SEX PISTOLS - Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols LP (180gram)

Label: Rhino

“Never mind the bollocks” is a British working-class taunt that essentially means “quit talking rubbish.” Sex Pistols guitarist and bass player Steve Jones picked up the expression from a couple of street kids, and it serves as an exemplary distillation of the band’s ethos in 1977 when Britain’s ruling class and bourgeois institutions were so bankrupt that even chaos presented a better alternative. It also captures the frustration faced at the time by thousands of out-of-work kids in the U.K.

The lyrics are iconoclastic and yet resonate with relevance even today. Lydon’s Catholic upbringing was also brought to the fore in “Bodies”, a scouring attack on abortion. Far more than just an anti-everything diatribe, Bollocks is full of with and bile. No one is spared, especially not the band’s previous label (“EMI”) or their pre-punk heroes, the New York Dolls (“New York”). Along with Nirvana’s masterpiece, Nevermind, thirty years later, Never Mind The Bollocks stands as one of the great ranting tracts against middle class mediocrity. Every child should have a copy.