Sex Pistols

Can't sing, can't dance. You'll go a long way.

One of the most overrated bands ever. Jasus John Lydon ended up doing TV ads butter. Talk about selling out

Rock'n'Roll. Teddy Boys. Mods and Rockers. The Beatles. Flower Power. Glam Rock. Prog Rock. Bay City Rollers. Punk. Disco. New Romantics. Girl Bands. Boy Bands. Maybe not in that order, but whatever teenagers are into in their own generation. They all turn into their fathers and mothers in the end. Including the Hippies, Punks and Goths.

Their teen idols who did not die before they got old, continue as entertainers decades later, same as Sinatra and Crosby before them.

The Bay City Rollers. Only the band the Sex Pistols could have been.

Punk was happening and Malcolm McClaren made it seem like they invented it. The Rollings Stones had more influence on the American punk scene than the Pistols. The Clash were art students going with the current style.

Punk originally meant DIY and then became quite ridged by within a few years. American punck was much more fun but UK European punk was violent.

Jeffrey Lewis disagrees

one single studio album and about 10 compilation albums of live gigs, bsides, soundtracks etc…

I bought never mind the bollocks in 1996… the same summer I was buying old records by some of their contemporaries like..

The Clash, Buzzcocks and Magazine…who were all vastly superior bands…in terms of songwriters, songs and musicians and with the likes of Joe Strummer, icons…

Pistols …a handful of good songs on a decent record, a real good guitarist in Steve Jones, Glen could play Rotten had presence and attitude but nothing else…

their currency was controversy because their body of work didn’t stand up and subsequently they didn’t stand the test of time..

I would agree. Their importance is much more cultural than musical. As you say, the Clash and Buzzcocks were much better bands, but arguably may not have existed without the Pistols. GSTQ is fun, but ultimately not much of a song. Pretty vacant is ok, but other than that I don’t think they had much to offer. They did give others the impetus to get bands together though.

oh, and John Lyndon seems to have eaten substantial quantities of that butter he was promoting based on his size the last time I saw him.

Like saying the Beatles were the same as The Monkees who care?

Like Nirvana over rated and history inflated their importance. As you get older you notice the journalists write history as they record it. The new media might change it but that is easily mislead too.

I met many "punks" back in the day and the people who acted like Lydon's image were just a holes. It isn't fun our in anyway meaningful. Lydon has been helping trouble children for years but is still an a hole publicly.

It is the music business and that should never be ignored

I think Lydon is/was a great lyricist and frontman.

The Sex pistols need to be only looked at over the period from 76 to 78. Anything they did after that as a group or individuals dilutes what they were during that short productive period. They were lucky to be the right people at the exact right time producing a sound that people wanted to hear and surrounded by people clued in enough to make it happen. Their influence on so many bands is massive.

That said – I do find Never Mind the Bollocks a bit hard to listen to these days. It has not aged well to my over aged ears. 

one of the greatest tunes ever, and very real

considering pil have been consistantly good for 40 years i think john has something else

look at the roster of musicians and songwriters that pil had.. an example being Jan Wobble, a bass great.

every song practically on their more successful albums was written by committee… credited to three and four songwriters.

A lot of bands were always about the right place and time. Capturing the zeitgeist at exactly the right time. The ones talked about most are never the first of their genre, because they've been inspired by earlier bands and have developed the sound at just the right time to explode onto the scene.

Usually it's a combination of the sound, the attitude and the charisma, at just the right time.

If Nirvana had popped up in the early 80s they would have been called angry post-punk and derided as being late to the anarchy party.

Lydon has really been shown up as a charlatan over the years. A Nigel Farage type who has no real principles or personal convictions, but instead will say and do whatever he thinks it is will get him the most attention and kudos. Being controversial more important than any message. And with the bonus of being able to write off anything as "a stunt" or "holding a mirror up to society".

Punk and the Sex Pistols chaos was guaranteed attention for him, so he rolled with it.

AFAIK, Glen wrote the lyrics to that.

In the real world, a lot of kids thought Friggin' In The Riggin' was the best Sex Pistols song, as it fitted most closely with the version of punk pushed by the tabloids - lots of swearing, guitars, offensive. The Great Rock 'n' Swindle was my introduction to the band and is preferred to Never Mind The Bollocks. Anyway IMHO, the best punk album by anyone is Give 'Em Enough Rope.

I was at this gig. They smashed all their instruments in the first song.

thought Caroline Coon invented the term in August 1976? 'punk' was a derogatory term in use in america, but it wasn't related to music. According to a friend of mine who was in the Damned at the time, the term 'punk' in regards music was literally never heard when they released New Rose

OK - I'll tell a person actively involved in the early punk movement that people were calling it 'punk music' in the UK in 1976, though he - as a person who was there - claims otherwise. I'll tell him some lad on the interweb told me 😉.

This.

As Rhino Records said in their excellent No Thanks box set (2003), "Before there was punk (the genre), there was punk (the movement)"

Or if you go back 10 years to 1993 and their brilliant DIY series, the New York is anthologised well here - https://www.discogs.com/release/443547-Various-DIY-Blank-Generation-The-New-York-Scene-1975-78

I'm an avid fan of compilations and the 1990s was the golden era for decent anthologies that properly contextualised the past.

This is a great documentary series for anyone whether they know nothing or everything about the genre.

IMDb: : Punk 

 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9419282/

Boyzone and the S P are worlds apart

At least the S P sang and wrote their own songs and played instruments, Boyzone on the other hand were just a glorified karaoke band