Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols [180g, Back To Black] (LP) Vinyl

Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is the only studio album by the English punk rock band the Sex Pistols, released on 28 October 1977 through Virgin Records. This edition is the Universal Back To Black reissue: a single 180g black vinyl LP cut from the first digital remaster of the original master tapes, supplied with a voucher to download an MP3 copy of the album.

Recording

The band's volatile internal relationships shaped the sessions. Original bassist Glen Matlock left early in the recording process; he is credited as a co-writer on all but two of the tracks but played bass on only one, Anarchy in the U.K. His replacement, Sid Vicious, contributed partial bass to Bodies and God Save the Queen, and guitarist Steve Jones played the bass parts on everything else. Singer Johnny Rotten, drummer Paul Cook and Jones appear on every track.

Work began at Wessex Sound Studios in March 1977 with Chris Thomas producing and Bill Price engineering. Sessions were led alternately by Thomas or Price, and sometimes both together; because the finished songs often combined mixes from different sessions, every track is jointly credited to both producers.

Sleeve and the Obscenity Case

Jamie Reid's cover concept deliberately excluded any picture of the group, using dayglo red and yellow with cutout lettering and a finish resembling crude screen prints. The album was originally to be called God Save Sex Pistols; the title changed in mid 1977, based on a phrase supplied by Steve Jones, which Johnny Rotten explained as a working class expression meaning "stop talking rubbish".

London police warned Virgin's record shops that displaying the cover risked prosecution under the 1899 Indecent Advertisements Act, and a Virgin shop manager in Nottingham was arrested. Richard Branson covered the legal costs and hired Queen's Counsel John Mortimer, whose expert witness, Professor James Kinsley of the University of Nottingham, argued that "bollocks" was a legitimate Old English word meaning nonsense. The case was heard at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on 24 November 1977 and ended in a not guilty verdict on all four charges.

Reception

Despite widespread retail bans, the album took 125,000 advance orders and entered the UK albums chart at number one, went gold on 17 November 1977 and spent 48 weeks in the top 75. It has since been certified platinum by the RIAA. Rolling Stone named it the second best album of the previous twenty years in 1987 and placed it 41st on its 500 Greatest Albums lists in both 2003 and 2012; Time chose it as one of the 100 greatest albums ever in 2006, NME voted it the fourth greatest British album the same year, and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.

This Pressing

Released on 2 June 2014 by Universal Music Group International as part of the Back To Black series, catalogue number SexPisLP77, barcode 0602537795635. It is a single 180g black vinyl LP in stereo, pressed by GZ Media and made in the EU, with a voucher to download an MP3 version of the album. As on the original artwork, the rear sleeve prints only eleven of the twelve titles, omitting Submission, and gives the closing track as EMI Unlimited Edition.

Track Listing

Side A
1. Holidays In The Sun
2. Bodies
3. No Feelings
4. Liar
5. God Save The Queen
6. Problems

Side B
1. Seventeen
2. Anarchy In The U.K.
3. Submission
4. Pretty Vacant
5. New York
6. EMI