Controversial Opinions (For Everything Other Than DC Comics)

[Gray Lensman]

Do "Boy Bands" generally write their own songs and play their own instruments?

Anything manufactured in music is typically trying to emulate something successful that came before. More often than not completely missing what made the original popular.

[Kirby101]

I don't count that as a song. John and Yoko wanking.

[Kirby101]

The Ramones could have, if not do have, the same level of popularity as The Beatles.

There is an exponential difference in their popularity.
Would have, could have, should have. And I like the Ramones.

[TheRay]

Though I saw them live once (they were great! - one of my childhood friends grew up to be a replacement Ramones and was at that concert, BTW) they were never Beatles good.

Perhaps, but The Ramones were influenced by The Beatles, so their styles were similar.

[ed2962]

Perhaps, but The Ramones were influenced by The Beatles, so their styles were similar.

Well, no doubt that The Ramones were influenced by the Beatles ( as well as 60's girl groups and 50's rock), the name even comes from an alias that Paul McCartney used. But stylistically? Most people wouldn't confuse any song from the Ramones with a Beatles tune.

Having said that, it's no secret that the Ramones were trying to be popular. And most people who were in their camp thought that they would be a lot more commercially successful given how catchy most of their early songs were.

Somewhere I've got an old VHS tape where Joey Ramone is talking about when the new wave/punk scene getting buzz and says something like, "Yeah, for a minute we thought that we were going to be like the Beatles and the Sex Pistols would be like the Rolling Stones, but America wasn't having it."

[godisawesome]

Be wary of the “Well, you can’t please everyone/Audience expectations and speculation were too developed” excuse for a divisive film in a long running franchise… particularly if it comes after a massively successful film/comic/book or for a creator who generally doesn’t have the problem of divisive stories.

There *are* a few times where a previous story has split an audience too much for the opposing sides to be reconciled by a sequel stroy.

…But most of the time, if its comes after a successful, crowd-pleasing story… the divisive is likely the result of the creator simply failing to adequately match accomplishable goals and understanding of the story and franchise, and possibly even of their own divisive decisions. And just as often, some of the positive reception the divisive story receives is simply goodwill for the previous, better entry.

Like… any MCU film released after The Avengers was going to break a billion dollars, as would any film released as a sequel to The Force Awakens.

But Iron Man 3 is still a myopic, short-sighted storyline full of missed potential and a failure to do anything really worthwhile with the killer premeses it has, and The Last Jedi is a far kore myopic, short sighted, and even cancerously arrogant film that doomed the Sequel Trilogy to destruction, with Rian Johnson not even really understanding many of his own twists and the impact they would have. Similarly, Tom King’s issues with the one-two punch of his Batman run and Heroes In Crisis came about from making poor decisions, with the goodwill he earned elsewhere carrying him further than of he’d only told those stories, and residual momentum from Snyder’s run before him,

When people insist those stories were “doomed” by audience expectations, they’re really just in denial that many of the complaints about them are valid because they don't care about them; Iron Man 3 fans didn’t care about the Ten Rings story Favreau had built in the background on IM1 and IM2 or about good villains in general, some Tom King fans didn’t care about good character writing or pacing, and most TLJ fans didn’t care about, well… Rey, Finn, Kylo, Poe, the Galaxy…

[TheRay]

Having said that, it's no secret that the Ramones were trying to be popular. And most people who were in their camp thought that they would be a lot more commercially successful given how catchy most of their early songs were.

Well....I have managed to find a source that puts them number two all time, only behind the Beatles, but from the UK - https://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/spin...eatest%20Bands
Also, having similar styles doesn’t mean people would confuse your songs.

[The Darknight Detective]

Perhaps, but The Ramones were influenced by The Beatles, so their styles were similar.

As ed mentioned before, their styles weren't similar at all. Even at their most primitive, they also never sounded like a garage band like the Ramones did. Again, I liked the latter quite a bit and own all of their albums, but they just didn't have what it took for Beatlemania-type popularity.

[TheRay]

https://www.neoseeker.com/forums/75/...ed-music-more/

[Kirby101]

It's still not close, even if some randos on the Internet want to believe it.
Not more popular and certainly not more infuential. it's quantifiable.

[TheRay]

As ed mentioned before, their styles weren't similar at all.

How might things have been different if the Ramones came first…

[Kirby101]

The Ramones couldn't have come first. Their music owed too much to the 60s. The same way the Beatles were shaped by the music before them.

It's like asking what if Picasso came before Cezanne.

[ed2962]

I'm willing to argue that the Ramones are hugely influential both directly and indirectly on hundreds bands and made a few different sub-genres of rock possible. And as such I'm willing to say that they are one of the all time great rock n roll bands. But they just aren't on the same level artistically as the Beatles.

Now should they have been more famous during their time? Absolutely, but that's not the universe we live in now.


Having said that, it is pretty funny hearing their music in Peloton ad...

[TheRay]

At the very least the Ramones touched on a style of music that the Beatles didn’t.

[The Darknight Detective]

How might things have been different if the Ramones came first…

As has been mentioned already, the Ramones could never have come before the Beatles. But even if it were possible, they were just too rough (musically and visually) to be in the same orbit as the Fab Four. With that said, not being Beatles good doesn't mean you can't be considered musically worthy.