I should say upfront — I'm not one for the swearin' in songs. Never have been. But the Sex Pistols are important. You can't tell the story of British music without 'em. One studio album. One. And it changed everythin'. Not bad for a band some people said was just noise.
I was eleven when punk hit. Born in 65, so I was just old enough to understand what I was seein'. Old enough to remember the Britain it came from. Inflation at twenty-five percent. A million people out of work for the first time since the thirties. Power cuts. The three-day week. Rubbish piles in the streets. And the music at the time was — I don't know how else to put this — irrelevant. Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer. Pink Floyd. Bands sellin' out arenas with twenty-minute keyboard solos and concept albums about wizards. The charts were sugary pop and novelty records. Nothin' spoke to a kid on the dole. Nothin'.
September 1976. The 100 Club on Oxford Street. Two nights that brought together five bands nobody had heard of. The Sex Pistols. The Clash. The Damned. Buzzcocks. Siouxsie and the Banshees — called the Bromley Contingent Band back then, before they had a proper name. Tiny venue. Small audiences. Chaos. But it was the start.
The Clash brought politics the Pistols never touched. Joe Strummer believin' rock and roll could change the world. The Damned were first to release a single — 'New Rose', October 76 — and first to release an album. Buzzcocks from Manchester brought pop melodies and somethin' else: the DIY ethos that would outlast the music itself. Three chords, a fanzine, a typewriter, a photocopier. That was the revolution.
28 October 1977. Never Mind the Bollocks. The only studio album the Sex Pistols ever made. From the openin' roar of 'Holidays in the Sun' to the closin' sneer of 'EMI' — a sustained blast of rage, wit, and musical violence. 'God Save the Queen' released durin' the Silver Jubilee year. The BBC banned it. The IBA banned it. Major retailers refused to stock it. It went to number one anyway — well, number two officially, but everyone knew. 'Anarchy in the UK' a manifesto. 'Pretty Vacant' an anthem. 'Bodies' brutal. Proof the establishment could be confronted and, at least briefly, beaten.
By the end of 77, the Pistols had imploded. Sid Vicious dead — heroin overdose in 79. Rotten gone. The Clash movin' toward a bigger sound. The scene fragmented into post-punk, new wave, the broader alternative landscape. Punk's golden age was three years. That's it.
But the DIY spirit carried on. Led to Rough Trade, Stiff Records, Factory Records, Mute Records. Led to Joy Division and Gang of Four takin' punk's energy into stranger places. Paved the way for indie music as we know it. Without punk's DIY ethos, there's no independent scene Britain now takes for granted. No Smiths. No Oasis. No Libertines. No Arctic Monkeys. Every British guitar band since owes somethin' to those three years. Punk taught British music it didn't have to be polite. Taught it anger could be creative. Taught it you could change the world with three chords and the truth.