Yeah, I agree for the most part. I grew up skating too, and I almost always had a few Ramones' tracks on the skate-tapes. The early Clash definitely fit the punk mold, though. Like "White Riot", as an example. Even "Remote Control" shared some dynamics with the Ramones-type punk music. I think there's a huge distinction between "Punk" and "Hardcore", though. I mean, the Clash were really trail blazers of the genre, and they definitely helped to jumpstart Punk and all that it would eventually encompass. It's a bad idea, most of the time, to try to evaluate the classics, the Clash in this case, by current standards. Obviously, the Clash's style is vastly different from, say, NOFX, one of the most prominent "Punk" bands of the current pantheon of major players, but that doesn't negate the fact that they were of the first breed of Punk music.
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