Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols

Of the millions of us who've played music since 1950 or so, there are a chosen few who have managed to shout into the universe with such force of spirit and purity of purpose that the sound, for reasons wholly mysterious, breaks through the gravity of the space-time continuum and manages to exist everywhere, always. Fewer still have been caught on tape doing it. It's not about style. Hank Williams, Little Richard, Elvis, Otis Redding, the Rolling Stones, Dolly Parton; they found their moment in disparate corners of the music industry, chasing the sounds of their own idols. It's those shouts that manage the leap, wherever and whenever they came from, that qualify as "Rock and Roll." Anarchy in the U.K. is among them. There's a lot to say about the album itself and it's place in musical history. But for me, all of that is academic.

The Sex Pistols are a good punk band for their time. Their songs can be repetitive and boring at times for sure. I feel like this album is average at best, yes there are songs that are great but not most of them on this album. To some it is a classic and they rave about it but I am not one of those people.

Undoubtedly a good album, but it's groundbreaking mainly because of John Lydon's lyrics and vocal delivery. With a different singer this could probably pass for hard rock/glam rock/proto metal, and it's far too cleanly/expensively produced, full of overdubs to really fit with punk. The brilliant marketing campaign also did a lot of the work in making this a cultural movement. It's a solid listen, but not anything I ever need to go back to.

It's just noise 💦💦🔫🔫 / 5

Still good, despite context

L'album qui pue de la gueule, qui ne se lave pas et qui picole. Vive le punk

I'm not a huge punk fan which is probably why I give this five stars? Anarchy in the UK, God Save the Queen, and Holiday in the Sun are not only great tracks but they are great running tracks for people that don't run super fast.

I just don't think I'll ever care for the Sex Pistols, though I can't quite pin down why. Seems I should be able to appreciate them on some level. But I can't find a way to connect with anything on this album.

For me, the Sex Pistols suffered from being pioneers. When you get into punk long after their era, and you've been exposed to music that's much more aggressive or intense, coming to the Pistols is like, "Really? This?" I still like the iconic songs, but seldom do I think to myself, "I should listen to the Sex Pistols." It would've been fun to see them causing a ruckus in England, though.

Not really my thing.

Not really for me. I respect the historical significance, but I'm just not a fan of punk from this era.

I've never been a fan of Johnny Rotten-inspired vocalists or Johhny Rotten in particular, so the prospect of listening to Johnny Rotten do his snotty punk thing for a whole album of songs wasn't enticing to me at all, but I enjoyed this one more than I expected to. Vocals aside, the songs were fun and well written and didn't feel sloppy like a lot of early punk can.

God save the queen is a banger. They do say a slur, so docking points. Decent album. 3/5

A solid album - had my head bobbing and toes tapping so I’d listen again.

I don’t think we should be talking about the music on this album. It’s obviously very simple; that’s just the nature of the beast. The album is a statement. It defined punk for the general public. Although it was actually a creation of Malcolm McLaren and already represented a sort of commercial version of punk rock. The Sex Pistols, and Johnny Rotton in particular, epitomised the punk attitude. That said, the lyrics do reflect the authentic zeitgeist of the ‘No Future’ generation. An attitude that was to take root in youth culture in the years that followed, until the colourful bubblegum pop of the 1980s offered a hedonistic escape from the sense of hopelessness. But here, everything is in ruins. No future, no home, no prospects.

A core classic that rips today

*I like the Ramones better but this is definitely a seminal punk record. *Loses a point for it sounding pretty similar all the way through and I don't love Sid's vocals

Gran disco

At the time it found me it seeened like the most dangerous album in the world and I listened ton it that way. Locked in my bedroom. Sex abortion anarchy cussing. Forty years after that introduction the songs still rip.

Концептуально все указывало на то, что мне должны нравиться панки, но что-то пластмассовый мир победил. Буду лучше ждать альбом Гражданской обороны (он же наверняка тут будет, да?)

