The Definitive 1000 Songs Of All Time 1955 to 2005: Number 500

500

500!

Number 500!

Sex Pistols

"God Save The Queen"

(1977)
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Genre:Punk
art by

ClicheCrow3

It's official ..... we are half way there! 500 down & 500 to go. Almost 2 years since Number 1000 was created and interestingly, not one word from Rolling Stone Magazine. I can only come to the conclusion: either they don't know this exists or they think the site is shit. And I'm gambling on the latter. Speaking of Number 1000 (Helen Reddy, Delta Dawn) looks like the voting system wants the song removed! So if you're a Helen Reddy fan you better spread the word. Since I'm feeling all nostolgic, here is a list of the songs that I have liked so far. Crowbarred's Top Ten. #10: Number 536 - Conway Twitty (great voice), #9: Number 862 - The Cardigans (great video), #8: Number 900 - Folk Implosion (wickedly cool), #7: Number 748 - Mountain (crack up video), #6:Number 966 - Freedy Johnston (highly regarded in youtube), #5: Number 596 - Wilbert Harrison (catchy), #4: Number 952 - Undertones (underrated classic), #3: Number 858 - Cowboy Junkies (only decent video I've ever made), #2: Number 981 - Megadeth (cool song & cool video) & #1: Number 888 - Steve Harley (grown to love this song).

art by Elky

The Sex Pistols may have only been together for two years in the late '70s, but they changed the face of popular music. Through their raw, nihilistic singles and violent performances, the band revolutionized the idea of what rock & roll could be. In England, the group was considered dangerous to the very fabric of society and was banned across the country; in America, they didn't have the same impact, but countless bands in both countries were inspired by the sheer sonic force of their music, while countless others were inspired by their independent, do-it-yourself ethics. Even if they didn't release any singles by themselves, there was an implicit independence in the way they played their music and handled their career. The band gave birth to the massive independent music underground in England and America that would soon include bands that didn't have a direct musical connection to the Sex Pistols' initial three-minute blasts of rage, but couldn't have existed without those singles.

art by neobono

Guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook were regulars at a boutique owned by their manager, Malcolm McLaren; bassist Glen Matlock worked at the store. Vocalist John Lydon, who would later perform under the name Johnny Rotten, met the rest of the group at the shop and was asked to join the band. While the band played simple rock & roll loudly and abrasively, Rotten arrogantly sang of anarchy, abortion, violence, fascism, and apathy; without Rotten, the band wouldn't have been threatening to England's government -- he provided the band's conceptual direction, calculated to be as confrontational and threatening as possible. The publicity caused by their caustic first single "Anarchy in the U.K." caused the band to be dropped by their record label, EMI. Matlock was fired before their next single "God Save the Queen," which was released on Virgin; it was banned by the BBC. Matlock's replacement was Sid Vicious, a tough street kid who, unlike the rest of the band, couldn't play his instrument.

art by touchofdust

After releasing one album in 1977, the band headed over to the U.S. for a tour in January of 1978; it lasted 14 days. Rotten left the band after their show at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom on January 14, heading back to New York; he would form Public Image Limited later that year. McLaren tried to continue the band but Cook and Jones soon turned against him. In the two decades following the Sex Pistols' implosion, an endless stream of outtakes, demos, repackagings, and live shows were released on a variety of labels, which only helped their cult grow. In 1996, to celebrate their impending twentieth anniversary, the Sex Pistols reunited, with original bassist Glen Matlock taking the place of the deceased Sid Vicious. The band embarked on an international tour in June of 1996, releasing the Filthy Lucre Live album the following month. Four years later, Julien Temple (who helmed the band's first movie, The Great Rock & Roll Swindle) directed the documentary film The Filth & the Fury. ~ [Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide]

What does Rolling Stone think of Sex Pistols?

Unabashedly crude, intensely emotional, calculated either to exhilarate or to offend, the Sex Pistols' music and stance were in direct opposition to the star trappings and complacency that, by the mid-'70s, had rendered rock & roll irrelevant to the common bloke. Over the course of their short, turbulent existence, the group released a single studio album that changed, if not the history of rock, at least its course. While the Sex Pistols were not the first punk rockers (that distinction probably goes to the Stooges), they were the most widely known and at least, to appearances, the most threatening. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols unquestionably ranks as one of the most important rock & roll records ever, its sound a raw, snarling, yet mesmerizing rejection of and challenge to not only rock & roll music and culture but a modern world that offered, as Rotten sang in "God Save the Queen," "no future." Whether the Pistols were simply a sophisticated hype run amok or the true voice of their generation has been widely debated, yet, oddly, that neither matters nor explains how they came to spark and personify one of the few truly critical moments in pop culture-the rise of punk. ~[From the 2001 The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll ]

Rolling Stone magazine deemed their '500th Song of all Time' was "More Than A Feeling" by Boston. Boston has not appeared in The Definitive 1000.