Never Mind The 25th Anniversary

jonerik writes "Considering that much of the controversy surrounding the Sex Pistols was centered around Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, it's somewhat ironic that the band is now celebrating their own: The group's seminal album, "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" was released 25 years ago today, according to this article from Reuters. Interestingly, although the album was hugely influential (and remains so), like most punk albums of the time, it wasn't a huge success in the U.S. at the time, taking until 1987 to be certified gold and another five years to be certified platinum. God save the Sex Pistols - we mean it maaaaaaaaan." Yeah, so it's not precisely topical - but still, whata band.

Comments

Re:Sex Pistols were a farce

[Malc]

I think the Sex Pistols did the UK a lot of good. Back at the end of the 70's, society was still *very* conservative. The Sex Pistols were extremely shocking to a lot of people. When they tried to tour the UK, they only managed 4 gigs due to the outcry against them. Like many other forms of art, controversy gets people talking. They helped changed many people's attitudes - rather than taking the English approach of ignoring the sub-culture and pretending it didn't exist and our children weren't involved, people were forced to deal with it. "God Save the Queen" reaching #1 (although it wasn't acknowledged by the BBC at the time) made huge statements about the establishment.

Of course, John Lyndon will say it was all about introducing something interesting in to people's boring lives... and he was probably right. We're sitting here talking about it today, aren't we?

Cultural Revolution

[JimPooley]

What a lot of you people don't realise is what a cultural revolution the Sex Pistols were part of, and how the authorities tried to stamp it out.

The pop charts were rigged especially to keep God Save The Queen off the number one spot, and the record was banned from airplay.

Retailers were actually threatened with arrest and imprisonment should they have the "Never Mind The Bollocks" album on display in their stores.

So while they may not have been the best punk band, they had a major impact on our culture, as what was banned 25 years ago is now perfectly acceptable.

Of course, a lot of the stuff that passes for punk on MTV these days is just bollocks.

Never mind the farce, here come the Pistols

[commodoresloat]

Here here! The farce of the Sex Pistols was precisely their greatness, and McLaren's genius lay in packaging this commodity according to principles outlined by cutting edge art movements, including the Situationists -- principles aimed at disrupting commodity society. Of course, in the long run it played into commodity society much more than it disrupted, but that was to be expected. Punk was never going to change the world, but its beauty lay in the fact that, for a moment, it made it seem possible that the world could change. And it certainly opened the doors for an invasion of DIY indie labels, garage bands, fashion designers, and other artists, breaking through the dominance of tired old stadium rock.

I highly recommend Greil Marcus' outstanding book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century to anybody trying to understand the Pistols or punk rock. And I forget the author but The Wicked World of Malcolm McLaren is a great book illuminating McLaren's background and experiences.