Second in a series of re evaluation of classic albums, part one beingThe Stranglers 'Black and White'

'We're vacant, pretty vah-cunt and we don't care...'

screech the phlegm filled vocals as the song ends on a skree of feedback and attitude. For three minutes we have been on an exhilarating ride of huge guitars, powerful drums and maximum rock n roll that is as thrilling and dangerous as it can get... and this is the Sex Pistols at their most pop with 'Pretty Vacant'.

The rest of their one and only proper album, 'Never Mind The Bollocks' staggers from one extreme to another but somehow remains within the boundaries of rock. It's so full of attitude that it has affected generations of musicians from Guns n Roses to the Manic Preachers from the Stone Roses to Oasis to Primal Scream to Creation Records boss Alan McGee to black metal to any rock band who want to a bit further...

Somehow, though, the Sex Pistols story is always about the clothes, the politics, the artwork, the controversy and the management- the music has been removed from the narrative. Another listen to their one and only album, 'Never Mind The Bollocks' is enough to make you realise that this one of the great rock n roll records and the band's music is not only stunningly original but a perfectly produced maelstrom of restless resentment and barely unsurpassed excitement.

The end of their number one (but removed to number two by the chart cowards) 'God Save The Queen' is a perfect example of this. It's about as thrilling as rock n roll gets. The loose abandon of guitars piling on their wall of sound insanity is unsurpassed as Steve Jones makes the greatest rock guitar sound in the history of rock n roll.

Paul Cook's drums are powerful, off kilter and ever inventive- the pair of them perfectly understand how to create adrenalized excitement in the confines of a rock song and are, perhaps, the unsung heroes of the punk rock generation. The Sex Pistols story has become one of pop culture guerrillas and Situationist thinking tearing apart of the fabric of society, this side- the intellectual, trouble making story of the Sex Shop and also Rotten's stunning anti hero stance is documented endlessly but without Cook and Jones all this would have meant little. The actual sound that the pair of them makes is a stunning understanding of the power and fury of what the band was about and if all the Situationist stuff was of little interest to them they somehow matched its intent with their sonic assault. The pair of them are virtually all you need here, bass man Glen Matlock had been a great player but he doesn't make it to the album (or does he? lots of varying accounts on who played bass...) and his replacement Sid Vicious may have been an iconic, action man clothes horse but was no bass player.

The story of punk has been changed over the years.

These days the big spreads on punk history are built around the Clash and whilst we love the Clash, the story has to be put right, because, surely it was the Sex Pistols that were the key band from punk. The Pistols started it, they were the catalyst for the generation and changed us all and opened the door to a million possibilities.

A lot has been said about the Pistols being a great concept and that the music didn't matter and whilst the concept is a work of genius from the clothes to the attitude to the controversy- kick starting a generation, it's the music that, for me, really stands the test of time.

This is a controversial opinion. Many dismiss the music. There is an attitude, mainly from the late Malcolm Maclaren, that the band couldn't play and this was a good thing. His claim was the he could take any four people and make them have the same impact.

He was lucky he had the Pistols.

Listening to 'Never Mind The Bollocks' now is as a terrifyingly, brilliant experience as it was all those years ago. Far from being an added soundtrack to loads of controversy this is a breakthrough rock n roll record on every level. Steve Jones guitar is a sonic masterpiece. This is how a rock guitar should sound- fat and brutal and deliciously heavy. I remember listening to the album decades ago in an altered state and Jones guitar sounded like fire from hell.

It still sounds like that now in an unaltered state.

The songs are also unusual, apart from 'Pretty Vacant', there is very little straight verse/ chorus action going on. There are riffs piling up and unusual quirky guitar licks mixed in with the Stooges and Dolls riffola. One of the great myths about punk was how it was really easy to play, that might have been true with the Ramones whose songs were not too difficult to figure out, but the Pistols churning maelstrom was complex in its brilliance and took some thinking out to recreate. They never go for the obvious and somehow the band, between Glen Matlock's song writing nous and the engine room's sheer inventiveness that belies their yobbish image, twist and turn rock n roll inside out.

