The classic 1991 grunge anthem that John Lydon actually liked: “One of pop music’s all-time greatest”
Despite his tag of punk pioneer, former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon has a more expansive music taste than his reputation might suggest. He hates more of it than most, too.
Yet, he would argue that his ire is borne from a place of trying to protect the integrity of music. When he formulated punk, he envisioned it as an attack on increasingly phoney rock ‘n’ roll, even sporting an ‘I Hate Pink Floyd’ t-shirt early doors despite secretly liking the Dark Side of the Moon band.
Demonstrating his unique approach to the story of punk, in a recent exclusive interview with Far Out, the spiky frontman maintained once again that the genre started in earnest with the UK’s ore ferocious frontier rather than America’s post-punk adjacent stylings. “Now, an awful lot of American journalism is saying that New York punk is where it all comes from. Oh, go fuck yourselves; it is talking shit. I was brought up in Britain,” he said.
“Mud, The Sweet, T. Rex, Mott the Hoople, Dave Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Alex Harvey Band, Status Quo, Traffic, a vast extending universe of music. That’s what influenced me,” Lydon added with pride. Was this just posturing? Or was he displaying a love for music at its most pure?
Well, this propensity to veer off the beaten path has underpinned much of Lydon’s career, whether this be railing against the establishment at the vanguard of punk to embarking upon a multitude of controversial escapades. Remember, this is the man who claimed former US President Donald Trump is the “Sex Pistols of politics”.
A rare piece of lofty praise
For all his more disagreeable junctures, Lydon has also provided many moments of clear incisiveness over the years. An eternally complex character, this contradictory nature has made him such a fascinating figure since he burst onto the scene. When speaking to Pitchfork in 2020, Lydon surprised everyone when he gave his positive opinion on grunge pioneers Nirvana, calling one of their songs “one of pop music’s all-time greatest”.
He said: “I remember being very angry at their album title being Nevermind. I thought Nevermind? Have you lost your bollocks or something? I was drawing a line on it all, perhaps too sharply. But I have to say ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is one of pop music’s all-time greatest.” While he might have flet that the title ripped-off the Sex Pistols, his love of the record’s most famous track is a rare admission of admiration.
Despite his praise of the mammoth 1991 single ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, Lydon did say Nirvana became too depressing for him as time wore on and he couldn’t see beyond the band’s defining anthem. He even claimed he “felt” frontman Kurt Cobain’s 1994 suicide coming. Lydon concluded: “That song is firmly embedded in my psyche. So, I forgive them.”
He concluded, “Most bands can’t come up with one complete song, and sometimes one is enough. By ‘Heart-Shaped Box,’ it was all starting to sound a bit suicidal. I felt it coming.”
Listen to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ below.
