal, or the Ronnettes, which I still cant anwser

Long live the  sex pistols and  god save the queen........

xoxox
suga

Ronettes.

It should be The Ramones vs. The Heartbreakers, since the Sex Pistols modelled themselves after The Heartbreakers.

Not if you count Rotten, who hated everything to do with New York and heroin, and wrote about it in New York.
Also, the Pistols played live before they had even heard the heartbreakers.
Everyone modelled themselves on the Ramones.
Pistols, Damned, Clash.

What about the New York Dolls, who pre-dated the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, and, of course, the Heartbreakers by a couple of years.

I think the  Johansen/Thunders team was as prolific as any of the Ramones or Sex Pistols.

There's some connection between the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols, I think with management or something...

MC-fuckin'-5?!

Yeah, Dolls is a good comparison, as the Ramones modeled themselves on them and The Stooges.
And Malcolm Mclaren managed Dolls and Pistols.

I was reading thought this thread and was about to say same:-)

To me at the time the Pistols seemed way more important than the Ramones. But in retrospect, in musical terms, I would say that The Ramones win hands down, because they changed music the way the Pistols never did. 10 years only after Pet Sounds, 30 years later has any one done this? I think not.  The punk message remains relevant whether it was spat and vomitted by The Pistols or the Clash.

I'll take the Clash.  But the Ramones rule this debate IMO.

Aegir's 70s Punk Band Ranking

(from best to worst)
1. The Misfits
2. The Ramones
3. The Clash
4. The Sex Pistols

This one is tough. I do stand in the camp that thinks the Pistols mattered, as opposed to the idiots who think they were as fabricated as Backtreet Boys and therefore do not count, but I have to go with Ramones since they have more songs I like (by default) and pre-empted the whole deal. Plus, as a fan of the Beach Boys, I HAVE to like them more for Sheena and Rock and Roll High School. (Ian has heard my Sheena cover).

It rules.

Haha, you're right.  Pistols -- EASILY.  The Ramones' songs were so brief, yet they took 30 years to finally stop writing the same sh*t over and over  :P


With you.

(http://www.animationusa.com/picts/ptpict/scream.jpg)

I thought we were only supposed to say that about Sgt. Pepper, here.


:*)

The Sex Pistols are to the 70s what the Monkees were to the hippies.

Lets not forget that the punk movement had different origins in the US and the UK, which makes the comparison difficult. The US movement was art based, whereas the UK movement, as conceptual as it was, had a mass impact on a whole generation of people who genuinely had "no future", which is the reason why as short as it was in time (18 months really, and thisperiod HAS to be defined by the Sex Pistols duration) it had such a social impact in Europe.

I was one of those people who genuinely had "no future" - and they were right!   :'(

Well I'm sure that Ramones would be sad to hear that, because that was probably what they wanted to be.

Søren

i like the Bad Brains the best .......

The Ramones for sure! How could any say the Pistols? Like someone previously wrote, they made one album and they existed for barely over 2 years, so I don't even see how you could compare. The Ramones made brilliant albums like Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, Pleasant Dreams, Too Tough to Die etc. The Sex Pistols were a creation of Malcolm McLaren while the Ramones were a real band that established longevity and have had the biggest impact of the face of rock music in the past 30+ years! I love Never mind the Bollocks but the Ramones to me are the most important band since the Beach Boys and always will be.

Damn, I miss these people. Hardly anyone that posted in this thread posts here anymore.


It's hard to believe my music tastes haven't changed in two years. The Sex Pistols are just part of the hype machine, all publicity. The anti-punk. Their most famous member wasn't even really part of the band.

I give it to the Pistols, for Johnny Rotten--a real original. Plus their drummer kicked ass, at least on record.

The first punk of all-time was Mike!!!!

His nasal, attitude-drenched early voice, sounded like some snotty, asshole,"punk' kid who didn't care about anything other than surfin and pickin up chicks and pounding around town in his car. He didn't  sound like anyone who had come before, and no one has sung like him since.

Other than Mike, you can't pass over Bob Dylan as bieng pretty damm punk!!!!

Otherwise, I give it to The Ramone's all the way!

Perhaps, in the end, I prefer the TV Personalities. 'Part-time Punks' defines the era for me.

Gotta say I prefer the Ramones. I went through a phase of really liking the Sex Pistols when I was in my teens, now I only like a couple of songs and the live in SF 1978 cd. I still enjoy reading interviews with all the surving members but I hardly go near their music these days. I get a lot more enjoyment out of the music the guys in the band have said were their influences these days.

When it comes to 70's punk I think the UK Subs and the Dictators are really good and underrated. The Buzzcocks are quite good too.

Ramones all the way!!! Did the Sex Pistols ever cover the BBs? Did Phil Spector ever (attempt to) produce the Sex Pistols? Were the Sex Pistols ever about anything other than (manufactured) depressing nihilism?

The Ramones knew how to have fun, and they weren't put together by some cranky old manager who was just looking to make a quick buck off his band.

Apart from the Ramones, my favorite punk band would have to be The Clash. They brought all sorts of diverse influences into their music and were always "fucking with the formula", even throwing the formula out on quite a few occasions. And I love their political stance(s). The Clash were one of the few major musical artists to tackle left-wing politics in their music since the heydays of the protest movements in the 60s. I'd be hard pressed to find s Sex Pistols OR a Ramones song that condemns former American soldiers who fathered children in Vietnam and never wanted anything to do with their children ("Straight to Hell"-which was sampled by M.I.A.).