Did Malcolm McLaren Invent Punk?
 

He started with the New York Dolls and then made the Sex Pistols. So I guess he made Punk. He claims he did and it was all his own idea when the Dolls wanted to be the Stones and he showed them how then invented the Pistols which led to the Clash and every other UK punk outfit.

What!!!!!!!

No he just thinks he did.

And he only managed the New York Dolls in their final year.

If malcom Mclaren were born 20 years later he'd likely be credited for inventing the boy band.

it seems someone always has something to sayt about who invented punk, i say it started off wiht small bands someone noticed them then expoilted them

oo wait that is what happend and it happend in england, the east and west coast of the use around the same time

there is no single inventer

Were the Dolls even called punk then?
 

I don't even think it was called punk worldwide till the pistols were invented and he did invent them. They were his brainchild let's face it.
Punk only began with the pistols. The Clash formed after seeing them so did the Buzz****s and even the Smiths (not punk I know).
I don't reckon the dolls even knew what punk was at the time. The Ramones could be the first but I think it was the pistols and the UK that invented punk music as we know it. He invented them and so he does have a claim to say he invented the whole movement.
If he didn't who did?

All McLaren did was find them a bass player in Glen Matlock , get them a record deal & talk a load of crap.

He didn't even have any creative control over them and when he tried to they'd just tell him to f*ck off.

People read far too much into the Great Rock n Roll Swindle movie.

Punk evolved , it didn't start.

The term punk has been around long before the Sex Pistols, you're overrating them.

The Smiths and The Clash's formation had nothing to do with the Sex Pistols. I don't even know how you could think The Smiths formed after seeing them seeing as they formed several years after the Pistols broke up.

The Ramones came before the Pistols, they were punk. Also there's The Stooges too they came way before the Pistols and they were influential to punk and very punky.

The Sex Pistols weren't even the first punk sounding band. Their image wasn't original either. McLaren just saw what Richard Hell was doing and brought it over the UK.

Yeah, I would not say at all that the Sex Pistols were the first punk band, for they weren't. They may have been the first British punk rock band, but certainly not the first band to be punk, so no matter if McLaren 'created' then or not, he did not create punk.

^ This is probably very true.

McClaren was a businessman, an entrepreneur with an eye for what was going on around him.
He mismanaged everything he did, brilliantly.
Very similar to Tony Wilson in that respect...both were twats, both were Situationists.

@Lizzie...There is an argument that Vivienne Westwood (his wife) had as much to do with punk, at least as the fashion side of things went.
Without her input, the whole punk image would have had less impact.
And lets face it, the whole punk movement was as much about what people were wearing, as it was about the music.