Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols

10 Ratings: 3.0

The Sex Pistols first album

The first (and only) studio album from The Sex Pistols. Work on the album was spreaded over several months. Because of Glen Matlock's firing and Sid Vicious' inability to play the bass guitar properly, Steve Jones laid down the bass tracks … see full wiki

Tags: Music, Album, Rock, Punk, John Lydon, Sid Vicious, see all

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The first and only album from The Sex Pistols

May 3, 2009

by Captain_Couth

Rating:

The album was a couple of years in the making. After going through a few major labels, Virgin Records signed them. At this time, Virgin was a fledgling company and Richard Branson was a risk taker and felt The Sex Pistols would be a well worth gamble. None of the publicity stunts that Malcolm McLaren planned for the band "shocked" Branson either, in fact he encourged it, The band recorded a few demos with the original line up with session guitarist Chris Spedding (which sound quiite good) and spent time in a few other smaller studios recording demos with Cook, Jones and Rotten, Enough with the history and on to the review.

The album doesn't sound very punk and more a product of the seventies and the songs are such as Holidays in the Sun, Anarchy in the UK and God Save the Queen were released as singles but re-recorded for the album (get the singles compilation Flogging a Dead Horse).
Unlike their comtemporaries The Damned and The Clash, the album took a long time to mix and record. Unlike the other's raw sound, this album sounds too polished with a lot of guitar overdubs. Sid Vicious was credited on two tracks (Bodies and Holidays in the Sun) but he wasn't able to record them (he either was sick in the hospital or junk sick). All of the bass parts (except Anarchy in the UK) were recorded by Steve Jones. It's strange to hear them live from that period and them hear their album because of how different they sound.

The album did very well. So when the band imploded a in early 1978 the public was craving for more. Virgin Records released Some Product Carry On (a collection of interviews) Floggin A Dead Horse (A singles compilation) The Pistols Pack (a 45s collection of The Sex Pistols singles including a "new" single from the band*) Sid Sings (a solo album from Sid Vicious) and the soundtrack to The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle.
During this time Johnny Rotten went back to using his real name and started the band Public Image Limited (under contract to Virgin). All in all, it's a good album but not as great as it could have been. A nice well produced rock album from a punk band.

*The new single from The Sex Pistols was Here We Go/Silly Thing recorded by Cook and Jones. They briefly hung on as The Sex Pistols before they formed the band The Professionals and recorded an album for Virgin Records as well.

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