Punk represented everything that many musicians of the 1970s didn’t stand for. It appeared like everyone was having fun creating carefree music that everyone enjoyed, and then all of a sudden there were people attempting to make fun of rock and roll by singing about destruction and sticking safety pins through their cheeks. Don Henley believed The New York Dolls were just another ordinary rock band, even if the punk revolution helped many people move past the fakery of some rock bands.
Henley was by no means the only person to believe that when the New York punk idols became well-known. In contrast to Ramones and Sex Pistols, this was rock and roll done in a glam manner. To the most campy extent possible, with songs that relied greater emphasis on style than on the music being played.
But was it really that different, after all? It wasn’t all that impossible for someone to give androgynous rock and roll a punk rock twist. After all, figures like David Bowie had already dabbled in the genre. The main issue was that none of the band members had received the necessary training.
Much as the media loved it or hated it, most of the Dolls weren’t the best musicians in the world. Aside from Johnny Thunders, most of them were just trying to fill a room whenever they performed. Henley saw this as the whole opposite of what the Eagles were all about.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, he surmised that there was a good reason The New York Dolls had faded away and his band had prospered, asking, “Where are they now? All those influential groups, you know. It’s beyond me. I don’t know why there was so much fanfare. Between New York and Los Angeles, there has always been some rivalry.
To be fair, the New York Dolls had a point when they criticized teams like the Eagles. Despite all of the amazing music they produced together, there were plenty of occasions when Henley’s lyrical skill seemed a little too cloying for many listeners. It was as if he was attempting to spoonfeed them rather than sing a song for everyone to enjoy.
There were still plenty of rock stars who fully grasped The New York Dolls’ message, even for those who didn’t get it. Before The Dolls appeared on the scene, Kiss even thought of creating more feminine stage makeup. Aerosmith would sometimes hang out with the punk superstars.
Despite the arguments between the two sides of the country, hair metal bands eventually brought their sound to the Sunset Strip. They openly copied The New York Dolls’ style. Considering how many milquetoast songs came from that, perhaps Don Henley was correct. In the scheme of things, he said they overhyped them a little too much.
