Comments on: uReview: Never Mind The Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols

By: John

John — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:54:03 +0000

For years, my reaction to anyone who claimed this was their favorite punk album was to assume they’d never heard it. Maybe they had a Sid Vicious t-shirt and a Green Day CD. Why? I was 14 when I first heard Anarchy – Radio Lumxembourg had an interview with the band right after the Bill Grudy TV show. They played Anarchy three or four times and I Wanna Be Me twice. Visceral, blistering and exciting. I wanted to tell everyone I knew about this band, these songs. When God Save The Queen was released, the local record store had one copy and I stood there for hours hoping they’d play it a second time. Oh, and that b-side! No Fun….Pretty Vacant made Top of the Pops, but the initial thrill was gone.

Then Bollocks came out. Cajoled a tape from a friend’s older brother. Rush home. Oh Dear. Far and away the best moments were the singles I’d already heard. Apart from Submission, nothing else was as good as No Fun or I Wanna Be Me. Much, much worse. Dull. Being 15, I loved Bodies. He was angry! He was cussing! He was venomous. Apart from that, I was deeply disappointed. Stomach ache disappointed. Listen-to-it-again-hoping-it’s-better disappointing. And that was that. Until I was 17 and outgrew the shock value of Bodies. Poor Johnny Rotten wasn’t yet ready to deal with the personal. Oh, and around this time they sang a song called “Belsen Was a Gas”. Yeah, without Glen Matlock they were shit. Complete and utter shit. Irrelevant.

25 years go by and I listened to Bollocks again. Blown Away by the singles, Submission now my favorite, Seventeen moving up the list. Even Holidays sounds better. Steve Jones impresses throughout; Lydon’s petulant, angry, paranoid squaling raises the hair on my neck (oh, how I wish Bodies was about something…would be nice not to have conservative republicans quote it as “their song”…); the drummer appears competent. It’s best thought of as a Greatest Hits package. The short, sharp, shock of the first three singles no longer overwhelms the album. Worth buying, worth listening to. If you missed the singles as they came out, and this was the first time you heard them, it’s a terriffic album, despite some clunkers like EMI and New York.

Oh, and revolution aside. It’s now available from Walmart…Yes, Walmart – “Never Mind The Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols (Wal-Mart Exclusive) (Eco-Friendly Package)”

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10098577&sourceid=1500000000000003260400&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=10098577

John Lydon would move on to create one of the best albums ever with PIL Metal Box/Second Edition. Finally he got the personal and the political right. Perfectly right. Tragically, he was killed in a car crash the following year and his less intelligent twin assumed his identity.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 19:36:44 +0000

If it had only contained the holy triumverate of Anarchy, God Save The Queen and Pretty Vacant – three of the most viscerally thrilling singles of all time and certainly the greatest opening play by any band, then this would qualify as one of the finest albums of all time. Add to this ‘Bodies’, which has a venomous attack only equalled by the likes of the Stooges and the MC5 at their peak, ‘Submission’, ‘EMI’ and the rest and it’s place in the pantheon is assured. Worthy of their reputation? Much more than that I would say. Great production, astonishing, prescient lyricism by Lydon (“your future dream is a shopping scheme”), the raw intensity of the vocal coupled to one of the most astonishing powerhouse rhythmn sections (including Steve Jones brilliantly accurate rhythm guitar) before or since… words have just about failed me now. Do I play it much now? No – but then I rarely play any albums end to end now. But even thirty years on, when ‘God Save The Queen’ or any of the other aforementioned comes roaring out of the speakers, I find myself rearing out of my seat and reaching again for that trusty air guitar. The greatest punk album? It’s *way* better than that…

Fantastic site, by the way…

By: keith

keith — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:11:33 +0000

one of the best all time rock and roll albums

By: AudibleAxiom

AudibleAxiom — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:25:25 +0000

“Bollocks” isn’t the greatest punk record ever made, but it’s defenitely the most important. No band has probably ever reached the influence the Pistols had on the music of the time, I’d say rivaling the Velvet Underground. That story about everyone who say the Velvet Underground starting a band is probably a lot more true for the Pistols. They literally started punk in Britain, and it’s just unfortunate that the production on this album wasn’t great, and that, in my opinion, many of those who they influenced topped them in terms of the actual songs. 10 for influence, but maybe a 7 or 8 for the actual album.

By: Mr. Beer N. Hockey

Mr. Beer N. Hockey — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:41:23 +0000

Nevermind the Bollocks is still the best rock ‘n’ roll record ever made. As someone once said to me after they heard “God Save the Queen” for the first time, “Aren’t fucking about, are they?” Off the top of my head I can only think of a few records that even come close, most recently Motorhead’s “Motorizer.”

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:23:20 +0000

To some extent, I think “Bollocks” is a case of “I guess you had to be there.” But if you WERE there, meaning England in ‘76 and ‘77, Johnny Rotten really WAS a boogie-man. Think about it for a moment: if in the mid-late ’60s, Mick Jagger’s androgynous sexuality made the older generation of Brits uncomfortable, how do you think people in the U.K. reacted to Rotten’s disgusted vehemence? His ranting with all those rolled “r’s” about how down-the-tubes and complacent English society had become? When you compare them to the inoffensive pop/rock on the British charts at the time, Rotten and the Pistols seem that much more incredible. Sure, they were also an essential part of Malcolm McLaren’s Situationist strategy for throwing a monkey wrench into the works of English life and its celebration of the Jubilee. But when has a rock ‘n’ roll group upset people THAT much lately? Or in the last thirty odd years? For that alone, I applaud the Pistols, their singles, and, in general, the tracks on “Bollocks.”

Now, all that being said, once out of its cultural context, while “Bollocks” is a solid album, I get more kicks out of The Clash’s debut, The Saints’ first two LPs, The Ramones’ “Rocket to Russia”, The Undertones’ first album, and, for that matter, certain tunes off Generation X’s debut! The New York Dolls’ two albums have also given me more consistent pleasure than “Never Mind The Bollocks” ever has. And, when you get right down to it, as much as I love mid-late ’70s punk rock, during this soon-to-be done-with decayde, I’ve been getting a much bigger buzz from The Turtles’ “Turtle Soup”, Every Mother’s Son, Kippington Lodge, The Tages, The Association, Lee Hazlewood, Boyce and Hart, and many other purveyors of pop-psych and sunshine pop-rock. Call me a wimp, if you will, or better yet, a pimp, the “p” standing for “pop.”

By: hingehead

hingehead — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:16:05 +0000

Just to go one better than Len’s ‘I bought Bollocks and Cliff’s greatest hits at the same time’ story … I bought Bollocks and Gregorianische gesange ( a German recording of Gregorian chants) at the same time.

By: Tandard Teve

Tandard Teve — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:42:14 +0000

Not that great….

By: Kiko Jones

Kiko Jones — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:08:43 +0000

I first heard this album 10 years after it had been released and, while I enjoyed it, I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about.

When I started thinking about the state of popular music in 1977 and remembered how dismal much of it was–for me, anyway–Never Mind the Bollocks’ significance immediately became clear to me. Which is why some may find it more important than enjoyable, and rightfully so. But it’s still a great hard rock record–nothing remotely “punk” about it–and one of the great debuts of all time.

By: EH

EH — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:35:10 +0000

I remember hearing this when I was like 14 and thinking it sounded like a buzzsaw, but I eventually loved it as a lifestyle identity album.

Cliff Richard and Sex Pistols is pretty good! I once bought (around the time above) Slayer and Run DMC’s first albums together.