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Regardless of how one felt (or feels) about them, the Sex Pistols affected a cultural revolution in music. They were neither the first nor the best punk rock group, but\u2014for a time\u2014they were<\/i> the biggest. And though hearing their music today it has lost some of its ability to shock, when the band exploded onto the pop culture and music landscape, the Sex Pistols were every bit as outrageous as intended.<\/p>\n
Of course the group imploded rather quickly, and the band\u2019s time in the spotlight was comparatively brief. The body of work left behind is somewhat slim as well. Not counting bootlegged and semi-booted items like the Spunk<\/i> demos and the infamous Chelmsford Top Security Prison gig (no, really), there are really only three albums\u2019 worth of music from the band: the official album Never Mind the Bollocks<\/i>, the collection of singles released (everywhere but the U.S.) as Flogging a Dead Horse<\/i> and a soundtrack album, The Great Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Swindle<\/i>. And there\u2019s a fair amount of overlap of content among those three.<\/p>\n
The Great Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Swindle<\/i> was a film intended to be a kind of documentary of the Sex Pistols\u2019 story, but it was one that very much reflected the perspective of the band\u2019s self-styled Svengali Malcolm McLaren. So one-sided was it that many years later the band made a revisionist documentary of its own, The Filth and the Fury<\/i>, in hope of setting the record straight. Complicating matters where Swindle<\/i> was concerned, singer Johnny Rotten (ne\u00e9 Lydon) had left the group while the film was in production, so he\u2019s largely (but not completely) absent. The manner in which his absence is dealt with is problematic, to say the least: the other band members were drafted on vocals, as was an on-the-lam train robber (again, and not for the last time: no, really<\/i>).<\/p>\n
There would be two different versions of the film soundtrack released on vinyl in 1979; the track listing is different for the U.S. and U.K. versions. For the purposes of this retrospective review of The Great Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Swindle<\/i>, the original British 2LP version is at hand, so that\u2019s what we\u2019ll discuss.<\/p>\n
The album opens with \u201cThe God Save the Queen Symphony.\u201d It\u2019s a deliberately over-the-top orchestral reading of the song, with a shamelessly over-emoting McLaren stage-whispering an introduction to the film. He lets listeners know that he invented punk rock, and spins a few other myths. In all, it may have worked on film, but as an album opener, it\u2019s an inauspicious beginning.<\/p>\n
With that four-minute track out of the way, the Sex Pistols make their first appearance.<\/p>\n
The fact that the Sex Pistols played rock \u2018n\u2019 roll classics isn\u2019t unusual, but it was (in a way) at odds with the band\u2019s public persona as cultivated by McLaren. Recall if you will that the official (and false) story behind the sacking of original bassist Glen Matlock was that he had confessed to a liking of the Beatles. Of course the Pistols had always been steeped in rock and pop; Boyce and Hart\u2019s \u201c(I\u2019m Not Your) Stepping Stone\u201d\u2014originally cut by Paul Revere and the Raiders, and a smash hit for the Monkees\u2014was in the band\u2019s set from early on. But we\u2019re getting ahead of ourselves…<\/p>\n
\u201cJohnny B. Goode\u201d is a studio outtake from 1976, with instrumental overdubs done much later after Rotten was gone. Rotten starts out singing the words, but the end of the first verse, he ad-libs, \u201cI don\u2019t know the words.\u201d From there it\u2019s largely off the rails, though the band pummels on relentlessly, holding it together reasonably well. After admitting, \u201cOh, fuck, it\u2019s awful. The pits!\u201d Rotten eventually gives up. After Steve Jones peels off a guitar solo, Rotten suggests to the rest of the band that they switch over to the Modern Lovers\u2019 \u201cRoad Runner.\u201d In fact he insists. They eventually relent, and then he laughs disarmingly and admits again, \u201cI don\u2019t know the words.\u201d He asks for some help with the lyrics, and gets some. The song limps along competently enough, but in the end it sounds like what it is: a band jamming. Drummer Paul Cook does show that he\u2019s a very solid timekeeper, though. The track ends with Rotten asking his band mates, \u201cDo we know any other fucking songs that we could do?\u201d<\/p>\n
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If one looks at the inside of the gatefold sleeve, the answer to that question would seem to be a reading of the Small Faces\u2019 \u201cWhatcha Gonna Do About It.\u201d But that\u2019s not what\u2019s on this pressing of the album; a paper sheet slipped inside the jacket provides the actual track listing.<\/p>\n
A bizarre and completely left-field track entitled \u201cBlack Arabs\u201d is actually a reasonably well-done disco medley of Pistols classics, sort of a punk \u201cStars on 45.\u201d It has no place on a Sex Pistols album, but for fans of Meco and Giorgio Moroder, it\u2019s pretty vacant<\/span> inventive. The arrangement does reinforce the argument that a great song stands up to reinterpretation in many styles.<\/p>\n A remixed recording of an outtake version of \u201cAnarchy in the U.K.\u201d closes Side One of the original UK 2LP release. The fidelity is a few notches down from the Never Mind the Bollocks<\/i> version, and\u2014if you can imagine it\u2014it\u2019s rawer and angrier. Without Chris Spedding\u2019s guitar overdubs, it\u2019s far punkier than the other recording as well.<\/p>\n Side Two opens with a blistering cover of The Who\u2019s \u201cSubstitute.\u201d Thanks to overdubs done after the musicians had improved their skills through touring, the instrumental component of the performance is pretty tight. Characteristically, Rotten knows some but not all of the words; he shouts along as best he can. His band mates do what they can to throw in harmony (sic) vocals.<\/p>\n \u201cNo Lip\u201d (also known as \u201cDon\u2019t Give Me No Lip Child\u201d) is a cover of a somewhat obscure 1964 b-side by Dave Berry, one the that era\u2019s British teen idols. The original Stonesy rocker swings in that peculiarly English r&b style; the Pistols, of course, steamroll right over any nuance. Yet their cover is faithful to the original’s intent.<\/p>\n