Pajiba

I'm old enough to remember Creem magazine's infamous three-word Runaways review, which was, "These bitches suck". A cruel review for sure but unfortunately deadly accurate, because they really did suck.

Because bloggers are pedophiles.
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Hah! I've always thought that explained the way-over-the-top accolades accorded the likes of for instance Liz Phair. The largely white male music write-o-sphere hears a teen girl say "I wanna be your blowjob queen" and suddenly she's the Next Great Rock and Roll Star.

In your pants. You wish.

(Sorry if this rambles, but the revisionist history surrounding the Runaways really bothers me)

As someone old enough to remember the era, it must be noted that The Runaways didn't sell very many records, and calling them "popular" is a bit of a stretch. As D'AGASTINO notes above, CREEM thought they sucked, and CREEM was pretty much the Pitchfork of that era, as far as being tastemakers for the hipsters of the '70's (Rolling Stone magazine was already an establishment dinosaur rag by 1977). In fact, the only thing CREEM liked about The Runaways was the prurient sexual angle.

In that respect, The Runaways didn't garner much respect back then as an all-female band. Probably the most charitable thing that might be said was that they were considered a novelty act.

Of course, in hindsight, they certainly can be considered an "important" band because they were all-female, but even this importance was a long time in the making, and more about the novelty of an all-female band than the music itself. They really did (mostly) suck, and nobody gave a shit about The Runaways through the '80's and most of the '90's (good luck finding their albums at reasonable/non-Japanese-import prices through most of those years), and it's only through the long, hazy lense of time and roughly enforced nostalgia that the band's stock has risen to the point that now, 30+ years later, somebody actually made a biopic. These events certainly didn't transpire because they were a good band, because CREEM was absolutely right, The Runaways did (mostly) suck.

In a better world, and considering female rockers of the late '70's, somebody would/should have made a biopic about Chrissie Hynde. In that era, she was the real deal, and one of the only females at the time who was able to break through to widespread popularity without compromising or relying on overt sexuality to sell records. Hell, even Patti Smith, critics darling that she was, had a hard time breaking through to mainstream success without the help of a Bruce Springsteen-written song ("Because The Night") and the M.O. to be "the female Keith Richards" (her own words) rather than a serious artist on her own merits. It's a somewhat troubling M.O. in my opinion, if considered from a feminist perspective...

I think I've written far too much as a reaction to one little throwaway (but simply wrong) word like "popular", but if you'll allow me one more word...

GIRLSCHOOL!

(Google it)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=girlschool&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10

Wow. Film bloggers ARE dirty pedos.

These events certainly didn't transpire because they were a good band, because CREEM was absolutely right, The Runaways did (mostly) suck.

The Runaways would be considered a punk group, no? Aren't the main barometers of quality for punk groups just that they have a sort of charismatic snarling attitude and that their songs be kind of catchy and high-energy in that punky way? Unless "Cherry Bomb" was a total anomaly in the Runaways' catalog, it seems like they did have all that going on, so in what sense did they "suck"?

Neil Miller's use of that picture is wrong, yet incredibly funny.

Just remember peeps (anytime you feel the edge to think about her in whatever terms)...Dakota Fanning was born in 1994!!!

Ooops.

Larger point still stands. Dirty talk get girls big bonus points.

*heh-heh, he said "bonus"*

Funny thing is, she's just the right age to play the part. So...only Ms. Currie is to blame, really.

"Hah! I've always thought that explained the way-over-the-top accolades accorded the likes of for instance Liz Phair. The largely white male music write-o-sphere hears a teen girl say "I wanna be your blowjob queen" and suddenly she's the Next Great Rock and Roll Star."

Liz Phair was at least 25 when Exile in Guyville came, fyi.

Gotta say, blog comments being about as useful as old newspapers and overheard conversations on the subway, here's my take:

Chryssie Hynde? I'll grant that she's a seminal figure in rock history...but, I can count on one hand the number of her songs I actually like, and I don't like them all that much.

The Runaways? Some of their songs are so outrageously bad that they're almost endearing. That one rock opera song? Hilarious! and not in a good way. But to say they suck is way too much of a generalization. Lita Ford can rip it, Jett has never advanced much past the 50s rock song formula rock with 70s frosting, but they did put together a few decent songs. The rest were pretty rushed, sloppy, cliched, or all of the above. But they were what, 15, 16?

This was a time when Boogie Oogie Oogie beat Elvis Costello's first single for Best New Artist of the year. Metal, as we know it, wasn't yet invented. They could have kicked ass with a couple more years of practice, and yeah, they were clearly riding a wave of novelty with ragged skills, especially in the songwriting department. The Ramones rode a similar wave and unapologetically, never attempted to break out of it.

Uneven? Absolutely, but suck? No way.