(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still / Gorillaz)
Tue 16 September 2025 20:00, UK
There is one instrument that seemingly separates music fans from different generations. The humble guitar seems to spark an age-old question about the legitimacy of music, with faithful protectors of traditions claiming that music not led by a rousing guitar solo is plastic nonsense. But is that even true?
Sure, in the 1960s and 1970s, what we now deem traditional band music was as rebellious as it came. Starting alongside Elvis Presley’s knee quivers, before thrusting itself into the arms of The Rolling Stones’ outright sexual rock, the guitar stood strong through the changing tides of cultural history.
But there is perhaps no more palpable emotion in society than anger and despair, a feeling not yet embraced in popular music. That was until the late 1970s and the booming emergence of punk, led by one Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols. It was there that counter culture dwellers finally had a sonic landscape in which they could express their frustration. And it’s arguably there, where the kernel of this idea that music is only authentic in the stripped back setting of a band, was formed.
Because everything great that came thereafter was a coalescence of all these influences, built around the guitar. The heady days of Britpop saw the charisma of The Stones meet the anger of the Sex Pistols, all while building upon the sort of blues foundations that made Elvis such a star. For decades on end, the guitar was the most valuable player in culture’s crusade to the top of our interest.
But like all good things, it had to come to an end. Innovation had to move us to a territory yet unknown, and with that, traditionalists were dragged kicking and screaming. To an extent, they could swallow the ever-growing interest in electronic music, but when one of their own, an indie icon, turned his back on traditional sensibilities and embraced the future, well then there was uproar.
“I really don’t wanna talk about shit like the Gorillaz, you know what I mean?” Sex Pistols’ John Lydon once explained, when asked about his thoughts on the band. “Come on, I’m the originator, don’t toss us with that.”
Lydon referring to himself as “the originator” as as clear of a diagnostic as you need, to determine the problem with music’s willingness to evolve. Drum machines, omnichords and hip-hop verses apparently have no place in alternative music, despite the fact that most avenues of exploration within a traditional musical structure had been explored.
Lydon continued, saying, “I think there’s less original talent now than 30 years ago. It’s much more manufactured. And the shame is I opened so many doors for so many people, and they’ve all foolishly slammed it behind them. So what you get now is a melange of shit.”
Sadly, Lydon labelling the Gorillaz and their venture into worlds unknown as devoid of talent entirely misses the point of their project. The Sex Pistols were pioneers because of their abandonment of what came before. So when Gorillaz adopted the same method of approach, but in a more millennial context, and Lydon failed to understand it, he sadly became a representation of what he once revolted against.
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