The Thought Counts

Album: Sex Pistols, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, 1979 (UK Import)

Best Track: "My Way"

Lasting Memory: Two video clips always run through my mind when I think about or hear any Sex Pistols' song. The first clip is the one of Sid Vicious singing "My Way" on French television. (I actually conjure the Sid and Nancy movie scene, but here is what purports to be the original performance.)

The second mind film I always see is Johnny Rotten ending the Sex Pistols' final show in 1978 by asking a San Francisco audience, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" Because, yeah, I end up feeling a little disappointed by the experience of listening to the Sex Pistols.

The band always worked much better as an idea than an act. Sex Pistols founder, producer, and manager -- but never performer -- Malcolm McLaren never made any bones about that, even naming the group's postbreakup collection of studio outtakes, hits, overseas remixes and ephemera, as well as its accompanying documentary, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Just in case anyone missed the joke at their expense, the first track on the Swindle soundtrack is a spoken-word piece in which McLaren explains that he selected the members of the Sex Pistols based on the eventual members' looks (Sid), attitude (Johnny), criminal background (Steve Jones), and proximity (Glen Matlock and Paul Cook) rather than musical vision or ability.

Taking McLaren at his word, it's easy to convince yourself that the Sex Pistols were either a latter-day Monkees or a forewarning of the Spice Girls. In fact, the Pistols did produce a credible garage band version of "Stepping Stone" and a disco remix of "God Save the Queen," both of which appear on Swindle.

But then the party line on Swindle is that the story McLaren tells is highly fictionalized and self-flattering. I'm not so sure. The Sex Pistols never would have succeeded on their musicianship alone. It's more than telling when the lads try and fail to perform covers of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode" and the Modern Lovers' "Road Runner," only to have Johnny Rotten ask his bandmates, "Don't we know any other fucking people's songs" before requesting, "Stop it! It's fucking awful."

Where the Sex Pistols did excel was in pushing attitude and image. "Anarchy in the U.K." was absolutely a thumb in the eye of British culture, and the song certainly hit the airwaves as a much-needed corrective to the music of the Atlanta Rhythm Section. But the sentiment of "Anarchy" is more bratty than rebellious, and for all of their wussiness, the boys in ARS were far superior musicians.

All of this is not to say that I dislike the Sex Pistols. My point is that I have to appreciate them as a concept instead of as an actual band. The Sex Pistols did inspire dozens of other groups that did channel ennui and disenfranchisement into powerful rock songs, though, and that deserves respect. Also, Sid Vicious' "My Way" is punk through and through in the way it embodies the message of the lyrics while subverting the paradigm from which the song emerged. And then a song like "Friggin' in the Riggin'" is just plain fun.

On balance, then, I'll take the Sex Pistols' legacy even as I feel, well, swindled by the band.

Up Next: The Smithereens, Beauty and Sadness, 1988 (cassette reissue)