more pistols than purple fans? not in your wettest punk rock dreams.
I must come to my friend Nofi's defense here!!! Purple sold more than a 100 million units worldwide in their career, I guess that answers all questions and separates the men from the, errm, punks.
But of course that is not the point. The Sex Pistols were much more a cultural impact than Purple, Purple's cultural impact was zilch, they were just another long-haired stadium band that played a littler longer (and a little better) solos than others. Or to put it differently: I'm sure that both Sex Pistols and Ramones T-shirt sales have - each - eclipsed those of DP.
Dave's 5.1 argument has a point, but it can't overcome the fact that The Sex Pistols by the very virtue of their huge cultural impact have not really created music for posterity (that was never their plan either, granted, they never wanted to become boring old farts). You take away the spitting, the scandal on TV, the EMI worker's strike refusing to print the single, Sid and Nancy's deaths, and there is not so much that remains of God Save the Queen (the single and song) other than that those arcane questioners of the US capitalist life style and urban guerillas of Mötley Crüe covered it, thus elevating it to truly political and socio-critical heights (DP never had to bear the insult of a a Mötley Crüe cover!
). The music just accompanied what the Pistols attempted to do, it was not their - marketing speech - "unique selling point".
That holds true for a lot of punk, the music has not left the same indelible musical stamp rock music from other periods has, punk classics which rule the airwaves are few and far between. I don't think that that has to do with the evil media and establishment still trying to keep punk down, punk influences have entered all sorts of cultural niches, be it fashion or art, were even embraced there. "God Save the Queen" is no longer an insult, much less a threat (if it ever was) to the system. The music hasn't aged well or is devoid of substance if you take away everything else. But that is maybe how Johnny Rotten wanted it, be current and dominating for a comparatively short time and then disappear while your image is left intact. Andy Warhol would have no doubt approved.
I don't believe that any of the 1977 NME scribes that hailed punk as thankfully doing away with dinosaur rock for good would have believed that a band like YES can in 2013 sell tours on cruise liners in the Carribean where the devoted pay a lot of money to hear their battle-hardened heroes play not once, but multiple times during one week. While Johnny Rotten does dairy commercials and reality shows, but sings relatively rarely (a new PIL came out, I heard that it's good, is it?) So there is a certain longevity to pre-punk craze music that punk has not
musically matched. I stress "musically", not culturally where punk's influence is vast. As I write, I'm hearing a song by SIXX AM that coincidentally name-checks "Sex Pistols playing on the radio". But it is randomly (I have about 700 CDs on shuffle on my office stereo, Mike Oldfield follows Boy George follows Bob Dylan follows The Ramones follows Johnny Cash follows Giuffria, hey, I'm eclectic!) followed by Jethro Tull's Aqualung ... Of course the Steve Wilson 2011 remix and remaster, what did you think?