лучший альбом sex pistols, потому - 4

Though I am not a big fan, this album helped initiate punk rock into a core genre.

Fantastic album. I recall borrowing a copy for a week from my buddy Dodge in exchange for some of my Weird Al CDs, and I ended up playing the shit out of it, to the ire of my brother. Haven’t listened to this one in over 25 years now. Still holds up. 4.5⭐️

A fine album that kicked off an entire genre. Some would say for better, others would say for worse. The energy here is absolutely infectious, and I found myself wanting to overthrow something as soon as humanly possible. Each song delights in some kind of gleeful anger, as if Sid Vicious was saying "I'm pissed off, but it's alright because I can sing about it. Maybe not the 5 star classic that everybody says it is, but still pretty good. Was expecting to hate this, yet was pleasantly surprised.

It sounds better when you're 14

It’s hard not to mind the bollocks when that’s what the whole album is.

The Sex Pistols are a little too chaotic for my taste. Their songs are a full attack of your senses and it’s very overwhelming. To top it off, most of their songs sound exactly the same with different lyrics thrown in. Not really for me.

An important album that hasn’t aged well. They opened the door but so many have passed through it now and gone further that this feels dated, almost measured. An exhibit in a museum more than a show you want to go catch these days.

Punk rock attitude all starts here. This is the essence of everything punk rock was and still is. To this day the Sex Pistols provide the punk rock blue print. Legendary album, massively influential, and still relevant today.

Classic Sex Pistols; enjoyable sound and consistent messaging.

Ich verstehe warum das ein krasses Album war, und einiges Songwriting ist auch nach wie vor fantastisch, die Lyrics bleak und absurd und manchmal auch einfach zotig und hohl. Da wo the Clash über die Spanische Revolution oder race riots in London schreiben, wird hier vor allem gestikuliert. Lärm pour Lärm, sozusagen.

4.5 As a kid, 90s punk was my thing, as well as nu-metal of course. My Green Day's Dookie album was pretty much worn out when I was a kid first discovering music. I bought thier whole discograpy (up to Insomnia at that point). Then I got into NOFX, MxPX and Blink 182. Then I found Punk-o-Rama 5 and started getting into Pennywise, Dropkick Murpheys, Guttermouth, etc. Anyways I wanted to find who created this whole genre and where its origins came from. Thats how I discovered the Sex Pistols. To me, at the time, they were the band that created the music that I knew as punk. They sounded and even LOOKED like what a punk is supposed to look like (see: SLC Punk). This album still kicks ass, if you like standard straightforward punk. Songs like "Bodies", "No Feelings", and "Pretty Vacant" could have fit perfectly on that Punk-o-Rama compilation without sounding out of place out all. The album kind of loses steam in the middle but picks back up with "God Save the Queen". First punk diss track with "New York" about the New York Dolls, and the whole NYC punk scene at the time. Ground breaking album. Would recommend to anyone who has liked punk or punk adjacent bands

A punk classic. These are all really strong songs front to back.

Listening to this album made me feel like I was at a concert, looking for the mosh pit, lol

Solid album

No m gusto

Dober

49% middle fingers, 51% brass bollocks. Gnarly fun.

Såhär ska punk låta ändå!

Bra drag!

Not as offensive from an audio perspective as I was expecting. Genuinely quite divisive, which I guess is the whole point of original punk.

Better than I expected! Anarchy in the uk takes me back!

Somehow had never listened to this one. I was actually impressed with how tight and musically proficient they were since I had heard stories about Sid Viscious not even being able to play bass. Turns out, he's hardly on the album and Steve Jones, the guitarist, played on most songs. It's entertaining though it definitely gets repetitive. Four stars for "Anarchy in the UK," "God Save the Queen," and "Pretty Vacant" alone. Not the best or most creative punk band but this is still a riveting listen.

