But to fully get why the New York Dolls are one of the most important bands in all of rock and roll, you need words — words from authoritative sources at that — to come close to conveying that meaning. This is not a new problem; even Aristotle and Plato consider the contradictions between knowledge, passion and their expression in media. In terms of how early 1970s proto-punk is seen in 20th-century, post-postmodernist eyes, however, we get a result that is maddeningly incomplete at no fault of its own.
Of course, missing in both images of the bands and discussions of their legacy is the backbone of the New York Dolls: their music. If images convey the presentation, and articles like this can covey the so-called importance, it’s up to the music, both on the eponymous first album and its often overlooked follow-up Too Much Too Soon, to convey the primal energy, spirit, and passion (pathos, if you will). That’s another side of the Dolls that can’t be conveyed in a book of photos; pictures of live shows are no substitute for the sublime opening of “Personality Crisis,” the legendary drum beat of “Trash,” or the fury of David Johansen’s singing and Johnny Thunders’ shredding in “Babylon.” You won’t get it from this review either. But the fact that the New York Dolls are outstanding in whatever medium you choose is no small feat. That kind of impact is something that very few artists, let alone drugged-out rock bands, can ever hope to accomplish.
One more note that doesn’t follow any other point: if Heath Ledger’s Joker was influenced by Johnny Rotten, and Rotten and the Sex Pistols took their image and spirit from the New York Dolls, it follows by the transitive property of rock that the Dolls were the original Why So Serious band. It’s impossible to look at Gruen’s photos of the band dressed as gangsters named the Lipstick Killers and not think of Ledger’s joker.
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