They meant it MAAAN!!! (Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols - Sex Pistols)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols - Sex Pistols
Date:	04/05/01 (289 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sub-Mission, Rotten, Jones

Disadvantages: Vicious, The hype

Premier, premier subject - get this album if you never buy anything else - history in the making.

The Sex Pistols were one of those once in a lifetime happenings. They weren't just a band, they were a moment, a movement, a phenomenon, a brash outpouring of a generation's rage and bitterness, a revolution, a barking, sneering scream of cynicism. They were IT. All that mattered. Period.

In the late 1970's there was an amazing coming together of a million minor events, and the snotty, chaotic, angry little group of people from whom the Pistols and a thousand other lesser known acts emerged were prepared to add their mark to history.

They did so in a colourful, energetic, violent fashion, daubing their slogans of change indelibly on the awesome beast that is the music business and the world was never quite the same again.

In a lifespan of a little over three years, the Sex Pistols generated a million more column inches than anyone who had gone before them. They scared people, not so much with their green hair, loud rock music and unconventional clothes, but with their whole ATTITUDE.

THEY MEANT IT, MAAAAN!

But attitude alone, without form and substance, would have meant nothing and 'Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols' was attitude made material, a brilliant piece of rock and roll. Forget punk rock and whether the Pistols were the real deal, this was first and foremost a major rock album, by a major rock band.

There are schools of thought which suggest that America’s Ramones, the cartoon family, were the real gods of punk rock, with their buzz saw two minute epic comic cuts, but that particular argument misses the point. ‘Tain’t about to punk or not to punk. What matters is not the genre and orthodoxy, but the spirit, the mood, the intention, the passion - and this lot had all that in spades, plus a great deal more.

I actually prefer the
'Kiss This' CD to the original album, because as well as the twelve tracks on 'Bollocks', it also contains the B-sides of the first four singles, plus 1960's covers 'Stepping Stone' and '(Don't Give Me) No Lip (Child)', although it does end in a trough with Vicious' 'My Way' and the Jones-fronted pop hit 'Silly Thing'. Oh well, you can always fast forward!

The legend of the Pistols is well known - how a small time entrepreneur called Malcolm McLaren returned to England and his clothes shop in London after a spell in the US as manager of trashy, glam rock cult act the New York Dolls, with their own bona fide rock superstars in David Johansen and Johnny Thunders, the epitome of the 'hope I die before I get old' mentality - how McLaren put together a band of ne'er do wells who hung around his shop, thuggish guitarist Steve Jones and his dim witted drumming friend Paul Cook and Glen Matlock on bass - how young John Lydon got the gig as singer after miming to Alice Cooper's 'School's Out' on the jukebox - how McLaren renamed him Rotten because of his discoloured teeth - how EMI signed the band, released the awesome 'Anarchy In The UK' single, then swiftly pulled the single and dumped the band after their controversial appearance with Bill Grundy on the Today television programme - how Matlock was discarded for his Beatle loving tendencies and replaced by Lydon's mate, the ironically named Sid Vicious - how A&M stepped in, then just as quickly stepped out after a riotous party - how Richard Branson's Virgin Records finally gave the Pistols a home that cared - how the 'God Save The Queen' single was unjustly robbed of the No 1 chart position during the height of Jubilee celebrations - how 'Pretty Vacant' finally saw the Pistols break through onto Top of the Pops - BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT memories.

Life was good and we had something to rebe
l against. We also had something that was ours, something which was despised and feared by the establishment. "What are you rebelling against, son?" "Dunno, what you got?"

The Pistols were the first and the biggest and quickly spawned a whole new wave of like minded individuals, good, bad and indifferent and, very occasionally, superb.

Virgin Records were soon ready to issue the band's debut album, the charmingly titled 'Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols', whose title sparked off a whole new set of hysterical headlines and media over reaction.

At the time it was impossible to judge the album on its merits - you either loved it because you loved punk, or you hated it because you hated punk, there was nothing in between.

