For my money Johnny Rotten was hands down the best punk vocalist of all-time. He kinda sorta sings but all he really does is rant along with the tune of the song. I don't know how much I buy his assertion that the Sex Pistols were supposed to be the end of rock, but I think he was being truthful about his own performance style at least.
In fact I think the rest of the band being a noisy, but still somewhat traditional revision of rock and roll went well with him since there was a sort of balancing act between the two so that it never went too far in the direction of either melody or raw chaos while still having a foot in each. It could be downright magical.
I can't think of another vocalist before Rotten who sounded so direct and not like a performer, and very very very few since. Off the top of my head I can only think of Mark E. Smith as someone who really carried that idea forward to its next logical conclusion.
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Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien
There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.
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