One of the key questions is whether the Sex Pistols were a punk band at all because they were like no-one else. They certainly had their own sound. For a start they did not speed up after the famous Ramones gig in London at the Roundhouse on July 4th 1976, maybe that was because they were playing in Sheffield the same night with the Clash who were making their own debut, supporting them. The Pistols were certainly there the following night for the Ramones first headline UK show at Dingwalls when they were famously involved in the Stranglers versus Clash kick off in the car park. Whilst every other band cranked up the velocity after the Ramones experience the Pistols stayed the same speed which worked in their favour giving their sound an oozing, feral power.

Johnny Rotten's vocals are perfection; they are the twist that takes the Pistols even further away from standard rock drill. Rotten's screeching hysterics and intense pop eyed poetry are delivered with an invention and confidence that is way beyond his years. Never before had anyone ever sounded like this. This was a whole new way of singing, it sounded all at once contemptuous, sarcastic, bitterly sardonic, funny and belchingly music hall whilst always managing to sound vulnerable and full of teenage angst and insecurity. Rotten had invented a new vocabulary and a new way of singing that became a whole style on its own.

[caption id="attachment_12254" align="alignright" width="150" caption="The stare that launched a 1000 t-shirts"][/caption]

The album takes no prisoners and from the opening jackboot stomp of 'Holidays In The Sun' it sets its stall. The song is the Sex Pistols last proper single and a brilliant example of churning paranoia built into a cascading riff and a classic sing-along hook. The Pistols brought a range of feelings and emotions to the rock n roll song not known before. The closest had been the Stooges but this was going somewhere else and a place so claustrophobically British. You can feel the frustration, the tension and the paranoia as Rotten sings of the Berlin wall surrounding him. Scary stuff for a top ten single.

The next track, 'Bodies' is the Pistols at their most demented, dark and dangerous. The riff churns with an evil intent before hanging in the air before the twisting and turning song comes crashing in. You can feel an evil darkness that most black metal bands crave, this is the Pistols somewhere else, the band stripped away of all the artifice, of the attitude, the tabloids, the clothes, the concept- this is rock n roll as deadly as it gets and beyond all the bullshit. By the way Pauline from the song's subject matter actually really existed.

When the album came out a lot was made of the fact that all the band's singles were on it, this was considered ripping off 'da kids' but actually makes for a perfect album. 'Never Mind The Bollocks' is a thrilling statement of filthy intent that is a picture postcard of a very different Blighty than the one sold to us and without the classic four Pistols singles it just would not hang together. 'Anarchy In The UK' still stands the test of time as being one of the greatest debut singles ever released. That long descending intro sounds like the tidal wave to a new age and all these years later it still sounds like the spilt between one era of rock n roll and the next- the first generation gap in pop culture. The song is a monolithic clarion call of primal oozing power and Rotten's vocal is at its snarling best as he screams the manifesto that so many in the UK picked up on later that year.

For me the album's greatest moment is 'God Saves The Queen', which as Marco from Adam And The Ants once pointed out to me and I agreed with is the greatest pop single ever made. With this kind of intensity Rotten could be singing a shopping list and it wouldn't kill the song. The fact that he sticks a V sign to the establishment in a daring and precise manner and the single was released in Jubilee week gave it a dangerous whiff of insurrection and was the closest a mere pop song had ever been to bringing down the government. The song itself is concise and deadly- that opening riff- the Eddie Cochran shuffle cranked to the max is one of the great openings n rock n roll. Its pure adrenaline rush before the classic Pistols chug takes over in the verses allows Rotten to spit his bile. The sing-along 'No Future' chorus belies the songs original title and is one of the great Pistols sing-along mob handed choruses that pepper their songs and are a nod to the entire terrace culture that was part of where the band's DNA came from. The single greatest moment in the song is the middle section where the riff takes off for some serial madness. It's another example of the way the band could build and build a song endlessly adding excitement with one riff after another.

