The artist John Lydon called a carbon copy of Sex Pistols: “I never understood it”
We can never underestimate just how important the punk movement was. While you might not be a fan of some of the personalities that made it, such as the forever controversial John Lydon, his impact on music was massive. A lot of the modern punk bands we have now, as well as conscious rappers and post-punk music outfits, likely wouldn’t have existed had it not been for the Sex Pistols.
It’s not that political music didn’t exist before the Sex Pistols, but it had never been as outspoken and upfront as punk music was. Before that, you had genres like free jazz and noise music, both of which were incredibly effective, but they conveyed frustration through inaccessible sounds as opposed to lyrics.
What punk music did was take those inaccessible sounds and make music using them, namely with heavily distorted guitars and a thrashing playing style, and paired it with lyrics which also spoke about societal injustices the bands didn’t agree with. One of the Sex Pistols’ most famous songs was ‘Anarchy in the UK’, and it was the first time such a confrontational song had gained mainstream success.
If you pair that music with the attitude that the band celebrated, you have the perfect blueprint for a punk outfit. Not only was their music rebellious, but when they were asked about it, they’d treat journalists with disdain and were very clear when conveying a “we don’t give a fuck attitude”.
The issue is that while Lydon initially found his feet as a figure for rebellion, he has become a parody of punk, as people love to turn to his quotes and opinions in a bid to giggle with a sort of “what’s he said now” outlook. On the one hand, it’s admirable how much of an affinity Lydon has for speaking his mind, but on the other hand, it often comes across as exaggerated.
The fact is that he has always been this way; no matter what point in Lydon’s career you look at, there has been this willingness to speak his mind, regardless of who he might upset and how far against the mainstream his comments are. In the 1970s, those opinions manifested as a hatred for the government and the monarchy, but in the ‘90s, it was more of a hatred for his fellow musicians, most notably The Clash, who he saw as a boring rip-off of his own band.
The primary issue he had with The Clash (which, coincidentally, was the issue he had with most other bands) was that he didn’t believe a word that they were saying. He felt that The Clash were singing from a punk perspective but not living a punk lifestyle, which led to Lydon referring to Joe Strummer as a “champagne socialist”.
“I never understood it,” he said when discussing the band, “I knew there was a Pistols, then you got that very nice middle-class copy called The Clash [he belches in a deafening way that is impossible to relay on paper] which was really a band all about sloganeering. Oi oi for the upwardly mobile!” Eloquent.