My leftist libertarian ass feels tempted to slate this because of Anarchy In the UK. Painted a lasting picture to the masses of anarchism as meaningless chaos instead of the rich and thoughtful philosophy it is. Beyond my silly personal grudge, Never Mind the Bollocks is seriously overrated in the history of punk as a full album. It does have some great songs, especially God Save The Queen, a punchy fuck you to the monarchy from the bowels of Britain's working class, and Pretty Vacant. Almost every other song sounds the same though and they dont have the charisma of the Ramones to pull that off.

4 stars so we can justify my ass wearing sex pistols shirts

I was raised by a punk who couldn’t stand the Sex Pistols, so this was a first time listen for me. Craig, you weren’t wrong!

yes

Remarkable for what it represents, this album and the reverberations from this album are more than a ripple in time. I note that this is the 1st boy band having been constructed by Malcolm for their look rather than any musical ability. It is the only explanation for replacing Glen Matlock with certifiably crazy junkie Sid. Matlock could really play. Johnny Rotten is really a conundrum. He is an unreasonable piece of shit to many but stood by his wife Nora and her devastating illness until the end. Does the history of the band influence how this album is viewed? Perhaps, but having seen the Sex Pistols live during their 90s reunion and hearing the songs now with Frank Carter (Gallows, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes), these songs really have aged remarkably well. We all know the hits but the real enlightenment comes from the lesser played/known tracks. Bodies, EMI, Liar and No feelings all could have been singles and live these are honestly more exciting than God Save The Queen and Anarchy in The UK. That is, they belong with the real hits Holidays In The Sun and Pretty Vacant. In hindsight this is honestly a no skip record and still relevant today. 5/5 legitimately.

5.0/10 I liked this a lot more when I was younger...

Contrario a lo que pense después de la primera canción, me gustó. Cancion fav: Submission Lo volvería a escuchar? sí

Definitely enjoyable but shtick is kinda dated. A lot of these bands that were considered punk or counterculture don’t necessarily hold up in 2026. Makes it hard to critique even when you try to go in unbiased. Highlights: Anarchy in the UK

This album still rocks! Great song, production and playing.

1977 - birth of punk; hard rock; debut; Johnny Rotten (vocal), Sid Vicious (bass); received as "half-singing" and "bullocks" was offensive (beasties later took it to straight up talking/rapping); clearly the basis of St Jimmy in American Idiot; stooges (60s) sex pistols (70s) black flag (80s) beasties (90s). Not my favorite thing to listen to.

The first few songs (Holidays In the Sun and Bodies) were probably the ones I enjoyed the most as songs, though I also did like Anarchy in the U.K. as a bit of a classic. The rest is fine, but I swear there are some songs (especially God Save the Queen) that I could close my eyes and think they were done by B-52s. Fun overall.

Nom d album : culte. Chansons : moyen culte A la première écoute c'est agressif. A la deuxième écoute c'est pas mal. Ça a le goût du reviens-y.

Cronos est mort. Le chanteur-bassiste de Venom. Avec ses vibrations volcaniques et son souffle de la mort.

Quand même plaisant le gros son de guit, malgré la voix terrible de Rotten. Un de mes premiers et derniers CD de punk "pur" que je me suis procuré étant ado. Bodies wow quelle chanson iconoclaste sur l'avortement. Noooo future!

2.83

Me cagaron. Posta pensaba que eran inservibles que no sabían tocar sus instrumentos. Al final no.

Did Sid Vicious rip this off from the X Ray Spex? Maybeeeee. Still so good.

10/10 record. Overrated, but still amazing

'this is where the punk begins' - anakin skywalker

Eh

At 7 years old I was probably a bit too young to really understand what punk was about. To my young ears it was mainly noise, but there was something electric about it. It’s a 3 for me personally.

I have three words for this album, and this band. No. Thank. You.

Complicated because there's the context and legacy of this album, including the famous gig at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, and there's listening to it today. There's knowing all that stuff about Lydon and Vicious and there's thinking yeah, they were the first people to say 'fuck' on live TV and the BBC censored it on the charts, yadda yadda. That historic stuff is inseparable from an album which seems fairly unremarkable today, which makes me feel two different ways about this album. Holidays in the Sun probably the best track?

