Sex Pistols, Herb Alpert, Miles Davis Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame

If a band only records one album, can’t get places to play in the UK and implodes while on a six-stop tour of the US, it must not amount to much, right? Bollocks. Earlier this week, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Sex Pistols into its hallowed turf about thirty years after the group’s only record hit the charts. Also headed into the Hall are Herb Alpert and Miles Davis, neither of whom would be considered rockers but who have been a huge influence on those who are. Maybe John Lydon a/k/a Johnny Rotten of the Pistols was right when he called it “a place where old rockers go to die.”

The rules for getting into the Hall of Shame, as Mr. Lydon dubbed it years ago, are simple enough. Twenty-five years must elapse from the first recording to be eligible, and then a “short list” of 700 is sent to “rock experts” around the world, who then vote. As a matter of record, no ballot arrived in the mail here, so one must doubt the quality of the group of experts, who also selected lame country group Lynyrd Skynyrd (who claimed to play “southern rock,” which is Hank Snow retreads with a Les Paul) for the Hall.

The entire idea of a hall of fame for music that deliberately rebelled against the norms of its day, sometimes brilliantly and often badly, is paradoxical at best. Unlike hip-hop, which accepts much of the materialism of the society at large, rock was originally about being attuned to the possibilities of being young – Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” and Chuck Berry’s “Blueberry Hill” challenged the “moon” and “june” rhymes of the 1940s while messing with the electric guitar. While the 1960s are often thought of as the golden age of rock, the truth is that the musicians had become outnumbered by the posers by the time the Beatles quit touring.

By the 1970s, the money to be made from pop music overtook the artistic drive. To this day, the record companies have deals with their artists that publishers of books envy. In 1975, the biggest music company in the UK was K-Tel, a mail order monstrosity that kept telling everyone the groovy times were still around. It was hard to believe during the three-day work week, the strikes, the garbage in Soho Square and dead Aunt Agatha going unburied because the gravediggers were picketing.

The Sex Pistols and the other bands of 1976 (the Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Damned, X-Ray Specs, Penetration, and the Jam) didn’t set out to start a revolution. They simply had nothing better to do, but that made them a bigger threat because co-opting them wasn't possible. The Pistols had a number one single “God Save the Queen,” but it was banned by the BBC, and officially, no song was number one that week. So they chartered a boat and played up and down the Thames. Gigs were cancelled because local councils didn’t want them playing to the local kids. American radio never played them when they were around (but they’re on MTV2 now). While Bill Ward of Black Sabbath (also selected this year) said, “It’s about time” his band got in, Steve Jones (the Pistols guitarist and now a radio DJ in LA on Indie 103.1) said, “If I was 20, maybe I'd be upset [about being inducted], but it's all part of the game.” What would be really “punk” is if they turned it down.

Oh, yeah, and Blondie got in, too, if anybody cares. Didn't think so.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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