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salm wrote:

thejester wrote: 25 years ago you had bands exactly like that - the Sex Pistols were bloody awful musicians whose fame lies soley in an image masterminded largey by McLaren and created by the likes of Westwood and the conservative press.

It´s woth noting though that bands like the Sex Pistols relied heavily on political attitude whereas modern bands and singers rely more on physical appearance.

Are you kidding? The Pistols created the punk brand - spiky hair, obnoxious piercings, denim, the swastikas, wearing a t-shirt with tits on it to TV interviews, whatever. The Clash were much more politically orienated (ie Strummer's Red Army Faction T-Shirt, or their participation in the Notting Hill riots and then writing White Riot) then the Pistols, who were pretty nihlistic and got their publicity from shock, large amounts of which came from the way they dressed and acted.

Yeah, they relied on appearance as well of course. But you just have to read allmost any of their lyrics. The vast majority is either politicaly or critical of society in a way.
View successful bands nowadays rely on political statements now and only on physical appearance.

salm wrote:Yeah, they relied on appearance as well of course. But you just have to read allmost any of their lyrics. The vast majority is either politicaly or critical of society in a way.
View successful bands nowadays rely on political statements now and only on physical appearance.

But their 'political' lyrics were ridiculous. 'God Save The Queen/A Fascist Regime/It made you a moron/potential H-Bomb'. That's powerful in its own way, but it was always more about the nihilism for the Pistols than politics. The fact that they became so notorious that Rotten was being beaten up on the street and remain so to this day despite their actual musical achievments amount to a single studio album shows that it was all about the image for the Pistols, not the politics. The Clash were a political band. The Pistols were just on a one-way ride to oblivion and they, and everyone else, knew it - and that's where the appeal stems from.