The 1977 album Noel Gallagher said “cannot be bettered”
There are a million different ways to measure the greatest album of all time, and a million different answers depending on the measurement of choice. For Noel Gallagher, an album should be judged by its cultural impact.
Making a record that is easy on the ears and connects with people in a way that enriches their lives should, of course, be celebrated. However, there’s a difference between soundtracking somebody’s blissful Sunday morning coffee on their patio and causing real-world change that shakes up popular culture.
Gallagher, however, is less interested in how well bands can play their instruments and instead prioritises how these songs connected with an audience above all else, which is the same ingredient that made Oasis a defining band of the 1990s in Britain.
Although countless albums have mastered the art of perfection from a technical regard, Gallagher prefers to seek imperfection with his record collection. That’s why he holds the Sex Pistols’ sole album, 1977’s Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, as an all-time classic despite not exactly being Pet Sounds, an album that he hates.
It’s hard to argue with the impact that the Sex Pistols had on Britain, especially the world that Gallagher inhabited in his youth, which made him start a band.
Admittedly, their reach doesn’t compare with groups like The Beatles, but the Fab Four didn’t change the world with Rubber Soul or The White Album alone. Instead, their vast back catalogue combined to create a cultural behemoth. The same can be said for other greats like Neil Young or Bob Dylan, who cemented legacies over decades rather than months.
Even in 2026, the Sex Pistols are still performing their seminal 1977 album, albeit without frontman Johnny Rotten, further proving how it remains beloved today. Nobody in the audience wants new music; they just need to hear the record that changed their life in its entirety.
When the Sex Pistols arrived, they represented the anger of disenfranchised young people across the nation. While their time in the limelight was only fleeting before it crumbled to pieces, they captured the zeitgeist and made the punk movement take off.
Speaking to Q Magazine in 2019, Gallagher laid the case for Never Mind The Bollocks, stating, “The most influential record of all time is Never Mind The Bollocks. People who are still working now in the music business did their shit because of that record.”
“It’s the absolute left turn. There is no argument. It cannot be bettered. It’s scientifically factual,” he passionately added.
Gallagher has spoken in favourable terms about Never Mind The Bollocks on multiple occasions. Despite being too young to have been in attendance to see the Sex Pistols at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976 alongside the likes of Morrissey, Peter Hook, Ian Curtis, Tony Wilson, and 40,000 liars who claim to have attended, Gallagher grew up in a culture shaped by the Sex Pistols.
“I was ten when it came out, so I was just a little bit too young,” he once remembered to BBC Radio 2’s Johnnie Walker. “But one of the older kids on our estate had a copy of it, and it was known that somebody had an album with swearing on it. I remember hearing ‘Bodies’ with a heroic amount of bad language in that song and thinking, ‘Wow!'”.
For Gallagher, it’s the fact that the Sex Pistols burned bright and exploded that sets that album apart from the rest, explaining, “For that band to have only been going for two and a half years and to change music. Not many bands get to change the way that people dress, talk, and feel in a culture. If push comes to shove, it’s probably the greatest album of all time. If it wasn’t for that, you wouldn’t have Definitely Maybe. No way.”
As Gallagher said, a direct lineage links Definitely Maybe to the Sex Pistols. Famously, Peter Hook was inspired to pick up a guitar and form Joy Division after the Lesser Free Trade Hall show. They evolved into New Order following the death of Ian Curtis, who inspired The Stone Roses, which led to the creation of Oasis, who are still making kids want to pick up a guitar today.
In addition to the vital impact that the Sex Pistols, with just one album, had on British music will likely never be seen again. Today, everyone lives in their own eco-system dictated by their personal algorithm, which makes the possibility of any band impacting not just music, but also shaping how they act and dress, seem entirely implausible. With that in mind, while you may disagree, Gallagher has a strong case.
