The Sex Pistols Never Mind
Sonya Schmiesing
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is the only studio album by English punk rock band the Sex Pistols, released on 28 October 1977 through Virgin Records in the UK and on 11 November 1977 through Warner Bros. Records in the US. As a result of the Sex Pistols' volatile internal relationships, the band's lineup saw changes during the recording of the album. Original bass guitarist Glen Matlock left the band early in the recording process, and while he is credited as a co-writer on all but two of the tracks, he only played bass and sang backing vocals on one track, "Anarchy in the U.K." Recording sessions continued with a new bass player, Sid Vicious, who is credited on two of the songs written by the band after he joined. While Vicious's bass playing appeared on two tracks, his lack of skill on the instrument meant that many of the tracks were recorded with guitarist Steve Jones playing bass instead. Drummer Paul Cook, Jones and singer Johnny Rotten appear on every track. The various recording sessions were led alternately by Chris Thomas or Bill Price, and sometimes both together, but as the songs on the final albums often combined mixes from different sessions, or were poorly documented who was present in the recording booth at the time, each song is jointly credited to both producers.
By the time of its release, the Sex Pistols were already controversial, having spoken profanity on live TV, been fired from two record labels, and been banned from playing live in some parts of Britain. The album title added to that controversy, with some people finding the word "bollocks" offensive. Many record stores refused to carry it and some record charts refused to list its title, showing just a blank space instead. Due in part to its notoriety, and in spite of many sales bans at major retailers, the album debuted at number one on the UK Album Charts. It achieved advance orders of 125,000 copies after a week of its release and went gold only a few weeks later, on 17 November. It remained a best-seller for nearly a year, spending 48 weeks in the top 75.[1] The album has also been certified platinum by the RIAA. It has seen several reissues, the latest in 2017.
The album has influenced many bands and musicians, and the industry in general. In particular, the album's raw energy, and Johnny Rotten's sneering delivery and "half-singing", are often considered game changing. It is frequently listed as the most influential punk album, and one of the greatest and most important albums of all time. In 1987, Rolling Stone magazine named the album the second best of the previous 20 years, behind only the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The same magazine ranked it 73rd on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in 2020. In 2006, it was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 greatest albums ever.
John Lydon, Steve Jones and Paul Cook wrote the album's 12 tracks between August of 1975 and June of 1976, with Glen Matlock acting as a co-writer on most of the tracks, written before his departure in February of 1977, and Sid Vicious co-writing the two written after his entry into the group.
The first track written by the group was 'Pretty Vacant,'[2][3] and by their November 6th, 1975 concert at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design they had written 'Seventeen', which closed their set.[4] The next day the group performed at The Holborn Central School of Art and debuted 'Pretty Vacant' and 'Submission'.[5] On the 21st, they debuted the song 'New York'.[6] By February 1976, the group had gained traction[7] and debuted the song 'Problems' for their second encore on February 14. Their setlists at this time were becoming more filled with their material[8] and less reliant on covers, as their earlier shows had been. By April 3rd, they were playing 'No Feelings' in concert,[9] and on July 20, debuted 'Anarchy In the U.K', which was seemingly influenced by Vivienne Westwood and Jamie Reid,[10] the latter of which had begun creating publicity material for the group that Spring.[11] By August 14th the group were performing 'Liar' live.[12]
On 8 October 1976, EMI signed the group into a two-year contract.[13] For EMI, they recorded 'Anarchy In the U.K' and began sessions for the newly written 'God Save The Queen' that month. On 26 November 1976, the group's first single was released to great commercial success. But due to the nature of the material and the band's image, they caused heavy controversy, and were dropped from the label on 6 January 1977.
In February of 1977, founding member and original bassist Glen Matlock quit, [14] reportedly over the lyrics to God Save The Queen.[15] Matlock had co-written a majority of the album's tracks and was replaced by Sid Vicious.