However, with the perspective and distance of history, it's possible to see 'Bollocks' for what it is, just the spunkiest, hardest slab of rock music you could wish for. It is all grinding, blasting guitar, blocked rhythm chops, swirling lead lines, battering drums and bass, with Jones filling in for the musically inept Vicious. Over it all shines the baleful glare of Rotten, the yowling, bawling, sneering, cynical bite and the most malevolent cackle in rock. The songs are great, the playing raw and beefy and the whole total excitement.

Drums are pounding and supportive and the bass at best functional. It is the ultimate rock guitar tricks of Steve Jones, his easy acceptance of the New Wave guitar hero mantle and the trademark style he adopted that holds the centre stage all in its sway. It scorches the earth, setting the scene perfectly for the Fagin of rock music to jab holes with his dirty fingers in the stodgy mass of modern life and extract the maximum amount of urine from his targets, the poor dumb serfs.

The Pistols were never as good again as they were at the time of this album. They quickly disintegrated as Vicious died
and Lydon reinvented himself, taking a new direction with PiL. He left Cook, Jones and Malcy to embarrass themselves with the ill fated ‘Who Killed Bambi?’ project and collaboration with Ronnie Biggs. The Pistols phenomenon collapsed rapidly into farce and a recycling of substandard offerings, but for a while there, between 1975 and 1977, our hopes knew no bounds….

The boy looked at Johnny, and he gobbed in his face...

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‘Holidays In The Sun’
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CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH
Ja-JANG..... Ja-JANG..... Ja-JANG..... Ja-JANG..... BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Wow Wow Wow - Nee nurr Nee nurr Nurr
Wow Wow Wow - Nee nurr Nee nurr Nurr
“A CHEAP HOLIDAY IN OTHER PEOPLE’S MISEREEEEE….”

The album kicks off with the Pistols' fourth single, which is widely accepted as being the weakest of the bunch. However, that's no real disgrace and in less spectacular company, 'Holidays In The Sun' would have been an exceptional track. The intro was always thought to be a lift from Paul Weller’s ‘In The City’, the first single by The Jam, but it quickly moves into brilliant ‘Pistol-ese’.

Kicking off with mock army marching, it actually sounds more like someone crunching cornflakes - oh, you fearsome gits! - before Rotten arrives mockingly on the scene to recount some of his finer stories, all global apocalypse which namechecks two of the world's greatest horrors, Belsen and the Berlin Wall. It's actually quite a stunning piece of rock when one hears it in its own right, rather than just as a part of the album.

Rotten’s vocals are amazing - he comes across (as on many of the other tracks) as a proper RADA trained ACK-TOOR playing Fagin, with some amazing EE-NUNN-CEE-ATION. The man’s a diamond, a one off, an evil soothsayer
who cherishes, relishes and spits out every syllable, every pause. What price John Lydon as one of the three sisters in Macbeth - “Hubble bubble, toil and trouble.”

"A cheap holiday in other people's misery ! I don't wanna holiday in the sun, I wanna go to the new Belsen, I wanna see some history cos now I got a reasonable economy! Now I got a reason, Now I got reason and I'm still waiting, Now I got a reason, Now I got a reason to be waiting at the Berlin wall. Sensurround sound in a two inch wall, I was waiting for the communist call. I didn't ask for sunshine and I got World War Three, I'm looking over the wall and they're looking at me! They're staring all night and they're staring all day. Claustrophobia, there's too much paranoia, there's too many closets, when will we fall? Cheap dialogue, cheap essential scenery."

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‘Bodies’
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This was one of the newer songs on the album, penned after the departure of Matlock and it ain’t got the class of some of the early stuff, leaping too quickly for the easy shock horror of swear words. It just boils over with evil and unpleasantness and graphic description of abortion.

It’s one of the more unhealthy little pieces here, but is a marvellous slab of very raw punk with abrasive guitar smashing all over the place behind Rotten’s spiteful little diatribe. There’s no quarter given here and no apologies are offered. The Pistols simply didn’t care for the sensibilities of a nation.

