Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols Song by Song Thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Zoot Marimba, Feb 26, 2018.

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  1. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group Thread Starter

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    Now that my One Hot Minute thread is wrapping up, this thread that I've been planning will finally come to fruition! Before we start, here are some ground rules...

    Ground Rules
    1. Keep all discussion to the song at hand or songsthat have already been discussed so as to not disrupt the flow.
    2. Please explains all thoughts in depth I'd simply because that leads to more fruitful discussion than "This Rocks" or "This Sucks".
    I'll post a review tomorrow morning, but before we start, I'd like to hear how you Discovered This Album, what your initial impressions were, etc.
     
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  2. BadJack

    BadJack doorman who always high-fives children of divorce

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    This is probably strange but I was a fan of the P.i.L. album "Happy?" when I was in high school and I figured I'd check out that other group of the singer's that I'd heard about. I hadn't heard a note when I bought the cassette. It was quite a revelation.
     
  3. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group Thread Starter

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    I love PiL, man, and I've thought about doing a PiL album at different points.
     
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  4. douglas mcclenaghan

    douglas mcclenaghan Forum Resident

    Looking forward to this.
     
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  5. Standoffish

    Standoffish Smarter than a turkey

    Location:
    North Carolina
    This should be fun. I've heard the main three songs of course, but I've never listened to the whole album.
     
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  6. dirkster

    dirkster Senior Member

    Location:
    McKinney, TX, USA
    Bought the cd from Columbia House in the 90’s. Liked P.I.L and Lydon in the 80’s, so it just seemed like an album I “should” have. Great rock album. Excellent production. Far better sonically than I expected - definitely a well -produced album.

    What I didn’t realize at the time was all the back story on the different labels the Pistols had, pre- album. But the version that got released stands the test of time.
     
  7. SammyJoe

    SammyJoe Up The Irons!

    Location:
    Finland
    One of my alltime favorite albums and surely it could be on desert island list for me.
    This will be interesting, so Im definitely looking forward to this one.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2018
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  8. sleeptowin

    sleeptowin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birmingham
    got the album on now. my story about this album is, i was born in 1977, my uncle was 15 in 1977 and he loved the sex pistols, he would babysit for me occasionally and by the time i was 2 he had taught me to sing along to this album. so this album has always been part of my life
     
  9. yarbles

    yarbles Too sick to pray

    Never Mind
     
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  10. punkmusick

    punkmusick Amateur drummer

    Location:
    Brazil
    I bought the Brazilian second pressing from 1986 in 1989, when I was 14 years old.

    I had a few friends who were into punk rock listening to Ramones, Toy Dolls, PiL, Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies, and Sex Pistols. We used to trade tapes of these bands. At that time, there were record stores which would sell you a recorded tape of imported records, you'd buy a tape and enter the trade community.

    I had The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle, The Original Pistols Live and Never Mind The Bollocks on tape. Later I bought that NMTB Brazilian pressing. One of the first records I ever had.

    In the first says, NMTB sounded a little odd because I liked the Swindle version of Anarchy (the quotation version) much better.

    I still have that LP. It is now one of my 40-some NMTB LPs.
     
  11. I once called up KFJC when I was young, after seeing a video by Stiff Little Fingers of Alternative Ulster on Videowest.
    The DJ didn't know the band or song so instead for me he played God Save The Queen on the radio, and as strange as this may sound, it was the fastest song I'd ever heard! I loved it. I was about to enter high school (if I remember right, it was before).
    Anyway I went out and got a used copy, at the Campbell Streetlight I think, and loved the whole album. The U.S. pink and green cover LP.
    I wound up later getting all the singles with B-side only songs that I could, along with first getting The Great Rock and Roll Swindle dbl. LP set (a friend's pet bulldog chewed the corner of the cover of that one a little bit, I now recall).
     
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  12. yarbles

    yarbles Too sick to pray

    That is indeed strange, especially considering AU is faster than GSTQ!
     
  13. punkmusick

    punkmusick Amateur drummer

    Location:
    Brazil
    I guess you should edit the title of the thread to "Never Mind" instead of "Nevermind".
     
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  14. punkmusick

    punkmusick Amateur drummer

    Location:
    Brazil
    Actually faster than any Sex Pistols' song.
     
  15. yarbles

    yarbles Too sick to pray

    Got it the day it came out, as well as Queen's '(Old) News Of The World', which was released the same day and was, in comparison, just about the worst of jokes.

    First heard about the emerging punk scene around spring 76. I was 14, into the usual stuff, buying the weekly press, reading about all these mega old bands I had no hope of seeing live...and then they started writing about this seemingly chaotic (and possibly comedic) thing called 'punk', first the Ramones, and then these 'Sex Pistols', their mere name being quite shocking back then, hard as that might be to believe these days. I was on holiday in the US in the summer of 76, so among other things I grabbed a copy of the Ramones album (and the Runaways, LOL)...and when I got back, played it, Blitzkrieg Bop, WTF, it was like nothing I'd heard before, just awesome. Not crappy like I expected, just heavy rock, played faster, without solos, and with more entertaining lyrics, what's not to like? Just a totally new sound. Had no idea yet that it was all rooted in the Stooges & NYD, this was new music, our new music, with the added attraction that it was getting a rise out of all the sneering old farts in the crappy old bands...plus of course all the reactionary old hippy journalists who wrote for prog/60s-centric trash like Melody Maker, complaining bitterly about the Pistols, their inability to play their instruments, and their thuggish fans who were always starting fights at the gigs, shock horror...soon after this, in late August, we were visiting friends in a TV region that showed 'So It Goes', a music show I'd heard about but never seen before...and at the end of the show, this happened:

     
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  16. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group Thread Starter

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    Holidays In the Sun:

