Every now and then, I find myself pondering a subject that seemed a bit too important as a teenager. With my frequent visits to local live shows and friends who spoke the vernacular, the question I kept coming back to was: what does it mean to be punk? I had covered the idea before, when discussing Guttermouth, but there’s another act that I feel came to symbolize it more widely. The average Joe didn’t know what “Musical Monkey” was, nor has it necessarily held up as some long-lost masterpiece. However, there’s a good chance that you pick up any music mag or ask the aficionados of 20th century rock and you’ll discover how quickly that Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind the Bollocks… Here’s the Sex Pistols” comes up as the first and essential punk rock record.
Nowadays, there’s a lot of theory out there on how true this statement is. After all, The Ramones were rocking over at CBGB’s, and The Clash was objectively more engaged lyrically. There’s even a strong facet that would tell you that punk was even older and, like hip-hop, started in a more primitive state. Maybe it’s Iggy Pop and the Stooges with their loud and rebellious live shows. I’d even argue that Frank Zappa, while not stylistically an obvious choice, had the antagonistic heart of the medium and was constantly pissing people off. The Who destroyed their amplifiers on live TV while singing the anti-aging gem “My Generation.” Which is all to say that if you want to get into semantics, punk is at best an evolutionary term whose roots are in the DNA of rock music. For example, The Ramones borrowed heavily from 60s girl groups and Sex Pistols, let’s face it, were just a nihilistic satire on rock culture.
And yet, that doesn’t answer the question of what one of the arguably simplest music genres to come out of the 1970s actually stands for. Is it solely about being loud and fast? If so, why not just go over to metal? Is it about rebellion? Sorry to break it to you, but reggae does a better job with its messaging. What is it about punk that has gone through endless cycles of living fast and dying young, where it seemed to be rebirthed every five years by new waves of nostalgia? Scholars may never know.
And that is why Sex Pistols, in particular, have been fascinating to track as I’ve gotten older. With the accepted viewpoint that punk is, at its core, about self-expression, it’s easy to understand why an angry band singing about abortions and anarchy would have some prominence in the debate. Even bringing in the identity of the band shows something countercultural at play, specifically in Johnny Rotten’s snarl and bad dental hygiene, and Sid Vicious’ short and strange existence as the replacement bassist who was more a notorious drug addict than musician. No wonder they imploded so quickly, given that even their management seemed more amused by promoting their inefficiency than actually producing a sustainable image.
As a teenager, it’s easy to understand why that is appealing, especially if you’re like me and were doing everything to strip yourself of the Catholic school mentality that defined my first 15 years of life. Something is thrilling about vulgarity and self-destruction at that age. It’s like how teens in health class videos will say that they’ll “deal with the consequences later” when abusing their bodies. Nobody expects to get there, and, because there’s no experience to compare to, it all seems fine. You’re young and flexible. There are decades to grow up. Throw your cares away now because you’ll regret it otherwise. Now, that isn’t to say I was a reckless kid in any respect, but it was easy to read stories of Darby Crash burning Germs fans and thinking, “That’s neat.” You’re not processing anything other than danger, as a broad construction, is cool. “Smash the system” is to be taken literally, so get your sledgehammer today!
That may be why I’m relieved to have waited until later adulthood to watch Penelope Spheeris’ excellent The Decline of Western Civilization (1981). At the time, I’d likely ignore the themes of homelessness and addiction, only ever looking at the stumbling from gig to gig in a dishevelled state. It may also explain why X’s John Doe is one of the survivors of that documentary a half-century later, given that he came across as clairvoyant and saw punk more as an art form than a lifestyle that exploited its lack of glamour as the ultimate sign of D.I.Y. culture when, in reality, there were ways to be an independent artist that didn’t involve squalor. Darby Crash, to me now as a 36-year-old, seems more tragic than strategic. It’s a minor miracle the dude made good music in hindsight, given how insistent on nihilism the scene was.
What does any of this have to do with Sex Pistols? Well, everything and nothing. No matter how much backend they produced, they are a one-album wonder. They are more defined by legend than by accomplishments. While Rotten would have some career after the fact, he comes across as a bitter old man, opinionated in no insightful way. He is the ultimate irony, the punk who didn’t die young. Though, to be fair, guitarist Steve Jones had a pretty awesome radio talk show called Jonesy’s Jukebox, which clouds some judgment on how soporific their careers became. Still, they are defined by their former glory, itself a byproduct of a manager who was keen on mixing fashion and provocation to the point Sex Pistols’ style feels borderline hobo chic. Given that Malcolm McLaren is the same dude who intentionally made Bow Wow Wow’s singer hypersexual, it becomes easier to see this all as product. Hell, ending your debut album with a kiss-off to E.M.I. is funny but also very business-minded.
So again, I ask… what is punk? If suggesting that “Never Mind the Bollocks…” is the first record, then it must efface the same ethos, right? This has been a subject I’ve been stalled at for some time, especially given that the loud, angry punk stereotype feels, ironically, like modern America’s Republican party. There is a need to rebel, to flick your nose at P.C. culture and just let them deal with your boorish perspective. It’s there in the “knock the crap out of them” rhetoric that feels reminiscent of mosh pits being overrun by violence. Was punk just about sarcasm and nihilism? To hear Johnny Rotten sing it, there is no future for you. Get pissed. Destroy.
Having revisited a lot of the punk records I loved in high school recently, I find myself disagreeing with this sentiment a fair deal. Yes, I liked the genre because it was rambunctious and against form. However, it is usually a young person’s outlet for a reason. Unless one were to apply nuance, such as The Clash, there were only so many ways to say you were upset. At some point, you need to visit a deeper well. Again, that remains the great what-if of Sex Pistols as a brand, given that they had more media published on them, but nothing as ubiquitous. Is punk about short fuses fading into irrelevance?
