Bad Influences

 11 Rock Visionaries who are Pernicious Influences

Spin, March, 1991 

by Simon Reynolds

 

MORRISSEY: The poet of maudlin moping, martyred monkishness and sexy celibacy; the man who turned nerdhood into an art form. Unfortunately an army of droning clones (Housemartins, Wedding Present etc) thought that being a nerd made you an artist, and proceeded to inflict the contents of their diaries upon a longsuffering world.

 

LOU REED: "The guy that gave dignity and poetry and rock'n'roll to smack, speed, homosexuality, murder, misogyny, stumblebum passivity, and suicide" (L. Bangs). Also opened the floodgates for 1001 non-singers sporting sunglasses after dark and peddling fake street romanticism.

 

SYD BARRETT:  The original acid-baked fruitcake, and (in Pink Floyd) inventor of psychedelia as regression-to-childhood. Thus the model for such mad-as-a-hatter jackanapes and professional scrambled eggheads as Julian Cope and Robyn Hitchcock.

 

DAVID BOWIE:  Each of his myriad incarnations has spawned its ghastly progeny: Ziggy Stardust (Bauhaus, Sigue Sigue Sputnik), 'Young Americans' era plastic soul (ABC, Spandau Ballet), Thin White Duke (Gary Numan).

 

THE BYRDS: Ever listen to college radio?

 

NEW YORK DOLLS: Sired Hanoi Rocks, who (together with Aerosmith) birthed the entire LA glam sleaze scene.

 

THE WHO: Blame them for The Jam and the UK's late Seventies Mod revival, and maybe all New Wave to boot. Pete Townshend also invented the rock opera.

 

VAN MORRISON: Mystic visionary with the voice like gargling phlegm. Unfortunately Van inspired Ireland's "raggle taggle" movement: Celtic soul-stirrers like Hothouse Flowers who believe that if you sing like you're gargling phlegm that makes you a mystic visionary.

 

BLONDIE: Pop as Pop Art, blank and chic and deliberately shallow. But Debbie Harry's Eighties children (The Primitives, Darling Buds, Transvision Vamp) were merely two dimensional.

LESTER BANGS: As well as the thousands of fanzines that follow his creed to the letter, LB also created a canon (Iggy, Velvets, garage) and coined an attitude (punk, who-gives-a-fuck) that's been aped by countless dismal noisenik combos.

 

PRINCE : The first post-modernist superstar, who constructed himself from components of his ancestors (Hendrix + James Brown + Little Richard + Todd Rundgren + Clinton).  Since then Prince has become a genre in himself: i.e. chameleonic/ musical magpies like Terence Trent D'Arby and Lenny Kravitz.  Also invented "positivity", the platitude of the Nineties.

 

Just putting this NME piece from later in 1991 here, drawing no conclusions, casting no aspersions... 

A refined iteration of the same idea for a book published in the 2000s

12 Great Artists Who Are Terrible Influences

By Simon Reynolds

 There's an almost mathematical relationship between a band or singer's devastating originality and the number of copyists they spawn.  Now, that's not always such a bad outcome:  the legion of Stones clones include lots of thrillingly insolent Sixties garage punk outfits, plus Aerosmith. But sometimes the very best bands are the absolute worst influences.  Here are a dozen   rock 'n' pop visionaries whose largely impeccable recorded legacy trails behind it a tarnishing wake of travesty and lameness---the stains of being seminal.  

THE BYRDS

Two major crimes here: creating the template for West Coast country rock (The Eagles etc) with 1968's Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and being the major source for the jangled-guitar and pallid-vocalled sound that made Eighties American alternative music such an unrocking wasteland.

 

LOU REED

According to Lester Bangs (see later entry), "the guy that gave dignity and poetry and rock'n'roll to smack, speed, homosexuality, murder, misogyny, stumblebum passivity, and suicide." Reed also opened the floodgates for 1001 non-singers sporting sunglasses after dark and peddling bogus street romanticism.

 

SYD BARRETT

Inventor of psychedelia as regression-to-childhood on The Piper At the Gates of Dawn and rock's first major acid casualty, Barrett inspired a raft of wannabe lunatics on the grass such as Julian Cope and Robyn Hitchcock.

 

THE WHO

Blame them for Paul Weller, the late Seventies Mod revival, and the rock opera.

 

VAN MORRISON

Mystic visionary whose voice is the missing link between gargling phlegm and talking in tongues. Unfortunately the grumpy Ulsterman would inspire the "raggle taggle"-era Dexys of "Come On Eileen"/Too-Rye-Aye infamy, along with subsequent Celtic soul-stirrers like Hothouse Flowers.

 

 DAVID BOWIE

The trouble with DB's constant artistic evolution and restlessly rapid procession through personae is that each of his myriad incarnations spawned its own set of misshapen progeny: Ziggy Stardust (Bauhaus and other Goths, Sigue Sigue Sputnik), Young Americans era plastic soul (ABC, Spandau Ballet), Thin White Duke/Low (Gary Numan, the New Romantic movement). Thankfully, the seed of Tin Machine has, so far, fallen on barren ground.

 

THE NEW YORK DOLLS

Okay, they (or rather Johnny Thunders) gave us Steve Jones's glorious guitar sound, and the group stirred strange fancies in the heart of the young Steven Morrissey (q.b.). But they also helped, via Hanoi Rocks, to sire the LA Sunset Strip hair metal/glam scene of the Eighties, from Motley Crue to Guns N'Roses.   

 

 LESTER BANGS

As historically potent a figure as all but a handful of bands, LB's proto-punk manifestoes of the early Seventies shaped a canon (Iggy, Velvets, garage punk) and coined an attitude (who-gives-a-fuck, noise annoys) that's been aped by countless dismal combos from the late Seventies onwards, even though Bangs himself was far more open-minded taste-wise and emotionally sensitive than the bastardised cartoon version of his gospel.

 

PRINCE

The first postmodernist black superstar, he constructed himself from components of his ancestors (Hendrix + James Brown + Little Richard + Todd Rundgren + George Clinton) only to end up a genre himself: that breed of chameleon/musical magpie/pasticheur that includes Terence Trent D'Arby and Lenny Kravitz. 

 

 THE SMITHS

Have they inspired a single decent band? Okay, the Sundays and Suede had their moments and that T.A.T.U. cover was fun, but  Housemartins, Bradford, Easterhouse, Echobelly, Gene…  Most recently the Smiths have pooled genetic material with The Cure and injected some UK miserabilism into America's emo genre.

 

PORTISHEAD

One fantastic album (Dummy) of trip hop torch songs became the blueprint for a mid-90s deluge of downtempo mood-muzak that provided chic-ly depressive ambience for a thousand boutiques, hair salons and designer bars.

 

RADIOHEAD

A great and original group, but oh, the plague they've visited upon the house of Noughties British music, in the form of numberless rock bands that don't actually rock and vocalists wheezily fixated on strained upper register singing (most notably Coldpay's Chris Martin) as the true modern sound of feeling a bit shit about the state of the world and/or the state of your self.