Talk:Thin Lizzy

"First Irishman to achieve fame in the field of rock and roll?"
In the lede, there is a statement that Phil Lintot was the first Irish musician who became famous in rock and roll. While Phil Lintot was a wonderful singer/musician, Van Morrison and The Them predate Thin Lizzy by quite some time. As a rule of thumb, any superlative is ridiculous in any article. 173.186.127.134 (talk) 19:17, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Did you even read the lede? It clearly states: the first black Irishman. ww2censor (talk) 21:25, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Heavy metal genre
It says on the main page that they are heavy metal, however, only one of their albums, Thunder and Lightning, has the heavy metal tag. Even their songs such as The Boys Are Back in Town, Jailbreak, Whisky in the Jar, etc do not bear the tag either. With this in mind, what makes them heavy metal. The only album of theirs to bear the tag is their final album in the early 1980s. While later configurations of the group do feature members known for heavy metal, they have not released any original metal material under the Thin Lizzy name and so it must be assumed that anything bearing a heavy metal sound (outside of that aforementioned studio album) are merely live albums put together from performances by the touring only version of the group. If anyone has any evidence to contradict my claims or has evidence that supports my claims, please do chime in below. Moline1 (talk) 01:30, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Genres should come from WP:SECONDARY sources, not from looking around Wikipedia at related articles. The cited reference for heavy metal in the infobox is a book that says the band had a "considerable influence on heavy metal". The reference is not saying that the band is heavy metal themselves, but that they influenced other musicians who became metal. We should remove the heavy metal genre from the infobox. Scott Gorham and Harry Doherty write in their book Thin Lizzy: The Boys Are Back in Town (ISBN 9780857128010) that the album Thunder and Lightning contained "overly metallic, un-Lizzy-like moments on it." The authors are saying that the heavy metal elements of that album are atypical of Thin Lizzy. Gorham and Doherty point to John Sykes as the person who brought metal influences into the band. Binksternet (talk) 03:49, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I've always left HM there as, by contemporary comparison, Thunder and Lightning is more or less a HM album. Sykes did bring HM influences into the band at that time, and that influence was atypical of Lizzy's output. That said, Thunder and Lightning was still arguably HM. Of the post-Lynott lineups, sure, they touched on HM at times, particularly the Sykes lineups. But I agree that shouldn't result in the band being tagged as HM. I also agree that influencing HM bands (Metallica etc) does not make Thin Lizzy HM. In my experience, passing editors love to tag Lizzy as HM, and I almost always remove it. It has been applied to Jailbreak, "The Boys Are Back..." etc in the past. I'm happy for it to be removed from this article if that's the consensus. Bretonbanquet (talk) 17:34, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it should be removed. If there is only one album featuring the genre, it does not define the band's sound as a whole. It's like defining Lady GaGa's sound as a whole as jazz despite her only release in that genre being the album she did with Tony Bennett. If editors at the Lady GaGa article are saying jazz does not define her whole career just because of that album, then we too should say that heavy metal does not define Thin Lizzy's sound as a whole just because of the Thunder and Lightning album and later live performances probably featuring a metal sound. Moline1 (talk) 18:56, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

AllMusic critic John Dougan's statement is very likely erroneous
In the introduction, it states:

AllMusic critic John Dougan has written that "As the band's creative force, Lynott was a more insightful and intelligent writer than many of his ilk, preferring slice-of-life working-class dramas of love and hate influenced by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and virtually all of the Irish literary tradition."[4]

Thin Lizzy's first album was released in 1971 and their second album, Shades of a Blue Orphanage in 1972, while Bruce Springsteen's first album, "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J." was released in 1973. The first two Thin Lizzy albums are the only ones that have similarities with Springsteen's work, so it's very unlikely Lynott was influenced in any way by Springsteen. It's more likely it was the other way around.

Suggestion: There could be a comment stating the possible inaccuracy of Dougan's quote, or his quote should be removed altogether.