At the risk of sounding too condescending, I think calling Sex Pistols’ first album essential punk is risky because I don’t think anyone addresses certain reasoning for why it works. Before delving into the actual material, let me just say that, despite being sold as fringe, there’s something marketable about them. While today has groups like Fcukers challenging censorship, I imagine your marquee reach was limited with a name that: A.) Had the word sex, and; B.) Was a euphemism for penis, and; C.) On an album that used frank language like bollocks. That may make it edgy and transgressive, but the whole thing feels more and more like a publicity stunt the older I get. You’re basically buying the phrase “first punk record” solely for press, regardless of how much it is ripped from blues rock of the time. It’s there in the attitudes and dingy club performances.
Even Sid Vicious’ involvement somewhat upsets me now because it feels very exploitative. Yes, he had “the sneer” that the band needed. His toxic relationship with Nancy Spungen has remained a pop culture touchstone. However, the more sympathetic you feel about drug addiction, the more you realize how the self-destruction was enabling the worst possible outcome. I’m not saying Vicious would’ve ever gotten better, but he was an icon of incompetence. How could you ever be taken seriously? As someone who has also been out of the period where “live fast and die young” sounds awesome, it’s also hard to know how inevitable that path was, given that, like all of us, he was a youthful idiot. The only difference was that he never got to mature into something else like his bandmates.
Listening to “Never Mind the Bollocks” now, I have a certain dissonance. On the one hand, it’s a successfully irritable album. It seeks to raise eyebrows, and Johnny Rotten just has the right snarl for it. He’s not afraid to latch onto archetypes of the era that were less respectful and make some real condescending remarks about them. Maybe the reason “God Save the Queen” has resonated beyond its gimmick jubilee release is that it has a denseness in the ideas it’s trying to convey. It’s a sarcastic compilation of ideas that argued against nationalism. That isn’t to say that Sex Pistols were equipped enough like The Clash to show receipts, but their satire had personality and was, if nothing else, different.
And yet, at the risk of upsetting the collective order, “Anarchy in the U.K.” unfortunately represents everything that feels hollow about them 45+ years later. The concept is perfect, but what is it saying? Anarchism is hard to define. The song acknowledges that when saying, “Don’t know what I want, but I know how to get it.” However, it’s a blanket statement that never develops a point beyond, “Anarchism good!” Sure, punk is defined by simplicity and directness. I’d argue Sex Pistols’ best work has hooks that turn vulgarity into earworms. However, this is an aimless track that has a cool subject and doesn’t ask for any solutions.
This may seem like a useless complaint, but they always struck me as being more self-conscious than they let on. Their manager set them up for intentional failure while they wrote feel-bad anthems. Given the level of sarcasm, I’m not sure anything was genuine or sincere. Everything about this felt like an act, as if they were a Shakespeare company roaming the countryside promoting shock rock. Don’t get me wrong. It has its appeal, but that may explain why some of their “later” work feels comparatively joyless, as if they’ve always been shills down to Rotten’s infamous quote, “Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” While he could be talking about himself, it may be the most substantial phrase in their history.
To summarize, I’ve contemplated how “encouraging” it is to call Sex Pistols one of the first punk bands because of what it says about the real independent thinkers who came later and expressed greater points. Zero percent of the songs on this record have anything to say that’s not nihilism. There are no allusions to growth or change, and it makes me convinced that it was all self-projecting by the marketing board. After all, when you have a limited amount, why wouldn’t the audience want to give in to supply and demand? Sid Vicious was unruly. Go see him when he visits your town! I know every band needs their own way to stand out, but those like The Ramones incorporated it into some greater essence, whether it be their wardrobe, names, or simple chords. Sex Pistols, meanwhile, didn’t have much worth holding onto beyond spectacle.
I included this essay as part of my In Media Res series in large part because I have long questioned what it means to be punk. While I don’t think I fit that box anymore, there have been times where it felt more important to have definitions and, believe me, Sex Pistols were part of that debate at some point. However, it’s tough to separate the artistic answer from the youth vote, especially given that danger is inherently sexy when you’re not experiencing it. Having some distance allows you to admire the image, especially when it’s deviant from conventions. Where else was somebody going to say “porno faggot”? You did it to give in to dirty impulses in part because you were still in your “too cool for school” phase and didn’t need to know what the Berlin Wall was to sing along to “Holiday in the Sun.” Again, do any of these songs have dissertation-level ideas in them? I have no idea. Anyway, Dead Kennedys did the antagonism thing better. Was it because they were more genuine? Probably. That may also explain why Jello Biafra seems like a happier guy after the fact.
If I had to give an answer for what is punk, I’m less willing to define it by how confrontational it is anymore. While I think a lot of the appeal comes from loud and fast guitars, I’m not sure it can be defined by style or even if you skateboard. Those can be extensions, but Sex Pistols felt like they were designed to force a box for mass consumption. If it stands for anything, it’s self-expression, where you can choose to be political or just a lovelorn outcast. I suppose I am fortunate to have grown up in a time when I had access to both poles of the genre. A punk isn’t violent. They are welcoming and fighting for better opportunities for their peers. It’s why I watch The Decline of Western Civilization and think X’s John Doe is the perfect counterpoint. There’s more to art than exploitative suffering. It’s about wanting to say something that matters to you in the first place. The earlier of age you can realize that and see pass the attractive messaging, the more likely you are to have a good time.
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