Recommendations of the Editorial team
The 100 best musicians of all time: The Sex Pistols – Essay by Billie Joe Armstrong
The sex pistols only released an album – “Never Mind the Bollocks, here’s the sex pistols”. But this album cleaned up with everything that stank at rock music. And what went wrong with the whole world. Nobody left such an impression with just one album. You can hear their influence at Joy Division. You can hear him at Guns n ‘Roses, at Public Enemy, The Smiths or Slayer. It was an album whose promise was never redeemed.
It is a bad joke that the boys couldn’t play their instruments. In my eyes, Steve Jones is one of the most gifted guitarists. He taught me what you could get out of a Gibson. Paul Cook is an excellent drummer with a very own sound. There are bands that still struggle like the pistols sound.
The difference between John Lydon and other punk singers is that they only imitate what he was naturally. There is nothing in him that is even in the slightest. And as for the bass players: I think it wasn’t necessarily a mistake to replace Glen Matlock with Sid Vicious.
Matlock was cool. But Sid had everything that was cool on the punk rock. 24ies drought guy with the thick lip, who also had something from Elvis and James Dean. Of course, it was anything but romantic that he was hanging on the needle. He could master his instrument, but he was over to do it.
You don’t have to do it, but you can – thanks to your preparatory work – go beyond all borders with music
The things that Lydon wrote about 1976/77 are still relevant today – and they draw an ugly picture. Nobody had the eggs to pronounce what they turned out at the time. The only person who could express something comparable was Bob Dylan, but he never said it as blatant as she.
When I first heard her at 14 or 15, I was standing on Heavy Metal and Hard Rock. I think I was with a friend when I heard these pounding boots for the first time at the beginning of “Holidays in the Sun”. And then the guitar broke over a afterwards like a thunderstorm.
When Lydon also interfered, I wanted to end with my past on the spot and do something completely new. And whenever I try to write something new today, you are my secret bar: you have shown what is feasible with music. You don’t have to fulfill them, but – thanks to your preparatory work – you can blow up all borders with music.