At the time, it was a sensation for many. Classmates were really into punk. It wasn't for me, though. Oddly enough, I do feel nostalgic about it.

It contains the classic: "God Save The Queen". Nothing special in my opinion.

This is one of those albums whose reputation precedes it. I may have heard this before but don't really remember if I did or not. From a purely musical perspective, it's a good punk rock album; better than I was expecting. There are some good hooks and the musicianship is fine. What elevates this album is the vocals and overall attitude. I can see why there is such mystique around a band that only released one studio album. I would listen again.

Punk in the 1970ies showed us that you did not have to have extraordinary musical talent to make a buck and become legends. The Sex Pistols are the archetype of British punk music. Some drug-infused 20-year-olds shredding loud music against the establishment - and in the background a record label raking in the pounds the make of that. :-D The music? Loud, raw, decent guitar playing, shouted "melodies". Perfect for some pogo on a beer stained party floor.

Solid but I wasn’t giving it my full attention

Three chords and a safety pin! While they weren’t the first punk group, they were certainly the most consequential. They really were aiming to blow up everything that came before. And don’t mistake simple for dumb or simplistic. The playing is excellent (Steve Jones on guitar AND bass [Sid really couldn’t play when this was recorded] and Paul Cook on drums), and the songs are smart. Johnny Rotten’s vocals, which I found so trying on PIL’s ‘Metal Box’, really work here. Hard to believe this is the only thing released during the band’s existence, as they imploded so quickly, perhaps as they were always intended to. This is absolutely essential listening. Five stars.

Pure chaotic energy! I enjoyed reading about the Sex Pistols more than I enjoyed listening, but still worthy of 3 stars.

First wave punk, so it is fairly tedious sounding. Influential, yes, but also vastly overrated. Thankfully still more well produced than most of the 2nd wave punk that will come in the 80s. If I am honest, NMTB does not really come off as a complete album. Mostly just 2 iconic tracks and a bunch of mediocre samey sounding tracks. Lyrics aren't particularly great and their doing far too much of the work. John Lydon's vocal craft is fairly weak and doesn't much stronger in the future. Lydon was always a better marketer/promoter than a musician, really, which is ironic given his schtick.

Yet Another Punk Album Good energy, but I'm not walking away having found a new album for me. 2*

Actually very good album Will I listen to again: 100%

CULTURE

Overall Rating - 4.17/5 (8.33/10). Classic early Punk. Exactly the sort of simple, hard, defiant music I expected. The back half of the album is stronger than the front. Extra points for the live performance of God Save the Queen in the Thames during the Jubilee, and Anarchy in the U.K. is the song I think of when I think of classic Punk.

A much better statement than it is an album of music.

I bet they never sounded like this live. Here is a perfectly competent rock band with some great songs.

