Never Mind the Bollocks – 30th anniversary vinyl re-issue

By Matthew Masters

April 2008


"One of those albums that everyone should own..."

…here's the Sex Pistols

Never Mind the Bollocks is one of those albums that everyone should own. It was, and remains, the most important punk album of them all. Sure, the Pistols weren’t the first punk band, and some have claimed they weren’t even a real band. But John Lydon’s psychotic, hyper-articulated vocal style and the over-driven, multiple-layered guitar sound developed by Chris Spedding, Chris Thomas and Bill Price (the Pistols’ producers) crystallised everything that would come to be recognised as punk.

And the reissue? Well, it’s the same old bollocks from the Pistols. Almost exactly the same, as it happens. The same eleven original tracks, the same poster and the same one-sided 7” bonus single (Submission).

Uniquely, the sound is the same too. Because just as they stuck two fingers up at the record industry thirty years ago, the Pistols have done the same here with a re-issue that is proudly unremastered. Better yet, it has been made from the original analogue master tapes, so it sounds exactly the way Chris Thomas and the band intended.

This is good for two reasons. First, almost every remaster I’ve ever heard is just too clean and antiseptic to be really enjoyable (isn’t that what we have CDs for?). Second, it always was a very well produced album anyway.

So what you get is brilliant and original. Sure, it’s a bit thick and congested in the mid-range, with slightly suppressed treble. But who really gives a toss?

None of the tracks really need much introduction, still less another analysis or review. Most have aged well, retaining their edge and relevance. Bodies is still the darkest, with its ambiguous tale of abortion and loss. Even Anarchy in the UK and God Save the Queen seem as powerful and, frankly, topical as they did 30 years ago; more so in some respects (although I am writing from a very British perspective). Only EMI and Submission seem pointless, but maybe that’s all they ever were.

In the end, the track I keep coming back to is the first I ever heard from the Pistols. Pretty Vacant is a complete, singular expression of what this album is all about. An ironic anthem to indifference; hot with frustration and energy, yet devoid of the thrash and bellow that typified lesser punk acts. Nostalgia aside, it’s a bloody good song that’s the highlight of a bloody good album. An album that unlike most reissues, really is worth buying. I did.

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