Close to completing a deal with A&M Records, in March 1977 the Sex Pistols entered Wessex Sound Studios to record with producer Chris Thomas and engineer Bill Price. New bassist Sid Vicious played on the tracks "Bodies" and "God Save the Queen",[16][17] but his performing skills were not considered fit to record the full album, so the band asked manager Malcolm McLaren to convince previous bassist Glen Matlock to perform the instrument for the sessions.[18] Matlock agreed on the condition that he was paid beforehand. When payment was not received, he declined to attend. As a result, Thomas asked guitarist Steve Jones to play bass so work could begin on the basic tracks. Jones' playing was so satisfactory that Thomas had him play the bass tracks for all the remaining songs recorded during the sessions.[19]
Despite being dropped by A&M, McLaren instructed the Sex Pistols to continue work on the album. While McLaren pondered whether or not to sign the offer presented by Virgin Records, he signed a French deal for the group with Barclay Records in early May 1977. At the same time, the group resumed work with Thomas and Price.[22] Thomas temporarily departed the session partway through (a timeframe Heylin places as sometime in late April and early May), leaving Price to produce what Thomas estimated as five songs. Heylin narrowed down the potential Bollocks tracks Price may have produced to "Liar", "New York", "No Feelings", "Problems", "Seventeen" and "Submission", in addition to the non-album track "Satellite".[23]
Meanwhile, the Sex Pistols had been rejected by labels including CBS, Decca, Pye and Polydor, leaving only Virgin's offer. McLaren still hoped to sign with a major label, and posited issuing a one-off single with Virgin to increase the band's appeal to the larger record companies. Virgin owner Richard Branson refused, so on 18 May the Sex Pistols finally signed with Virgin. Two weeks later, the label rush-released "God Save the Queen" as a single.[24] During promotion of the single, Rotten stated that work on the album was ongoing, and, obscuring Jones's assumption of bass duties, insisted that the bass performances on the in-progress album were split between Matlock "on the Chris Thomas tracks" and Vicious.[25]
The band returned to the studio with Thomas and Price on 18 June to record "Holidays in the Sun", the first song they had written without Matlock. That night after visiting a nearby pub, Rotten, Thomas and Price were attacked by a group of men, and the incident made newspaper headlines the following Tuesday.[26] That month an eleven-track preview of the album began circulating, first reviewed in the fanzine 48 Thrills. At this point, Rotten maintained that the forthcoming album would include no cover songs, and none of the Sex Pistols' previously released singles bar "Anarchy in the U.K.", which was out of print. With "Pretty Vacant"'s release as a single, it was due to be replaced on the track list.[27] The Sex Pistols returned to Wessex once more that August to record a new song, "Bodies", that had Vicious on bass.[28][29] "Bodies" contained a second bass track played by Steve Jones, with the final version of the song "leaving Sid's down low".[16]
During this time period, bassist Sid Vicious stumbled into the same recording room as rock band Queen. Vicious aimed an insult at lead singer Freddie Mercury, saying "Have you brought ballet to the masses, yet?" Mercury got up and responded, "Aren't you Simon Ferocious or something? What're you gonna do about it?", took him by the collar and threw him out of the room. Later, Queen's producer Roy Thomas Baker, had a word with the Pistols' engineer over an interruption by Johnny Rotten, saying, "One of the band members just crawled on all fours across our studio up to the side of the piano, said, 'Hello Freddie,' and left on all fours. Could you make sure he doesn't do it again?"[31]
The Sex Pistols' contract with Virgin stated that its music would be distributed by Virgin in the United States provided Branson matched any competing offers McLaren received. However, McLaren wanted to negotiate separate deals in every territory, regardless of what the contract stipulated, which angered Branson, as the clause for American distribution was an important one he had fought for. Branson knew he had been outmanoeuvred by McLaren, for he could not sue to enforce the contract or else be perceived as acting like EMI or A&M. Competition for the band in the United States narrowed down to Warner Bros., Arista, Columbia and Casablanca Records, with Warner Bros. signing the band on 10 October for 22,000.[35]
Before Virgin could release Never Mind the Bollocks, Branson discovered that two other Sex Pistols albums were competing with his label's.[36] In October, a bootleg named Spunk featuring high-quality recordings of Sex Pistols demos and recording sessions with Dave Goodman was released on a label called Blank. Among the rumours of who was behind the release of the tapes included Goodman, Glen Matlock and McLaren, who has always considered Goodman's versions to be a more accurate representation of the band.[37] Meanwhile, the French pressing of Never Mind the Bollocks on Barclay had added "Submission" to the slated 11-song track list, and was due for release a week before Virgin's edition. As McLaren's separate deal with Barclay meant that the French release could not be halted and given the Virgin head was aware of how easy it was for import records to arrive in Britain, Branson rushed production of Never Mind the Bollocks to ensure it would come out a week earlier than intended. Nevertheless, the Barclay version was already available in the UK at the time Virgin had its version ready. Ten thousand copies of Virgin's pressing erroneously only listed 11 tracks on the sleeve yet contained 12 on the actual record.[36]
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