The odd thing about _Never Mind the Bollocks_ nearly fifty years later is how little musical chaos there actually is on it. For something that arrived wrapped in outrage and still carries a reputation as cultural detonation, this is an extraordinarily controlled rock record. It sounds enormous. Steve Jones stacks guitars until they become architecture, Paul Cook’s snare cracks through the middle of them, and Chris Thomas and Bill Price make absolutely certain that nothing important lands by accident. This is a long way from the subsequent DIY idea of punk as whatever can be captured cheaply in a room. In manufacturing terms, _Bollocks_ is almost aggressively un-punk. The music itself is hardly Year Zero either. You can hear the Stooges and New York Dolls everywhere, sometimes almost embarrassingly clearly, and at points my old description of the album as a more feral Who record still holds up. The remarkable thing is the ambition with which those influences are handled. This is not a band hoping to become Britain’s answer to the Dolls. It feels closer to Brian Epstein looking at four lads from Liverpool and deciding they ought to be bigger than Elvis. Take those underground sounds, make them harder, sharper and vastly bigger, then demand that everybody pay attention. Jones is central to that achievement. The handy version of Pistols history gives Glen Matlock the tunes, Lydon the outrage, Sid Vicious the danger and Jones the job of hitting a guitar very hard. The record makes nonsense of it. Matlock plainly helped establish the Pistols’ pop discipline, but Jones absorbed the lesson. “Holidays in the Sun” is a superbly constructed single; “Seventeen” is almost comically primitive — essentially I–IV–I–V and “I’m a lazy sod” — yet becomes an immaculate two minutes of not giving a flying fuck. The song professes laziness while the recording demonstrates immense care. Lydon provides the instability. On “Holidays in the Sun” his phrasing sounds as though paving stones keep catching his feet while the band marches straight ahead. His lyrics can bounce between precise social observation and something approaching Beckettian verbal compulsion. And when the songs are weaker, he sometimes seems to notice along with the listener. “Problems” is filler, but the sneer at its end almost becomes a review of the track he is still performing, anticipating the comic self-sabotage he would later push much further with PiL. It is not all killer. “Liar”, “Problems” and “Submission” are plainly weaker than “Pretty Vacant”, “Anarchy in the U.K.” or the extraordinary “Bodies”. The last of those remains feral, although adulthood makes it uncomfortable for reasons rather different from the adolescent thrill of transgression: Pauline was a human being before she became material for someone else’s art. What survives most powerfully is not a political programme. The Clash would supply much more of that. The Pistols’ revolution is one of insolence: the refusal to grant monarchy, religion, managers, journalists, record companies, other bands or the audience itself the deference they expect. “Your future dream is a shopping scheme” still cuts because it reduces an entire promised future to municipal retail development. That is also why arguments about whether the Pistols were “manufactured” feel beside the point. Of course they were manufactured. So is theatre, cinema, pop and food. McLaren, Westwood, Lydon, Jones, Cook, Matlock, Thomas, Price and Jamie Reid were not necessarily making the same artwork, yet their competing intentions somehow converged into one remarkably effective cultural object. _Never Mind the Bollocks_ is not twelve perfect songs. The Sex Pistols project is considerably bigger than that.

Simon ferocious needed a hug

dad rock, I'm sure it was crazy at the time

Love the drums, hate the vocals. I don't get the hype on this album musically, but I understand the impact. Just not for me personally

Even though they are a bit controvertial they pivoted music, especially punk music AND music branding! Good album.

Very good but a lil samey at the end

You really get to see where the origins of the punk rock and roll swagger of later British bands come from with The Sex Pistols. Super bratty and overall just super anti-establishment while also being pretty fun for a record of its genre and age. Not a bad record by any means but it's not incredible either, British Bowser Jr. gets tiring really fast.

haven't listened to this since high school. not sure why. it's great.

This is fine rock 'n roll, raw and raucous, but I can understand why they didn't do any more studio work. They lack the variety and nuance for a full platter, but I bet they put on a hell of a show.

I’ve always preferred The Clash as a band with authenticity, musicality and much more to say. The hits are bangers on this, but it’s always felt a little hollow.

Overplayed but classic

burn punk

C'est quand même border quétaine.

Is it the time for us to accept as a society that this album is not that good? The vocals really suck, instrumentally it's carried by the fact that it came out pretty early, but in the grander scheme of punk music is nothing all that interesting either. I don't care if they're authentic or not, but the music itself is pretty weak so I can't rate this high.

Fun and loud

Almost perfect, but crucially not

que dicção horrível desse vocalista, quase não entendia o que ele tava cantando nas músicas... não é bem o que eu costumo ouvir e acho que não gostei muito também.

the most classic of punk albums. This will never old for me.

5: I will happily play this album anytime 4: I may occasionally play this album of my own free will 3: I will happily listen to this if someone plays it in the background 2: I will tolerate this if it is playing in the background 1: I will leave the room if someone plays this in the background

Brilliant. Catchy, ragged, acerbic. If you were only going to release one album ever, this is a pretty high bar to set.