Never Mind the Bollocks

There are very , very few albums that excite the listener over thirty years down the line as much as the first time you clapped ears on them. The album that does it for me is Big Fun by Big Fun.......no only kidding it's Never Mind The Bollocks by The Sex Pistols. A ferocious blast through the musty halls of the establishment and middle England it still sounds vital to me.
Released on the 28th October 1977 i can still remember buying the vinyl version of the album ( i was 14 years old and paid for it with my paper round money - i still have the vinyl copy i first bought) getting it home , playing it ( as opposed to making a table lamp out of it) and almost bursting with excitement as the sheer vitriolic verve and lung shredding energy of the music blasted out of the speakers. Curiously my dad poked his head round my bedroom door and enquired what it was i was playing .When i told him he remarked " It's good .....can i borrow it?".This came from a man who listened to Jim Reeves. Truly here was a band to reckon with.
Never Mind The Bollocks is still the only official album released by The Sex Pistols- the group had to all intents and purposes disbanded just a few months after it's release- and the storm created by it's release and some of the songs therein would seem astonishing now( although the Ross/Brand thing shows you can never be sure what will set the controversy meter whirling )
Having said that there is still something compulsively illicit in listening to a song like "Bodies" - gurgling bloody mess....another discharge" - one of only two songs on the album written by the poster classic Pistols line up of Cook/Jones/Rotten and Vicious , along with "Holidays In The Sun". Has there ever been a better album opener than that song? - the crunching jackboots then the static bolts of guitars ushering in Rottens gnarly vocals.
But then Never Mind The Bollocks is chock full of iconoclastic classics. "God Save The Queen" ( especially in the silver jubilee year) "Anarchy In The U.K.", "Pretty Vacant" as well as the acerbic record company riposte "E.M.I." . It is also a mire varied album than given credit for with the more studied chugging rhythmic "Submission " ( not included on the first batch release V2086) and the knotty arrangement of "New York" sitting next to flaying tempestuous tracks like "No Feelings" ( which predicted Thatcherism with it's me me me attitude) and "Liar".
The impact of this album cannot be underestimated . Rottens vocal delivery a snarling form of anti-singing , dripping with sarcasm and over enunciating particular words -"They made you a MORON" - still sounds audacious today and the way producer Chris Thomas eschewed the usual punk method a capturing a live raw sound for denser gradated layers of sound made the songs vivid impeccably musical orchestrations. How anyone can find this album tuneless or just a lot of noise is beyond me. It crackles with sardonic intensity sure ...but it also resonates with fizzing tunes. Chris Bailey of The Saints called it "loud pop music" which is fair enough really as far as I,m concerned .
It's constant high position in albums of all time polls while not an irreducible signifier of the albums quality and importance is a pretty broad hint and one i certainly wouldn't argue with .It makes my top ten no problem. A brilliant coruscating seething statement Never Mind The Bollocks still makes me want to jump up and down my bedroom like i did when i was 14 . You can argue about the relevance and motivations of the band , especially given their recent shenanigans , but you cannot doubt this albums importance in musical history or it's continuing relevance.

Britain in the 1970s was in the doldrums - for those enough old enough to remember there was mass unemployment, strikes, power cuts and high taxes - and the young people of Britain really didn't have much to look forward to. The rebellion of the 1950s and 70s had disappeared - rock n roll rebels replaced by "corporate" rock like Yes and Pink Floyd. The punk rock backlash of 1976-77 was just what was needed, not only for millions of disillusioned youngsters but for popular music in general. At the forefront uprising were the Sex Pistols - four angry young playing angry, loud and (for it's time) shocking rock music, their frustration and anger vented by snarling frontman Johnny Rotten. The Sex Pistols were the original and best punk rock group, swearing on early evening television (what did happen to Bill Grundy?) and getting themselves fired from a succession of record companies. This album, released in 1977, was their first and only real offering on vinyl and at the time was considered to be a real shocker. 23 years after it's original release this all-time classic punk record still delivers with plenty of aplomb although I can't help but feel that now, in the days of post-grunge, that this great album sounds more like a mainstream rock album than what it would have sounded like in 1977. But let's put things into context here: when you think that it had been a mere seven years since the Beatles had broken up, and at a time when the charts were dominated by the likes of Abba, Cliff Richard, ELO, 10cc and the Bee Gees, this album must have seemed incredibly outrageous and offensive. With the passing of time, it is still a great record but perhaps not as shocking as it was back then. This is without doubt THE definitive album of the punk genre and as a musical snapshot of the punk era, this album cannot be equalled or bettered.

This is punk at it's best, when it was still a strong force of change, before it became acceptable. This album is less than forty minutes long but yet contains enough energy to have you pogoing around your room. Johnny Rottens snarl defined the disgust the youth generation of the seventies felt with their surroundings and the buzzsaw guitars (sorry for that cliché) let loose the anger that was brimming underneath. This is punk before it became fashionable. Songs like Anarchy In The Uk, the controversial God Save The Queen and Pretty Vacant are only the tip of the filthy rotten iceberg. If you are a punk fan then simply ignore all the pale imitations. The only other album I've heard that comes close to the fury of the Sex Pistols only release (while still together) is the self titled album from the Clash. Nevermind the bollocks and just buy this album (sorry, couldn't resist that one).