Kiss This -Best of-

STAGE 1:THE SINGLES

1.Anarchy in the UK - 10/10 -legendary punk song...so explosive with Rotten at his best.
2.God save the queen - 10/10 - Infamous song with great guitar riff...something that will go down in history books.
3.Pretty Vacant - 9.5/10 - Probably their most "pop" song...but listen out for the chorus! ( Va-c**t!)
4.Holidays in the sun - 9.5/10 - Another great song with a famtastic intro

STAGE 2:THE B SIDES

5.I wanna be me - 8/10 - Quality sounds poor but the song is still real gritty...very early pistols material.
6.Did you no wrong - 8/10 - Another good song...oroginally before Rotten arrived
7.No fun - 9/10 - Infamous for being played at winterland as the last song the band ever played live....."Ever feel like your being robbed?"
8. Satellite - 8.7/10 - Another early song with a great guitar riff...about the early satellite towns they toured
9.Don't give me no lip child - 9/10 - A cover of a Dave Berry song...Jones played with the wrong guitar strings but it sounded so good that they kept it.
10.(I'm not your)stepping stone - 7/10 - Doesn't appeal to me...worst on album in my opinion.

STAGE 3:NEVER MIND THE B**LOCKS

11.Bodies - 10/10 - One of my favs....Steve Jones is at his best here...also the only track that Sid Vicious probably appeared on....
12.No feelings - 9.5/10 - Glen sed it was their most "rock n roll" record....Rotten stands out as superb.
13.Liar - 8/10 - I fitting track wrote about their weasal manager
14.Problems - 9/10 - Simple track....still great.
15.Seventeen - 9/10 - A two-minute thrasher about the feelings of being 17 and not giving a f**k about anything
16.Submission - 8/10 - A slower than usual song to p**s off their manager again.
17.New york - 10/10 - Pistols on top form with an attack on the New York scene claiming to have created punk.
18.E.M.I - 10/10 - Fantastic track about being dropped by their record label....guitar riff is SO catchy...u gotta turn up the volume for this one!

STAGE 4:POST ROTTEN

19.My way - 7.8 - Sid vicious on vocals...he is poor trying to copy Rotten...but the song itself is famous within the punk world..
20.Silly thing - 10/10 - Paul Cook and Steve Jones on vocals..about Maclaren or Vicious...this shows that maybe they could have continued without John but it wasn't meant to be....

The album has 20 tracks on...not 18 like advertised...ENJOY!

It opens with those anthems- Anarchy in the UK, God Save the Queen & Pretty Vacant: great pop songs delivered with complete panache (Chris Thomas probably needs mentioning). The lyrics do actually say something- Rotten/Lydon a precursor of people like Morrissey, Kevin Rowland & Mark E Smith, his lyrics cutting to the point with amphetamine accuracy. & the phrasing is great- "we're so pretty, oh so pretty, we're VAY-****"!!!!). Holidays in the Sun is even better, even if Paul Weller claims he was ripped off- & its Berlin Wall themes sound interesting from a 1989 point of view, as well as a 1977 one.

Non-album tracks like I Wanna Be Me and Did You No Wrong are great- the former asserts individuality that most punk fans wouldn't get and remains relevant with all these sad retro bands of late. Did You No Wrong would have made a great single, a great pop song, "going out of my head!". No Fun is even better than The Stooges original, Lydon's opening rant a form of proto-rap ("it's time for a sociology lecture...") and an example of a great cover version. Like Husker Du's Eight Miles High or The Clash's Brand New Cadillac, it's superior to the original. The music is kind of limited rock & roll, which tracks like Satellite, Don't Gimme No Lip & a cover of Steppin' Stone (which amusingly I'm a Celebrity hosts Ant&Dec also covered!) demonstrate. Lydon would advance into music as exciting as his lyrics with PIL & this lot would influence loads of acts in the punk/post-punk era. Without them, no Joy Division, Wire, Slits, Buzzcocks, Undertones, Clash, Gang of Four etc. Still, it's all good primal rock, like Motorhead or AC/DC...

The latter half of the album takes in the Nevermind...-tracks that weren't singles- Bodies utterly violent stuff & then four tracks that fly by: No Feelings, Liar, Problems, Seventeen- they had hit on a brilliant chemistry. Problems would stand up as a song performed by anyone- wait for the Justin Timberlake cover. Even better is Submission, Rotten having been asked by McLaren to write a song about bondage- so Rotten opted to write about a submarine mission instead! The music is almost funky and played against something like Death Disco, it's evident where Lydon might be heading next. New York & EMI are wonderful ripostes to the moment, The Sex Pistols seemed so present tense!

Rotten/Lydon left and McLaren carried on the b(r)and for a while longer- The Great Rock & Roll Swindle and all that- fortunately we get just two tracks from this era. My Way is the best thing Sid Vicious sang (the Cochran covers were too sad, showing how unrevolutionary punk was in some ways), an amusing vocal that must have influenced Shane MacGowan's vocal delivery on something like The Irish Rover. It's also used at the climax of Martin Scorsese's masterpiece Goodfellas (1990), the scene where Henry Hill ungratefully gripes about living in the witness protection programme cos they can't get the sauce right, then we see Joe Pesci's character shoot at the screen. It's very Sid and very punk rock and has made this song more charming for me. Silly Thing (the original title a little bluer) is a good song also, Steve Jones takes lead vocals and sounds not unlike...Joe Strummer! Lydon even likes it- an epitaph for a band that didn't exist anymore...

Kiss This! is great stuff and the ideal primer in Lydon's career, along with PIL's Greatest Hits...So Far; though no doubt, following Lydon's TV appearance, Virgin will put out another compilation. Bet it's called 'I'm Johnny...get me out of here!'- still, if it has that Timezone/World Destruction & Leftfield/Open Up singles on, I won't complain! Every home should have a Sex Pistols record and this is probably the one...