The Sex Pistols’ debut and only full studio album, Never Mind The Bollocks was a game changer. Riding the rising tide of the punk explosion and the seemingly endless wave of negative publicity associated with the bands insurgent behaviour, Bollocks created a perfect storm of hype and anticipation and was rewarded with its debut atop the UK charts at #1. Amid the filth and fury surrounding Never Mind the Bollocks’ release, the Sex Pistols managed to transcend the hype surrounding the record by creating an iconoclastic masterpiece that redefined everything that a rock n’ roll album should be, similar to Nirvana’s Nevermind purging hair metal from the rock zeitgeist in 1991. Featuring a diss track about the Queen and odes to anarchy and abortion, Never Mind the Bollocks punched a hole through the Saturday Night Fever flavoured saccharine of 1977 and Johnny Rotten’s wicked snarl gave a voice to a new generation of disenfranchised youth.
Pete Whelan 