YMMV / The Damned (Band)

aka: The Damned

• And You Thought It Would Fail: Their cover of Paul Ryan's "Eloise" had this reaction from the band themselves before it came out as they found it too rough and unfinished to the point that Vanian even told their then-record label MCA not to release it, fearing that it would flop. His fears was proven to be unfounded when it became their biggest hit in the UK, peaking at number three.
• Archive Panic: Go to the Damned Discography Webpage and recoil at the cosmic horror that is the infinite size of their discography.
• Awesome Music:
  • Their albums Damned Damned Damned and Machine Gun Etiquette are not only Punk Rock classics, but Rock classics period.
  • Their debut single "New Rose" in itself. It's still a great song to this day, with one hell of an Epic Riff.
  • Also anything featuring Captain Sensible ripping out a guitar solo or four. The guy had/has ridiculous chops.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The band's YouTube page - alongside their promo videos and a few clips of them at the studio recording Grave Disorder - has a video of Sensible and Monty trying to get a parrot to say "arse".
• Covered Up:
  • "Looking At You", originally by MC5, made unstoppable by The Damned.
  • In the UK, their cover of "Eloise" by Paul Ryan was almost as chart-successful as the original.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Their song "Disco Man" from the Friday 13th EP is surprisingly popular and features on several compilations, despite the track never being a single or included on a full album.
• Epic Riff:
  • "New Rose" is instantly identifiable, even before the guitar comes in.
  • "Love Song"'s riff is a musical chainsaw-sledgehammer.
• First Installment Wins: It's not uncommon for people to consider Damned Damned Damned to be their best album. Being the first British Punk album with the first British Punk single certainly helps.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Captain Sensible seems to have built a following in South Korea since "Happy Talk" is used as the theme song for E-Mart.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Sid Vicious was in-line to front the band, but Vanian became the singer when Sid never showed up for the audition. Sid was named after Syd Barrett... who was in-line to produce the band's second album, but was replaced when he never showed up.
• Memetic Mutation: The audience chant "Sensible's a wanker! Sensible's a wanker! Na-naaah-naaah-naah! Na-naaah-naaah-naah!", to the point that you wonder if the guy will ever live it down.
• Signature Song: "New Rose" or "Smash It Up".
• Nightmare Fuel: "These Hands" from Machine Gun Etiquette. It's a song about a clown who wants to murder all those who laugh at him, all the while with some creepy circus music playing. He goes into detail about it, too, saying he'll strangle them until they turn blue. The song ends with him Laughing Mad until he screams "STOP LAUGHING!".
• Older Than They Think: Dee Dee Ramone is usually considered to be the first punk artist to release a hip hop song with "Funky Man" in 1987, but Captain Sensible's "Wot", which definitely contains elements that would be associated with hip hop later on, was released in 1982, a full five years before "Funky Man".
• Sophomore Slump: Music for Pleasure is seen as one of the band's weaker records by most. Primary songwriter Brian James didn't have many ideas going into it, producer Nick Mason was reportedly not very invested in the recording, and the band ended up unhappy with the sound of the album. They broke up for the first time shortly after.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: As the band gradually moved from pure punk rock style towards more diverse punk/alternative/gothic sound, this did not happen without some detractors from old fanbase. The backlash even indirectly inspired the album title Strawberries - when the band saw that many attendants of their concerts simply wanted to hear old stuff "New Rose and "Neat Neat Neat" and did not care about newer songs, Dave Vanian turned to his bandmates and commented that it was like "giving strawberries to a fucking pig".