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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.
The DIY ethic, distrust of corporations, and the "scene" are just anarchistic (which doesn't mean punk) ideals.
from the very beginning punk rock has been about these diy and independent ideals. minor threat, dead kennedys, etc. continuing on into today. and there are very good reasons for this. it's not just anarchist ideals put to music. it's bands wanting to focus on the music and the show rather than the business, the package, the marketing, and all the sleaze involved in trying to "make it". most punk bands are just out there doing all the things that matter -- playing shows, writing music, putting out CDs or records -- and none of the things that don't -- paying off DJ's, shmoozing, marketing, advertising, trying to cater to the lowest common denominator, etc.
we distrust corporations because they have earned our distrust. good friends of mine, a band called Violent Society, is currently owed over $40,000 by their record label. i've watched other friends' bands get screwed over in similar ways. plus there's the whole RIAA, who want only to insure the profits of the executives at the major labels. true story: i have a friend, she used to work for a major label. her JOB was to call up DJ's and say "hey, i've got two trips to disneyland i'd like to give you, for you to give to your listeners in a contest. in exchange, i want to hear the new Limp Bizkit single 40 times a week. and, if you keep one of those trips for yourself, i'm sure we won't notice." she quit because she couldn't face herself anymore. if you don't actively oppose this system, then you are only reinforcing it. music shouldn't be this slimy. and it's the money that did it. punk bands operate outside of that greed. we take ourselves out of that game.
Politics and music should be kept entirely separate -- idolizing someone like Jello Biafra or, on the other end, Ian Stuart can lead to some blind political choices.
there's nothing wrong with music being about something. frankly songs about girls or how cool the singer is or nothing at all bore the fuck out of me. to each his own, man, don't act like your opinion is fact. i enjoy listening to music whose lyrics actually make me think or even educate or enlighten me. propagandhi in particular is a band whose lyrics are at the same time both political and personal, deeply accurate and informed as well as emotional. they also tell you up front that you shouldn't make opinions based on theirs, or take what they say as fact. they want you to read the papers and make your own decisions.
Punk itself is long dead and still lingers in forms of trendies, poseurs, emofags, Blink 182, and Straight Edge Earth Crisis idiots.
you couldn't be more wrong. the underground punk scene is alive and well, has been that way since its birth in, what, the mid 70's, and will still be here once all this nu-metal crap has gone the way of that swing craze a few years ago. my band plays hardcore punk rock, like minor threat or the dead kennedys, and we play literally about 100 shows a year. and there are bands in every major city right now with gobs of integrity and heart, pounding out punk shows, doing it just like we do. i guess you won't know they're there if you don't go out and look for these shows. you won't hear em on the radio and you won't see them on mtv, cuz they don't have that kind of funding, but i guarantee their shows are more fun than 20 metallica concerts. we're not the "latest thing" but we'll still be here when the latest thing is dead and buried.
i could live a little longer in this prison
What people forget is that this is not punk. The whole idea of a punk 'uniform' is in itself against everything that punk ever was - or is. Punk is about rebelling about what one does not like, and doing it how one wants - sticking your middle finger up at the world, in a sense. It's not about mohawks and leather jackets - or about self-destruction, a la Sid Vicious. In that sense, as other /.ers have pointed out, the Sex Pistols were a Spice Girls band in nature, having been created by Malcolm McLaren, who failed in his previous attempt with the New York Dolls; however, having said that, the original motivation for bands such as the Ramones, the Clash and so forth is more about what punk is.
Punk music is just that - a variety of music, nothing more. Like it or love it, whilst it has come to represent, along with the Sex Pistols at the forefront the ideals of a generation of disaffected British youths, it is not punk. Hell, punk rock (to give the music a name) is not even English in origin - it's American...
25 years on, yes, there are still punk bands out there - by this I do not mean punk rock bands such as the Sex Pistols, I mean bands who have the punk attitude. And they don't even have to play punk rock to be punk. Bands such as Die Toten Hosen, to name one, is a good example. Whilst they may have a punk rock background, they are not punk rockers now - but they are still punk in attitude. Blink 182, the Offspring - ha, don't make me laugh. They are not 'punk'.
Therefore, in a sense, Linux users can even be considered punk - sticking their middle fingers up at Microsoft :)
I heard that your library burnt down and destroyed your only two books - and one was not even coloured in yet.
Hehe but that's the point, maaaan! You're there worrying about postmodernist intrepretations of popular cultural music, and _Sid_couldn't_play_ and _we_didn't_give_a_fuck!
What a breath of fresh air punk was. We all knew it was a laugh and it was taking the piss and if were in their boots we'd take the money and run! Skool kids wearing safety pins and singing "Frigging in the Rigging" in the school playground, punks on telly swearing at boring old middle aged presenters, bands that couldn't play a note and didn't care any more than their fans, the Metropolitan Police trying to ban the Never Mind the Bollocks album cover for obscenity and losing. Total breath of fresh air after the analytic self -infatuated prog rock triple album scene we'd had in the UK. Kicked against an incredibly conservative society and culture.
Wot a laugh! I think that's something a lot of these (mainly US) punk bands nowadays forget, they all take themselves terribly seriously..IT WAS A LAUGH! :-))
By the way, on your list of 'important artists' I think you missed the seminal band The Snivelling Shits.