Shareefruck
Registered User
I gave it another shot based on Amerika's review of it. Hard to pin-point why I changed my mind about it other than my ears adjusting to the way that it sounds. I guess I just found it a tough, piercing listen that, musically, didn't sound that unique and interesting to me. I always liked Lydon's vocals, but found it a little difficult to listen to in Sex Pistols form before, and musically, I was more blown away by other more off the beaten path/avant-garde-ish/minimalistic approaches to punk that had more of an inherently satisfying and hypnotic feel to me, like Joy Division's Warsaw period, Neu!'s forays into punk, or Velvet Underground's White Light White Heat approach to it. I guess I had a bit of resentment that the roots of punk did something that felt so right and instead it turned into something else that got a lot more credit but sounded more like an extreme version of the showy generic rock that I didn't like nearly as much (I still prefer that pulsating proto-punk-ish sound over the Sex Pistols brand of it, btw, but the latter works just fine on its own).I've been going through many of your favourite albums for quite some time now, and I've got to say the batting average is pretty high. I do remember that you had the Sex Pistols album pretty low before, so I wonder what made it shoot up for you that high. Personally, I'm glad you came around on it since it's one of my favourites.
The biggest thing is that Lydon's brilliant vocals went down easier and didn't have the tough/grating trade-off this time-- that changes everything-- and for some reason, the fact that the music wasn't in the style that I preferred didn't bother me much this time.
Hard to explain the sound I'm talking about, but I've always stubbornly wanted punk to sound less like the Sex Pistols (and everything that came after) and more like this:
The playing in Nevermind The Bollocks is good, but on its own, it still doesn't pull me into a psychotic frenzy the way that I expect punk to (and that I do from the above)-- I have to rely on Lydon for that.
Last edited: