The Sex Pistols had been around for just over a year, under the careful control of Malcolm McLaren. McLaren knew what to do to gain publicity, to manipulate the media and to, consequently, make money.
At the time The Sex Pistols were seen by many as a close relative of the Antichrist (or, by some, as the Antichrist himself). This was exactly the type of publicity that McLaren's was trying to generate. He wanted to have his band appeal to a generation that felt disenfranchised from the society that was busy celebrating the Queen's Silver Jubilee with old-fashioned street parties and from a music industry that either released very dull middle of the road music or pompous OTT Prog Rock a la Yes and Genesis (in the early Peter Gabriel days).
Never Mind the Bollocks... hits you in the face with its iconic sleeve artwork before taking the listener on a lively, fun and faux angry musical rant of musical miniatures. The album cover, and it';s use of the word "bollocks" lead to Richard Branson's Virgin record label having a day in court - they got off.
By the end of 1977 The Sex Pistols had been playing for a while, they could, now, actually play their instruments - unlike some of their earlier live performances that helped to bring their notoriety to the public's attention.
The album contains three punk masterpieces: God Save the Queen, Anarchy in the UK and Pretty Vacant with it's fantastic and memorable vocal performance. Today there is nothing shoclking here - it's rock and roll in the best traditions of that genre. Only one track goes beyond three and a half minutes - and then only just!
These days John Lydon, the scourge of the Mary Whitehouse and her brand of Moral Majority at the time, is more often to be seen in the Celebrity Jungle or dressed up in waistcoat selling butter! He's now an eccentric National Treasure - he's no longer going to undermine decent society.
It's a great album - of it's time but, if I'm honest, in it's simplicity, of any time when youth want to rebel against society.
It's worth having a listen again. It's probably better than you remember!
You forgot to mention that all these decades later, there's nothing else that sounds remotely like it. The buzz of the guitar, the thud of the drums, and Rotten's sneering, snarling vocals -- thousands have tried to imitate it, but no one has ended up even in the same ballpark.
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