Sex Pistols "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" 1977*****

I set out about 5 years ago to re-listen my record collection and note which songs I like the most on each record. It evolved into this blog: writing a short review for each album, after researching the circumstances of their creation in order to present them better. The initial "random selection" approach is mostly replaced by a combination of whim and of presenting either my latest acquisition or the one I feel like writing about the most. Until now I've covered less than 10% of the distance, mostly staying clear of the more iconic albums, because... 
...is there really anything left to say about "Never Mind The Bollocks?" I've heard it countless times, almost know it by heart. I'm sure many of you do, too: the thuggish hard rock banging by Steve Jones and Paul Cook, the melodic song backbone by original bassist/co-songwriter Glen Matlock, the self-destructive attitude and musical ineptitude of his replacement and punk's poster boy Sid Vicious. Above all, the rage and venomous eloquence of their singer/leader Johnny Rotten. His nihilistic, spot-on, disparagement of British society was in its way every bit as political and more astute than that of politically-minded punks like The Clash. I can't imagine that anyone remotely interested in rock music isn't familiar with these songs or the story behind the making of this album: the masterminding of the band by McLaren at the back of his fetish S&M boutique, the infamous TV appearance on the Bill Grundy show and their subsequent sacking by horrified EMI, the Thames cruise promoting "God Save The Queen" during the celebration for the Queen's Silver Jubilee... So I decided to focus on a lesser known page of the record's story, about which I read recently in MOJO: The Bollocks Trial. In its own right, the album cover is a design milestone, just as the music inside is a musical milestone: No group pictures, no dreamy psychedelic landscapes, just in-your-face aggressive fluo yellow and pink and the famous, much imitated, "ransom note" font. And, of course, the rude title "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols". Many record stores refused to sell it, while record charts refused to print its title, showing just a blank space instead. The Virgin Records store in Nottingham dared to put it on window display, at which point a police woman entered the shop, confiscated the records and arrested the manager for violating the 1899 Indecent Advertising Act. Thus began the Great Nottingham Bollocks Trial.

A pretty uneven fight, featuring on the one side the mummified fossils of the British legal establishment, and on the other side the impishly smart band manager Malcolm McLaren and young business genius Richard Branson, Virgin Record's boss. They could have hired a suitably bright young gun for their lawyer, but instead they chose celebrated barrister and novelist John Mortimer. Which led to the surrealistic effect of a bunch of esteemed older men dressed in judicial robes and ceremonial wigs seriously dissecting the word "bollocks" to decide whether it was indecent or not. The truth was that while the lower classes regularly used it as a swear word, few knew its meaning exactly. Mortimer started with a diatribe on the Medieval origins of the word and called forth his witness Professor Kingsley, head of English Studies at the local University. The acclaimed scholar testified that the term "bollocks" had been used from the year 1,000 on to describe a small ball (or things of a similar shape), and that it appeared in written form on the first ever English-language Bible in 1382, in that case to describe animal testicles. From the 16th century on, it became a word associated with the English clergy: Commoners who found their speeches to be incoherent would interrupt them with the cry "bollocks", and at some point the word "bollocks" even became interchangeable with "priest". Later it was widely used in colloquial speech as a vulgar synonym for "nonsense" or "rubbish" even though it wasn't featured in "proper" English language lexicons. Defense advocate and future Sir John (he was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth) Mortimer then close with these words: "What sort of country are we living in if a politician comes to Nottingham and speaks here to a group of people in the city centre and during his speech a heckler replies 'bollocks'. Are we to expect this person to be incarcerated, or do we live in a country where we are proud of our Anglo-Saxon language? Do we wish our language to be virile and strong or watered down and weak?" Appealing as he did to the judges' national pride he had turned the trial on its head: it was no longer about a bunch of obnoxious punks spouting obscenities, but about the virility and expressiveness of the glorious English language. Who would dare condemn them for using an ancient word that even appeared in Medieval Bibles? So of course they ruled in favor of Virgin Records. Johnny Rotten, present in the trial dressed in a suit and safari hat, made the following statement outside the court "Great! Bollocks is legal. Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!"

***** for Holidays in the Sun, No Feelings, Liar, God Save the Queen, Problems, Anarchy in the U.K., Submission, Pretty Vacant, New York

**** for Bodies, Seventeen, E.M.I.

P.S. I recently discovered that my vinyl copy of this album had fallen victim to the great vinyl purge. I could have sworn I still had it, but no... so I went out and bought this reissue on bright yellow vinyl, with a nice inlay with photos. It's not the only album I buy for the 3rd time, while there are even some I've bought in 4 different editions. Rejoice, music industry! All is not lost, there are still suckers out there to be parted from their money!