79.107.177.26 (talk) 15:28, 28 June 2022 (UTC)


 * In what sense are Thin Lizzy's first two albums the only ones similar to Springsteen's work? Bretonbanquet (talk) 14:22, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thin Lizzy's first two albums and Springsteen's albums (especially his first ones) have a folk, soft-rock sound and their themes deal mainly with a romantic view of street-city-life and its everyday heroes. Both artists were very likely inspired by Bob Dylan. From their third album onwards, Thin Lizzy moved to a heavier, hard-rock oriented sound and their themes started to also incorporate fantasy and sci-fi. 79.107.177.26 (talk) 12:31, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Lynott's romantic heroes and street rebel imagery continued throughout the 70s and beyond; there were literally dozens of songs along those lines. There was no more fantasy/sci-fi from '73 onwards than there was on the first two records really, i.e. not a great deal. Bretonbanquet (talk) 17:22, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That may be, but musically Thin Lizzy was very different from Springsteen from the third album onwards. Anyway, that doesn't have anything to do with Lynott being (lyrically) influenced by Bruce Springsteen, since he started with this lyrical style 2 years before Springsteen. 79.107.177.26 (talk) 18:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Style and legacy section
Regarding 's recent additions to this section, I thought I'd start a discussion here. The general description touching on genres should be in the lead section, to explain to readers unfamiliar with the band just what kind of music we're talking about, before going too far into anything else. Further explanation of genres can be in the style and legacy section. With regard to the additions about Lynott's techniques, I have a few problems with this piece in particular: "Lynott became known for his unique style of bass playing, utilizing alternate picking to strum eighth notes or triplets. Lynott's hard-hitting rhythmic approach pushed his bass parts to the forefront of the music, often playing on top of the beat and signalling pushed chords". The problem here is that Wikipedia is a general purpose encyclopedia, and this is way too technical for the average reader to understand. Only students of music are going to get this kind of jargon, and it needs to be dumbed down (a lot) for the vast majority of readers. Alternate picking, eighth notes, playing on top of the beat and signalling pushed chords – none of that means anything to me at all, and it doesn't explain why this stuff matters with relation to Thin Lizzy. There needs to be examples of songs in which these techniques are employed, and wikilinks to articles which help explain what this stuff means. Triplets, for example, I understand. Lynott employed triplets a lot – easy to play while singing at the same time – on songs like "Angel of Death". Also, I feel the technical stuff belongs at Phil Lynott rather than here, because you're dissecting his technique as a musician, rather than describing Thin Lizzy. Consider similar sections for other musicians, like Flea, for how this should be handled.

The additions on his lyric writing and singing are fine – easy to understand and very helpful. I don't think Lynott was a unique player though – many bassists play like him, then and now. He was a very clever guy who, while not hugely gifted technically, knew exactly what to play and when, playing for the song rather than ever showing off. Lizzy were better known for the twin lead guitar thing than Lynott's bass, and this section should probably reflect that. Most of all, it should be kept general, and not diverge into musical jargon. Bretonbanquet (talk) 13:19, 28 October 2023 (UTC)


 * I get where you are coming from with the musicial term stuff, I just thought it would be important to include details about Phil's playing since it's a big part of what makes Thin Lizzy so unique. I do believe it's important to include this stuff, just not entirely sure how to dumb it down or make it sound entirely objective Susrage (talk) 14:41, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Also the stuff about genres, I think that putting it in the style section is more fitting because that's where a reader would want to go to get an idea of a band's style. The intro, at least to me, should be more of a brief intro of the bandmembers and how the band was formed. I usually don't see stuff about musical style in the intro on most articles. Susrage (talk) 14:44, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok I'll rephrase that, putting a band's style and sound in the intro(at least a brief summation) is fine, I just thought the way it was described in this article was a little too descriptive for an intro, and better suited for the style section. Susrage (talk) 14:47, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Cool, yes, it is hard to make the technical stuff easy to understand, which is probably why it hasn't been done before. Maybe we can figure something out which at least helps to explain some of what that source is talking about. The intro piece is pretty general; it just so happens that Lizzy touched on a lot of genres. The genre sentence is also not sourced, which is sort of okay in the lead, but not in the article body – each genre would need to be sourced. Ideally, the sentence in the lead would be expanded in the style section, with all the sources thrown at it. Bretonbanquet (talk) 15:02, 28 October 2023 (UTC)