    We open this record with Holidays In the Sun, the fourth single by the band and the only official one for the album, not counting the other three since they were added to this album after the fact. It's also one of only two songs on the album to credit Sid Vicious, under his legal name, despite being hospitalized for hepatitis during the writing of this song. The song was inspired by the band's trip to the Channel Island of Jersey, which despite the rainy environment, still seemed like a step up from being in London.
    The song begins with marching, which definitely is an interesting way to open a record, creating an imprisoning quality. Cookie kicks off his kick drum, and then Steve's guitar and bass come in, and for instrumentation that's just two people with one overdubbing, it feels as though it's a live band, a testament to the producer(s), as well as Steve and Paul, showing their talent as well as chemistry. Johnny comes in at :33, snarling his way through the song, spitting fire in frustration at being trapped in Hell. And you know what, **** your vocal experts, I love Johnny's voice, it's not in any way a conventional voice, but it's a real voice, warts and all, it perfectly conveys his songs and his message, and despite never trying to be a star, he really has a great attitude and presence. Also, I love Steve's solo at 2:19, just a raw, gutsy rock n roll solo, pure Johnny Thunders, and his rhythm throughout this song gives the song real meat and substance.
    This song is an absolute gem, what a way to open the album, stunning, just stunning.
     
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  17. SurrealCereal

    SurrealCereal Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I don’t remember when I first found out about the Sex Pistols, but it was probably shortly after I started getting into music during my freshmen year of high school. My first memory of hearing their music was hearing “Anarchy in the U.K.” on the radio. I remember thinking it was really wierd, mainly because of Johnny Rotten’s vocals and the iconoclastic lyrics. The radio station specialized in new wave, so the song was a far cry from the Morrissey-esque vocals and sad-sack lyrics I was used to hearing. When I got to the point where I was actively trying to hear as much classic rock music as possible, the Sex Pistols were a natural place for me to go, given how well-respected they are now. When I first listened to Never Mind the Bollocks I was shocked and put off by the graphic and iconoclastic lyrics, and didn’t listen to the album again for a long time. Later, after I had gotten past the point of worrying about lyrics, I came back to the album and liked it quite a bit. Now, it’s one of my favorite punk albums. I’m not much of a punk fan, so it’s not one of my favorite albums in general, but when I’m in the mood for some raw 1970’s English punk, this is my go-to.
     
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  18. BadJack

    BadJack doorman who always high-fives children of divorce

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    To give you a sense of the times, the intro of "Holidays" instantly reminded me of Motley Crue's very recent "Girls, Girls, Girls".

    I had no awareness of the riff being "borrowed" from The Jam's "In the City" until much later, though. Honestly, I think the Pistols song is better.
     
  19. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group Thread Starter

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    I definitely hear it, and i like both songs, but I’ll also take Holidays. And of course it’s better than Girls Girls Girls.
     
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  20. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group Thread Starter

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    That’s so awesome:edthumbs:
     
  21. JuanTCB

    JuanTCB Senior Member

    Location:
    Brooklyn, NY
    Summer of '84. I was 12 and mainly into the Stones and Top 40. I was hanging out at the beach with a friend of mine who was a couple of years older and he started telling me about the Pistols and popped the cassette of Bollocks into the boom box. "Holidays" was interesting, with the marching sounds and the Berlin Wall references, but "Bodies"... when John comes back from the break with the "F*** this and f*** that" verse, it blew my mind. I got the biggest musical shot of adrenaline I've ever had and dealt with it by jumping in the ocean... with my Purple Rain tape in my bathing suit pocket. That said, the first time I heard the Pistols was my Beatles Ed Sullivan moment - nothing was ever the same afterwards.
     
  22. Leepal

    Leepal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Swindon, UK
    That was something I didn't realise either, despite having listened to the Jam and the Pistols pretty incessantly as a youngster in the 80s.
     
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  23. SurrealCereal

    SurrealCereal Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    “Holidays in the Sun” is one of my favorite songs on the album. It’s the first song that comes to mind when I think of the Sex Pistols. The riff, the vocals, the lyrics, and everything epitomize what makes the Sex Pistols great.
     
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  24. punkmusick

    punkmusick Amateur drummer

    Location:
    Brazil
    I never noticed the riff being the same as In The City. It's a killer riff and through the distortion of the Gibson-Marshall played by Jonesy it sounds so much aggressive that I never noticed it has the same chord progression. Wow!

    When Johnny sings "reason to be waitiiiiing, the Berlin waaalll" and the riff starts over again is one of that Rock'n'Roll moments when you need to stop whatever else you may be doing and start playing air guitar.

    I like the way this track, as well as many others on this record, sound like it has a structure different from the ordinary intro-verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-bridge-verse-chorus-end. It sounds like if it didn't have any chorus at all.

    Also I'm stocked for the great production right in the first song. The stereo separation of both guitars and cymbals is perfect, the added guitars here and there, drums and guitars sound perfect and strong and Johnny's voice so outrageous. Very uncommon production quality that would never be beaten by any other punk record of its time. The Damned Black Album and PiL Album are among its rare competitors production wise.

    Don't you ever tell me the Sex Pistols couldn't play. I'll show you this song and I'll win the argument.
     
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  25. The album garnered considerable airplay on the old KSAN (not the current KSAN) in San Francisco when it was released and I bought it so this would have been around 1977. I'm pretty sure they had been playing the singles before album came out. In January '78 the station interviewed Paul and Steve live and I believe it was the next day the band played their final show at Winterland which KSAN also broadcast live. I taped the interview and the show off the air. I've got "Anarchy" as the ringtone on my phone and I was charging it the other day in the office when it rang. My boss heard it and knew who and what song it was. Turns out he was a fan back in the '70s too.
     
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