Classic or Dud: Thug Punk

Anyway. This question is largely inspired by Simon Reynolds’s bit in “Unfaves 2000” about the overratedness of the NY punk scene. Mr. Reynolds contrasts, unfairly I think, the musical output of punk-era NY with the more blatantly innovative music coming from other punk scenes (ie, the UK). He concedes Television, Talking Heads, Suicide, Richard Hell (I think… I’m doing this from memory), but when it comes to the typical NY Punk Rawk – Heartbreakers, Dolls, Dictators, Dead Boys, and even the Ramones – well shit, he calls Stiv Bators and Johnny Thunders the most worthless human beings in rock history, so we know where he stands on the C or D axis here, eh? Okay, put them next to PIL, Joy Division, Pere Ubu, Slits, etc and they all look a little, erm, reactionary. But the first time I listened to “Young, Loud, and Snotty,” I was really quite blown away by it (parts, at least). I still don’t think it sounds like anything else, with the exception of the music it’s obviously influenced (most notably GNR).

The other inspiration to this question is Dr. C’s thread about “NEW guitar music.” I guess what I want to suggest is that “thug punk” (by which I mean the above-mentioned bands, plus non-NYers like Crime, Real Kids, Pagans, Saints, Electric Eels, Cramps [ok, they’re kinda from NY], just about anything from LA, plus all those bands collected on the Killed By Death comps…) was, in some way, new. Yes, it was also reactionary to a very large degree, influence by a “fuck disco” “fuck prog” “fuck all this new shit” attitude, and a desire to bring rock n roll back to its roots (Elvis, Link, Stones, Who, Nuggets-type-bands – it should, of course, be noted that there is little acknowledgement of the black roots of rock in thug punk, a fact that, when coupled with the fascist/Nazi imagery of a lot of these bands, is more than a little troubling). The Cramps are especially blatant in their lifting of lyrics and riffs from 50s/early 60s rock. But do they really sound like an early-60s rock band? Could they have gotten away with opening for Jerry Lee or Link? Could they have even played on the same stage with the Monks? It’s unthinkable to me. Their music is of the time and place in whish it was written, it is not just a throwback. This is not plagiarism, something is gained in the translation. Likewise bands like the Heartbreakers and Pagans and their Stones fixations. Do the Pagans actually sound anything like the Stones? Even their cover of “Heart of Stone” sounds like something from another time and place (which, of course, it is).

I can’t put my finger on what it is, I can’t put it into terms of rock or music theory, because when I look at it on that level it’s really just four chords and shitty production. But I nonetheless think that this music is totally innovative, and I wish I could say why. In other words, absolute classic. (am I allowed to answer my own question right away like that?) But really what I want to know is this: Was this music in any way new? If so, how? And can we apply this definition of “new” to rock/pop being made today and find something that is, in fact, new?