“ She was a girl from Birmingham, She’d just had an abortion. She was a case of insanity, Her name was Pauline she lived in a tree. She was a no one who killed her baby. She sent her letters from the country. She was an animal, She was a bloody disgrace! Body, I'm not an animal! Dragged on a table in a factory, Illegitimate place
to be. In a packet in a lavatory, die, little baby SCREAMING!”

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‘No Feelings’
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The High God of Punk declares his mission statement and reminds us (as if we could forget), “I’m in love with myself, my beautiful self.” But as ever, it’s Rotten in his best p*** taking mood and sending his public persona up something rotten.

It cracks along at a fair old pace and Rotten’s speed rant effectively writes off the entire population of the western world as being worthless objects of derision.

“I've seen you in the mirror when the story began and I fell in love with you, I love yer mortal sin. Yer brains are locked away but I love your company. I only ever leave you when you got no money. I got no emotions for anybody else, you better understand I'm in love with my self, my beautiful self. … I'm watching all the rubbish, you're wasting my time. I look around your house and there's nothing to steal, I kick you in the brains when you get down to kneel and pray, you pray to your god.”

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'Liar'
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A pretty throwaway sort of track this, which is a fairly straightforward denunciation of dishonesty. It’s inconsequential but keeps things moving.

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'Problems'
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A Rotten rant of the highest order which mainly consists of him telling the listener that unless they try and take responsibility for sorting out the problems they face in their everyday life then they are part of the problem themselves. It’s a plea for self determination and a clarion call for action. The song is seen by many as a negative bleat, but ‘Problems’ is actually one of the most positive songs of the punk era. Most people saw Rotten as a negative
whinging git, but he’s one of the most positive human beings that there has ever been - it’s just that he was never one for suffering fools gladly.

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'God Save The Queen'
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After the ‘Anarchy’ single, the Pistols roared back with the controversial ‘God Save The Queen’ single, first on A&M and then with Virgin. It was put out with the stated intent of shaking up all the Little England royalists at the time of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations and sparked off a hysterical backlash against the Pistols during the Summer of Hate. There was much rigging of charts in order to prevent the single making number one and it’s clear that there was no way that the pillars of the establishment would allow this song to triumph during Jubilee Week.

It was a massive amount of fuss over nothing and shows exactly how tenuous was the powers that be’s grip on reality. “Oh dear, Mabel, that frightful chap might incite a riot and bring down the government. The cover’s got a picture of the Queen with a safety pin through her nose - it’s disgraceful…”

Lydon got some frightful beatings during the Jubilee celebrations but must have been laughing his socks off at the amount of power that people seemed to think he had.

All I hear is one excellent track that eloquently describes life for the young in the second half of the 1970’s and does so in exciting, strident fashion.

“God save the queen, the fascist regime, they made you a moron, potential H-bomb. God save the queen, she ain't no human being, there is no future in England’s dreaming. Don't be told what you want, don't be told what you need, there's no future, no future, no future for you. God save the queen, we mean it man, we love our queen, God saves. God save the queen, 'cos tourists are
money and our figurehead is not what she seems. Oh god save history, God save your mad parade, oh lord God have mercy, all crimes are paid. When there's no future how can there be sin? We're the flowers in the dustbin, we're the poison in your human machine, we're the future, your future.”

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'Seventeen'
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Also widely known as ‘I’m A Lazy Sod’, ‘Seventeen’ is one of punk rock’s anthems and is supposedly written with Vicious in mind. It’s a petty little put down.

“You're only twentynine, got a lot to learn but when your mummy dies she will not return. We like noise it's our choice, it's what we wanna do. We don't care about long hair, I don't wear flares. See my face, not a trace, no reality. I don't work, I just speed, that's all I need. I'm a lazy sod.”

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'Anarchy In The UK'
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The jagged salvo of opening guitar chords that were SOOOOOOOO right…..

“Right … NOW! HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

The evil chuckle that was Rotten’s signature ushered in a brave new world as the Pistols signalled their intention to raze to the ground what had gone before. ‘Anarchy In the UK’ was the debut, the call to arms, the expression of interest after which nothing would be quite the same again, and indeed it has the legend ‘CLASSIC’ seeping out of all its pores.

