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The Sex Pistols

Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols

(Virgin)

The Sex Pistols detest your hero worship, don't give a toss about your indifference and just want your money. They did back then and they probably would now. But as Johnny Rotten would almost say, so what? In this album, Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock produced a genuine one-off. The ultimate compilation album with added tracks and a smart pink, yellow and black cover too. All at once, it had precious little and yet everything to do with music.

Four blokes from dislocated and depressed 1970s Britain who couldn't play or sing turned to chaos for the answer and rattled a nation, sticking two fingers up at whomever happened to be looking their way.

From the blinding opener Seventeen, through the not-for-the squeamish Bodies, to New York - the only punk song ever to sit atop the New Musical Expresses' metal chart - it is a powerhouse of an album after which Britain and music were never the same.

It was their ONLY album; forget the tarted-up Malcom McLaren-inspired efforts, anyone who has heard it knows it cannot be repeated. Rotten's caustic vocals do their best in God Save The Queen - the banned national anti-anthem - and Anarchy In The UK. And then there's Pretty Vacant which simply takes the biscuit with Paul Cook's mallet-over-the-head drums.

The Ramones and New York Dolls came before and the Clash and Buzzcocks after but none had the impact of Rotten and his crew, with or without Sid Vicious.

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