The influence of Iggy Pop & The Stooges has entered Great Britain, it's 1976 and the working class scum have embraced Punk Rock and gave it to the public of England, in a weak political, rebellious form. This is the album that kick started the Punk Rock movement, later the famed and glorified Post-Punk movement of England. Today people see John Lydon or Johnny Rotten, as a washed up old, ugly, psychotic C list celebrity. That's fair, he's doing adverts for Country Life butter.
Ignoring the modern day vision of Sex Pistols, putting yourself in the mind of a 17 year old from 1976, you can see how the youth of England embraced Sex Pistols. Holidays In The Sun, starts in a marching like style, before erupting into distortion. The song is about a holiday to the island of Jersey, which the obviously disliked for it's lack of enjoyment. then focusing on a trip to Berlin. The chord progressions here follow a similar pattern of The Jam's In The City.
Bodies, keeps up with the pace, the volume increased. By this time you're used to the Sex Pistols sound. The lyrics being about abortion. God Save The Queen is nostalgic to here. It managed to reach number 2 on the charts, some say it was kept off the top spot because of the lyrical matter. These are conspiracies however, i can see how and why. The lyrics 'No future, no future, no future for you' ring out during this song. The kids loved it, i remember reading that Ricky Gervais used to play it everyday when he got back from school.
Anarchy In The UK puts the hairs up on your back it truly does, the opening lyrics.. 'I am an Antichrist, i am an Anarchist' just sums up the Sex Pistols movement. It's a call out to teenagers, to get off their arses and rebel against their teachers and parents. This song is the highlight to the album, closely followed by God Save The Queen.
Pretty Vacant, is one of the most known Sex Pistols tracks, it follow a standard structure, with a chorus that rings out. Rotten does a great vocal take on this track. Submission is one of my favorites, it has a Ska feel to it but in the Punk manner, the vocals sound modern and a huge influence on the Post-Punk vocal style.
EMI, ends the album. The message being the focus to this song. It's all about the exploitation of an artists music output, unlimited edition's, re-issues.. E.M.I being in the firing point. Ironically, Virgin records, who Sex Pistols were signed to, was sold to E.M.I in the 1990's.
It's a strong album, the lyrics needed to be good to keep the listener tuned. The music gets repetitive after a number of continuous listens. The message is strong, the image is strong.. You can criticize the basic structures, but Sex Pistols didn't care about this. They wanted to get the message across to the youths and that's what they managed to do. Regardless of our opinion, they did a good job at influencing a massive part of Post-Punk as well as the revival.
~Eddie
~Eddie
8.8