“I am an antichrist, I am an anarchist. Don't know what I want but I know how to get it, I wanna destroy the passerby 'cause I wanna be anarchy, no dogsbody. Anarchy for the UK, it's coming … your future dream is a shopping scheme … anarchy, in the city. How many ways to get what you want. I use the best, I use the rest, I use the NME, I
use anarchy … is this the MPLA or is this the UDA or is this the IRA, I thought it was the UK or just another country, another council tenancy.”

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'Sub-Mission'
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Without doubt, this is one of my all time favourite tracks. It’s got a plodding, moody feel with Jones going rifferama and Lydon playing voice games in the way that he would later fully perfect with Public Image. The lyrics arise from a fertile cross mix of the twin themes of bondage and life beneath the waves.

The chopped semi-reggae rhythms and blocked riffing guitar of Jones combine with the hi hat of Cook to lay down a glorious framework and it’s all a very sleazy, grinding classic. Horror of horrors - you even get Rotten singing like yer everyday orthodox vocalist.

“I'm on a submarine mission for you baby. I feel the way you were going. I picked you up on my TV-screen, I feel your undercurrent flowing, submission, going down, down, dragging me down. Submission, I can't tell ya what i've found. You've got me pretty deep, baby, I can't figure out your watery love. I gotta solve your mystery, you’re sitting it out in heaven above … there's a mystery under the sea, under the water, come share it.”

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'Pretty Vacant'
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The distinctive guitar signature of Steve Jones which kicked off their third single is another of those candidates for ‘Great Moments In Rock’ on this album. The chiming progression before Cook’s drums hammer in is one of the best remembered moments in the Pistols’ history. Rock and roll bliss.

“There's no point in asking you'll get no reply, oh just remember, don't decide. I got no reason, it's all too much, you'll always find us out to lunch. Oh we're so pretty, oh
so pretty, we're vacant, oh we're so pretty, oh so pretty, vacant. Don't ask us to attend 'cos we're not all there. Oh don't pretend 'cos I don't care. I don't believe illusions 'cos too much is for real, so stop your cheap comment 'cos we know what we feel.”

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'New York'
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Seen as a dig at the Dolls and a celebration at their drugged up lifestyle, the Pistols successfully spread their wings musically on this number and it’s in similar vein to ‘Sub-Mission’ with more of a rolling roam around the place than the straightforward frontal assault of many of the tracks on the album.

It’s also slower and more restrained than most of the other stuff and is a bloody triumph, a sludgy plod around the seamy underbelly of life. The playing of the Pistols on this song exploded forever the myth that they couldn’t play their instruments.

“An imitation from New York, you're made in Japan from cheese and chalk. You're hippy tarts hero 'cos you put on a bad show, you put on a bad show, oh don't it show. Still out on those pills oh do you remember? Think it's swell playing Max's Kansas. You're looking bored and you're acting flash with nothing in your gut you better keep yer mouth shut, you better keep yer mouth shut in a rut … Four years on you still look the same, I think it’s about time you changed your brain. You're just a pile of shit, you're coming to this, ya poor little faggot you're sealed with a kiss. Kiss me.”

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'EMI'
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There had to be a song about the Pistols’ relationship with record companies and this is it. I don’t think it’s that successful a track or adds much to the album apart from Rotten’s terse kiss off
- “Goodbye, A&M, rasp…”

EMI were an easy target for the band and it really is just a case of Sex-Pistols-By-Numbers here, although nothing the Pistols did while Rotten was still around was without its merits.
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A few of the tracks here let slip the flawless tag, but judged as a whole, ‘Bollocks’ is wonderful party music, a memorable mish mash of punk attitude and Sixties guitar, all given purpose and meaning by the performing monkey with the quick wit and an eye for the absurd. The nemesis of hecklers, there has never been a funnier wit or more charismatic stage performer than Johnny Rotten and this album is his perfect showcase.

Wittier and sharper than The Clash, more fun than The Jam, more focused than The Damned and younger than The Stranglers, deeper than the cartoonish Ramones, The Sex Pistols bestrode the world like a colossus and left behind them a classic album.

TO BE RECOMMENDED

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