'Submission' is where the format is broken down - in some ways it's a hint at what's to come, a precursor to Public Image and a peak beyond the original Pistols and maybe a hint to some sort of idea of where they could have gone had they had held everything together. The song, which was a last minute addition to the album causing confusion on the sleeve artwork, still operates on the classic chug but there is something wonky and weird about the feel, a flirtation with the avante garde locked in within a rock n roll song. The ad libbed backing screams from Johnny or Sid are yet another departure from the normal rock n roll form and an effective counterpoint to the song's chugging and effective groove.

The recently removed Glen Matlock was a great song writer, he had an ear for a great tune and even lyrically he had the smarts, his 'Pretty Vacant' is a funny and sardonic take on Richard Hell's 'Blank Generation' and swiftly became the closest the band had to a standard rock n roll anthem with its descending chorus being a roller coaster of manic perfection.

[caption id="attachment_12255" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Glem Matlock"][/caption]

'Bollocks' though was not just about the singles and the famous stand out cuts, there was also 'Liar'- a sneering hysterical rant, 'Seventeen' redrawing of the pop generational boundaries, 'Problems' vicious put downs, 'No Feelings' amphetamined, glazed eye youthful arrogance, 'New York' with its witty and sarcastic assault on the Big apple hipster cool and 'EMI' where Rotten stuck it to the most establishment of labels that had unceremoniously dropped the band after the Bill Grundy show furore.

Musically the lesser know tracks are the equal of the hits. The multi tracked wall of sound guitars sound as exciting as rock n roll gets- this is Phil Spector taken to an illogical and molten conclusion. The Sex Pistols may have come to destroy rock n roll or maybe the media gave them that role but the so called sexy young assassins ended up reinventing it and the sheer sonic tidal wave of sound they created became the template for a huge proportion of metal and punk since then.

The album is, perhaps, Steve Jones musical masterpiece. He may not have written the bulk of the songs but he employs every guitar trick in the book building up the wall of sound and they all pay off. Whether it's the trademark chug that he utilises in the verses, the ringing hanging chords, the Johnny Thunders licks, the plectrum scraping down the guitar, the wall of sound rush, those weird twanging lead licks, the squelches of feedback - it's all there, tracked carefully with producer Chris Thomas as they spent the summer of 1977 creating a masterpiece. The guitars are key in their building of an ebb and flow of the song as they move towards the histrionic climaxes.

The Sex Pistols may have invented punk but they didn't sound like punk cliché- they were slower with their own groove. They refused to speed up when everyone else did and they maintained a mid speed chug which only added to the powerful ooze of their sound. Paul Cook is so vital to this- one of the great rock n roll timekeepers, his drums have that rarest of things, their own signature, you can instantly recognise his playing on any record that he plays on, that rolling style that is super tight. Paul Cook is one of the key rock drummers; he has a power but also a precision and a real sense of groove and intelligence that define these songs.

There is always talk of the Pistols being poseurs or, laughably, not really being punk. Another listen tor this album swiftly negates this idle chat. There is more than enough bile in Rotten's killer vocals to drown out the rest of the punk scene. He really is a fantastic vocalist- over enunciating words, squeezing every ounce of passion from every syllable with that stunningly original high pitch whine which he patented. Funny and psychotic at the same time, Rotten is a total one off, an original in a field of copycats and annoyingly he knows this.

Everywhere you turn Rotten's lyrics are pure vitriolic genius. Funny and terrifying and way beyond the simplistic words of so many of his contemporaries. Bringing in far more than 'I hate this and I hate that' clichés that to the table- there are all sorts of exorcisms going on here in words that rewrote the rule book.

The Pistols proper may have only been around for one album but they certainly made their statement and shifted culture dramatically. Sonically 'Bollocks' became the template for a myriad of rock bands and attitude wise it changed perceptions of what rock n roll could be about. The band were already trapped into a nihilistic fast forward since the Bill Grundy incident that even they could not keep up with and even on release it was felt that the band had burned out. Twelve months on from their explosive entry the Sex Pistols were already on culture's garbage heap but as a last stand 'Never Mind The Bollocks' was like nothing else and as it flew to number one the Sex Pistols were three months from imploding their job done and a generation already changed beyond recognition and one of the classic all time rock n roll albums that played by non of the rules of the form as their definitive statement.