Legacy
[edit] Cultural influence
The Trouser Press Record Guide entry on the Sex Pistols declares that "their importance—both to the direction of contemporary music and more generally to pop culture—can hardly be overstated".[187] Rolling Stone has argued that the band, "in direct opposition to the star trappings and complacency" of mid-1970s rock, "came to spark and personify one of the few truly critical moments in pop culture—the rise of punk."[177] In 2004, the magazine ranked the Sex Pistols #58 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[188] Leading music critic Dave Marsh called them "unquestionably the most radical new rock band of the Seventies."[189]
Although the Sex Pistols were not the first punk band, the few recordings that were released during the band's brief initial existence were singularly catalytic expressions of the punk movement. The releases of "Anarchy in the U.K.", "God Save the Queen" and Never Mind the Bollocks are counted among the most important events in the history of popular music. Never Mind the Bollocks is regularly cited in accountings of all-time great albums: In 2006, it was voted #28 in Q magazine's "100 Greatest Albums Ever",[190] while Rolling Stone listed it at #2 in its 1987 "Top 100 Albums of the Last 20 Years".[191] It has come to be recognized as among the most influential records in rock history.[182][192] An Allmusic critique describes it as "one of the greatest, most inspiring rock records of all time".[193]
The Sex Pistols directly inspired the style, and often the formation itself, of many punk and post-punk bands during their first two-and-a-half-year run. The Clash,[194] Siouxsie and the Banshees,[195] The Adverts,[196] Vic Godard of Subway Sect,[197] and Ari Up of The Slits[198] are among those in London's "inner circle" of early punk bands that credit the Pistols. Pauline Murray of Durham punk band Penetration saw the Pistols perform for the first time in Northallerton in May 1976. She later explained their importance,
Nothing would have happened without the Pistols. It was like, "Wow, I believe in this." What they were saying was: "It's a load of shite. I'm going to do what I do and I don't care what people think." That was the key to it. People forget that, but it was the main ideology for me: we don't care what you think—you're shit anyway. It was the attitude that got people moving, as well as the music.[199]
The Sex Pistols' 4 June 1976 concert at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall was to become one of the most significant and mythologized events in rock history. Among the audience of merely forty people or so were many who became leading figures in the punk and post-punk movements: Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto, who organized the gig and were in the process of auditioning new members for the Buzzcocks; Bernard Sumner, Ian Curtis and Peter Hook, later of Joy Division; Mark E. Smith, later of The Fall; and Morrissey, later of The Smiths. Anthony H. Wilson, founder of Factory Records, saw the band for the first time at the return engagement on 20 July.[59] Among the many musicians of a later time who have acknowledged their debt to the Pistols are members of NOFX,[200] The Stone Roses,[201] Guns N' Roses,[202] Nirvana,[203] Green Day,[188] and Oasis.[204] Describing the band as "immensely influential", a London College of Music study guide notes that "many styles of popular music, such as grunge, indie, thrash metal and even rap owe their foundations to the legacy of ground breaking punk bands—of which the Sex Pistols was the most prominent."[2]
According to the Trouser Press Record Guide, "the Pistols and manager/provocateur Malcolm McLaren challenged every aspect and precept of modern music-making, thereby inspiring countless groups to follow their cue onto stages around the world. A confrontational, nihilistic public image and rabidly nihilistic socio-political lyrics set the tone that continues to guide punk bands."[187] Critic Toby Creswell locates the primary source of inspiration somewhat differently. Noting that "[i]mage to the contrary, the Pistols were very serious about music", he argues, "The real rebel yell came from Jones' guitars: a mass wall of sound based on the most simple, retro guitar riffs. Essentially, the Sex Pistols reinforced what the garage bands of the '60s had demonstrated—you don't need technique to make rock & roll. In a time when music had been increasingly complicated and defanged, the Sex Pistols' generational shift caused a real revolution."[205]
Along with their abundant musical influence, the Sex Pistols' cultural reverberations are evident elsewhere. Jamie Reid's work for the band is regarded as among the most important graphic design of the 1970s and still impacts the field in the 21st century.[206] By the age of twenty-one, Sid Vicious was already a "t-shirt-selling icon".[207] While the manner of his death signified for many the inevitable failure of punk's social ambitions, it cemented his image as an archetype of doomed youth.[208] British punk fashion, still widely influential, is now customarily credited to Westwood and McLaren; as Johnny Rotten, Lydon had a lasting effect as well, especially through his bricolage approach to personal style: he "would wear a velvet collared drape jacket (ted) festooned with safety pins (Jackie Curtis through the New York punk scene), massive pin-stripe pegs (modernist), a pin-collar Wemblex (mod) customised into an Anarchy shirt (punk) and brothel creepers (ted)."[209] Christopher Nolan, director of the Batman movie The Dark Knight, has said that Rotten inspired the characterization of The Joker, played by Heath Ledger. According to Nolan, "We very much took the view in looking at the character of the Joker that what's strong about him is this idea of anarchy. This commitment to anarchy, this commitment to chaos."[210] Ledger's costar Christian Bale has claimed that Ledger drew inspiration from watching tapes of Vicious.[211]
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