Happy 45th Anniversary to The Sex Pistols’ debut and only studio album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, originally released October 28, 1977.
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Forty-five years after the release of the Sex Pistols’ one and only studio album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, the band’s influence on the music industry remains as prevalent as ever. For better or worse, style over substance still reigns supreme in today’s world. For the Pistols, it all began at Malcolm McLaren & Vivienne Westwood’s shop, Let It Rock, a clothing store that was a hangout for many members of London’s burgeoning punk scene. It was during this time that McLaren became the manager of the Strand, an early incarnation of the Sex Pistols, at the request of their guitarist Steve Jones.
In 1975, McLaren, while visiting the US, became inspired by the emerging punk scene on the Lower East side of Manhattan. He began his search for a frontman to lead the group, now known as QT Jones & the Sex Pistols. McLaren reached out to Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls, Midge Ure, later of Ultravox, and Kevin Rowland, who eventually founded Dexys Midnight Runners. All either declined or were rejected by the band. McLaren even reached out to Richard Hell, who said no as well.
Enter John Lydon. Lydon’s first meeting with McLaren and the band was everything you would expect it to be. Wearing his “I Hate Pink Floyd” t-shirt, adorned with safety pins all over it, he was asked to sing along to Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” playing on the shop’s jukebox. It was enough to convince them that he was the right person to front the band.
Lydon once described that period in London as “…a very depressing place with both the colour strike and the UK postal workers strike in full swing. It was completely run down with trash on the streets, and total unemployment—just about everybody was on strike. Everybody was brought up with an education system that told you point blank that if you came from the wrong side of the tracks...then you had no hope in hell and no career prospects at all. Out of that came pretentious moi and the Sex Pistols and then a whole bunch of copycat wankers after us.”
Most of 1976 consisted of the band playing gigs throughout England and eventually getting signed by EMI later in the year. The EMI deal did not last long, however. Their first single with the label, “Anarchy in the U.K.,” caused quite a stir in England. Wire’s Colin Newman called it “the clarion call of a generation.” Others were not so moved. Workers at the EMI plant refused to pack the band’s single. Their gigs were getting canceled and the more that it happened, the more destructive they became. After a profanity laced Thames television interview and a disastrous flight to Heathrow Airport amongst many similar offenses, EMI severed ties with The Pistols.
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To add fuel to the fire, The Pistols fired bassist Glen Matlock. The reason depends on who you ask. McLaren stated in a telegram to NME that Matlock had been sacked “because he went on too long about Paul McCartney....the Beatles was too much." In in his autobiography, Matlock maintains that his contentious relationship with Lydon sped up the process of his departure. His replacement was a Sex Pistols fan and friend of Lydon, John Simon Ritchie, better known as Sid Vicious. He was chosen despite the fact that he could not play bass. His previous musical experience was as a drummer for an early incarnation of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Vicious’ lack of proficiency mattered none to McLaren, who once remarked "When Sid joined he couldn't play guitar but his craziness fit into the structure of the band. He was the knight in shining armour with a giant fist."
With the new lineup set, The Pistols signed with A&M Records on March 9, 1977 and the label quickly pressed 25,000 copies of their new single "God Save the Queen.” Seven days later, the band once again found themselves without a record label. It wasn’t the content of the lyrics of "God Save the Queen” that did them in. It was their behavior. Broken toilets at A&M, a bloodied Sid Vicious trolling around the A&M offices, verbally abusing staff members and numerous fights in London clubs proved to be too much for the label to handle. Virgin Records were more than happy to swoop in and save the day for the band.
In the spring of 1977, the band resumed recording God Save the Sex Pistols, which would eventually become Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. Early on in the sessions, it became apparent that Vicious’ bass playing was atrocious and unrecordable. The drill would be that he would record his part and Steve Jones would overdub it. Also, in a touch of irony, Glen Matlock was hired to play some bass parts. How much is still up for debate.
The very idea of the Sex Pistols is an example of performance art at its finest. The histrionics notwithstanding, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols wound up being one of the most important records in rock history. If you remove the chaos, the anarchy and the style over substance, you have an incredible political statement about England in the late seventies. It is a giant middle finger to the establishment and a rallying cry to just go completely ape shit. It’s a shame the message got lost in the antics of a band who really did not give a fuck. In my eyes, that’s what being punk is really about.
Many contend that punk started in the US, but the conditions in London and the music borne out of this period suggest otherwise. The Sex Pistols were just what the times needed. By the time we realized it, they were no longer together. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols lit the fuse and while the band quickly departed the scene of the crime, they left behind a blueprint that’s been copied for four-and-a-half decades with varying degrees of success and failure.
Listen to this album. Listen to the lyrics. A lot of your favorite bands took notes and made some adjustments. Power comes from the strangest and most unlikely places. When you do listen, make sure the volume is at 10.
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