Were the Rolling Stones influenced by the Sex Pistols in 1978?

I would make bet that if Punk was never a thing then Some Girls would not have had Repsectable, When the Whip Comes Down, or Lies on it. The Stones sure did punk in their own style.

Everyone at the time knew it and it was constantly talked about. I get a kick out of people who now deny it

 

I don't think it was very popular outside of NYC, even there it was a club phenomenum. The punk scene in LA was very small, but influential. Kids used to get their asses kicked if they looked Punk in LA. I wasn't until 1982, when The Clash were able to play Arenas. The Police were able to in 1980/81, but not sure they were really ever punk. The Stones always stole from everyone. The Beatles, Gram Parsons/Ry Cooder, Ike & Tina, they were getting rather stale by 1975.
Punk Rock definitely kicked them in the butt. It worked for them, as it did for Neil Young

 

Of course, that entire album and tour too bears the marks of it's time and place/places sonically and in terms of the general aesthetic. "When the Whip Comes Down" borrows a lot of it's story and sense of place from the Ramones' "53rd & 3rd," obviously "Miss You" is stamped by NYC's disco nightlife and "Shattered" is all about that time and place...and that phase shifter guitar and thumping beat throughout the album sounds like the into to Waylon' Jennings' 1975 hit "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?" That whole album resounds with the sounds of its time -- punk, disco, outlaw country -- and the spirit of the places it was written. The Pistols in particular, I dunno, I don't hear so much the audible impact of, though like I said, punk and NY new wave too, generally I hear. To me, few albums ever better captured their zeitgeist than Some Girls does and that definitely includes those sounds and looks.

 

I think that was just Jagger giving Johnny the finger. Rotten had said the Stones were dead and now it was the other way around. The Sex were dead and the Stones had gone back to #1.

 

What's even more surprising about Jagger's 78 outfit is that he is actually revealed to be wearing a shirt with a swastika worked into the design once he takes his coat off.

 

1978 was a great period for music, with the tension between punk and disco. Some Girls drew very obvious influences from both, and Ronnie on board seemed to invigorate the band - the band was completely stripped down, and the focus was drums, bass and guitars -horn sections, multiple keyboards and strings had no place on the album. They proceeded to record a ton of material (much of it available on the deluxe reissue), selected the tracks they needed and released an album that renewed both their critical and commercial fortunes (the best selling album of their career).

 

BTW, didn't McLaren borrow the Pistols look from Richard Hell in the first place?

 

You have a point, especially with "Lies" and to a certain extent, the other two. And yes, it was talked about at the time. The whole album sort of reflected NYC in the mid to late '70's, and CBGB's was a part of that. But there was nothing on the album that was "punk" the way "Miss You" was "disco."

 

I didn't notice..

 

I thought I read that the Pistols were The New York Dolls V.2 for his experiments.

 

Awwwww Ya'll's know Mick liked to dabble... He likes it all!!!

 

Yup, that's a piss poor John Lydon imitation.

 

Challenged yes, influenced no. The Stones already knew the music and attitude the Sex Pistols used, and wanted to prove they could do it all better. And they did exactly that.

 

Anyone who "denies" it isn't familiar with the Stones history. It's all on the book that accompanies the Some Girls deluxe set. Mick in 1995: "The inspiration for the record was really based in New York and the ways of the town . . . Punk and disco were going on at the same time so it was quite an interesting period". Keith: "A lot of it was, we've got to out-punk the punks." Ronnie: "We never sat around talking about punk, but you couldn't avoid it. It was on the news all the time with the Sez Pistols and the Clash and all the other punk bands."

I think the problem is the OP created a poll that has two incorrect responses: that Mick's onstage garb was a coincidence, which is incorrect, or that the Stones "fell under the spell of the mighty Sex Pistols", which is also wrong and probably meant to be inflammatory, so people are reacting to that. There's never been any question that the record was influenced in part by punk emerging in the late 70's

 

This is a great topic for discussion, but a totally useless poll. Nobody was under any spells, both bands, great & mighty knew exactly what they were doing. And Mick's outfit was clearly a dis and a nod to the times.

 

BTW, being a 14 year old in metro NY at the time, and spending a lot of time hanging around the Village soaking up what I could and gaining entry to whatever clubs I could (and in those years, with a drinking age of 18 and a complete laissez faire attitude, 15 at least was the age for getting into clubs, so mostly in '77 I was still on tiptoes looking in), I have to say no album of that era sounds, smells, tastes or feels more like NYC circa '76-'77, especially the mix of glitz and decay and the punky, trashy energy of the CBGB, financial crisis and Plato's Retreat/Studio 54 years.

 

Yup!!

 

Artist like the Stones are like sponges . They are influenced by the world around them , they were influenced initially by the blues. As time went on they put their own stamp on reggae and dance music. That's what artists do. Now great artists like The Rolling Stones take that influence and don't just copy but use it to make something original that people recognize as The Rolling Stones. Sure they were influenced by punk and I'm glad they were ." When the Whip Comes Down," " Respectable", " Shattered" from Some Girls are awesome tracks that contain the high octane pace of punk just as "Miss You" has a dance vibe that was prevalent at the same time in the late 1970's. Just great artist doing their thing.

 

IMO...no way.

 

In 'England's Dreaming' Jon Savage writes that the Stones are an unacknowledged influence on punk, in their earlier incarnations of course, not the rich stadium rockers which punk so despised. It is possible that the Stones understood how they had influenced punk and were in their own way attempting to get back to basics.

 

Right, and at the same time saying "Look, we aren't over yet - we can do this stuff better than you can!"

 

George has nailed it! Great topic but useless poll.

 

FWIW, when Sid Vicious was thrown in jail after Nancy Spungen's death, his attorney was arranged and paid for by Mick Jagger. That might tell you something about Mick's feelings toward the Pistols

 

Hmmm..........