Now, on Oct. 28, 2007, EMI will reissue this classic album of raw sound and sweat on re-mastered vinyl, packaged as it was 30 years ago. It will come with the song “Submission” on a smaller 7” vinyl, exactly how it was released in 1977 due to a printing error that accidentally took the song off the full-length album.

Though it received mixed reviews, The Sex Pistols' first and only original album,

Never Mind The Bollocks, revolutionized the world with its biting lyrics and thrashing guitars, inspiring countless bands throughout the decades – in punk and rock, but in politically-charged songs as well. The Sex Pistols' songs "Anarchy In the UK" and "God Save The Queen" provided scathing satire of the English Monarchy and were simultaneously criticized and praised upon release. “They wrote some good songs,” said Steve Tupper of Subterranean Records. “The lyrics were provocative for 1976. They were very much in your face.”

According to Kathy Peck, bassist/writer/vocalist of The Contractions and the director of www.hearnet.com “they were empty lyrics. The Sex Pistols reported on what was really going on.”

Their in-your-face quality resulted in quite a few angry people. “They invented a new way to piss people off,” said Nero Nava, an employee at Amoeba Records. Whether they meant to or not, the Sex Pistols defined a generation and influenced the next. Bollocks changed the musical culture from Beatles-loving solitude and prog-rock epics to an era of vicious sado-masochism and thrust the dark, seedy alleys of the England’s underbelly into public consciousness. “They were the first mainstream punk rock band,” Nava said. “And I don’t mean mainstream in a bad way. I view them in the same context as Fleetwood Mac. They allowed pop music to be loud and noisy. They were violent and fast, but catchy.”

Peck described the Sex Pistols as a refreshing change on the music scene. “They were high energy and raw,” Peck said. “It was a breath of fresh air to have people go up on stage and not know how to perform. It was anti-music. They weren’t slaves to commercial appeal.”

Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of the band, was a living cesspool of rebellion: a spiky-haired kid who, according to his autobiography Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, wore t-shirts that said “I Hate Pink Floyd” and loathed the Beatles with every twisted fiber of his being. “Johnny Rotten was a great front man,” Nava said. “Very charismatic.” Although Rotten had never thought himself much of a singer before the Sex Pistols, his scathing commentaries and crazed mannerisms completed the band’s iconic sound. Sid Vicious, the supposed “bassist” of the band (his parts in Bollocks were so bad that they were muted), was only in the Sex Pistols because of his look as a heroin-addled punk rock god. This look was real. Vicious died the way all punk kids dream: overdosing on heroin. “Image was really everything for them,” Nava said. “They made (the) unfashionable fashionable.”

George Chen, publicist of Alternative Tentacles said that “they were the face of punk rock. Their names were synonymous with” it. But the Sex Pistols didn’t just look tough, they were tough. According to Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, Vicious’ drug addiction took over on tour, as he wandered the streets looking for heroin and carving “GIMME A FIX” into his chest with a razor blade. “They got a lot of attention,” Tupper said with a chuckle.

The Sex Pistols’ influence can hardly be denied. “Punk permeates everything,” Chen said. “The existence of the Sex Pistols is broader than just the album. The attitudes, nihilism and manipulation of today are largely due to (them).”

The Sex Pistols also provided a unique role model for aspiring rock stars. “We really looked up to them,” Peck added. “The attitudes, the message, the rudeness to everyone.”

With over-the-top antics, controversial subject matter and direct lyrics, the Sex Pistols brought taboos into popular music and paved the way for countless rockers to come. Review

The Sex Pistols might just be the most overrated band of all time. Even though they were only around for three years and produced but one proper album in that time, the Sex Pistols are widely revered as one of the best rock and roll bands to ever exist. Only The Beatles and Bob Dylan are more over-analyzed, and they each had long, fruitful careers. The Sex Pistols didn’t invent punk (The Stooges released their first album in 1969 and the Ramones in 1976), and they weren’t even the best punk band around at the time (The Clash were light-years ahead, and The Buzzcocks played faster and tighter). Yet, somehow, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols really is an amazing album.

It is a masterpiece brimming with disgust, contempt, and tastelessness and filled with exceptional and controversial social commentary. “God Save the Queen” and “Anarchy in the UK” are both fantastic examples of working-class social commentary —like Karl Marx and John MacLean battling it out in your eardrums. “Submission” is a celebration of bondage, domination, sadism and masochism, while “Bodies” is anti-abortion, anti-love and just about as anti-sex as one can get. “Seventeen” is a nihilistic anthem for disenchanted teenagers all over the world.

After all, who can resist screaming along to “I’m a lazy sod”?

Even though the riffs on Never Mind the Bollocks are extremely catchy, you’d be hard-pressed to remember the songs that most correspond to. Indeed, the Sex Pistols began the disease that many present punk bands are now infected: identical sounding songs. Though each song is rebellious bliss, there isn’t much experimentation or variety in them. In fact, Never Mind the Bollocks is hardly an album at all, but more of a smattering of songs that sound like they were written and recorded in one take.

Although the songs sound similar, Never Mind the Bollocks is only 38 minutes, which keeps it from dragging. Almost like one long song, the album’s tone is consistent and razor-sharp. It may not shock people like it did in 1977, but the messages certainly come across as fresh as a new leather jacket. No matter how overrated the Sex Pistols may have become over the years, Never Mind the Bollocks can still be appreciated for the fact that it is a loud, fast, dirty, vulgar exercise in what it means to be punk.

Other Influential Punk Albums:

The Ramones – Self-Titled: The American version of the Sex Pistols (or perhaps the Sex Pistols are the British version of the Ramones), the Ramones exploded out of New York with hits like “Beat on the Brat” and “Blitzkrieg Bop,” putting a tongue-in-cheek spin on a variety of subjects like sniffing glue, teenage prostitution and Nazism. Along with the Sex Pistols and the Clash, the Ramones are probably the most influential punk band of all time.

The Clash – London Calling: Punk Rock legends The Clash’s third album showed the world that to be punk, you don’t need to attack your guitar like a mental patient. The Clash’s fusion of rhythm and blues, reggae, rockabilly and (of course) punk paved the way for a more controlled sound of the genre.

Wire – Pink Flag: Wire’s first album is a minimalist, post-punk masterpiece, notable for consisting both of songs as short as 30 seconds and hook-filled tunes of alienation and warning. Although it was first released to poor sales, Pink Flag has since found its niche in music history as one of the first punk albums to start thinking beyond the constraints of the genre that spawned it.

Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables: The album that led some in the Christian right to dub the band “the most dangerous band in the world,” Fresh Fruit is the album that propelled the Dead Kennedys into both the political and musical spotlights. Mainstays of the Bay Area punk scene, the Dead Kennedys are credited for being both the first political hardcore punk band.

Black Flag – Damaged: Arguably the best album of the hardcore punk scene of the 1980s, Damaged explodes with a mixture of unhinged energy and ennui that only teenagers can create, (or relate to, for that matter).

Suicide – Suicide: Widely considered to be the first synth-pop album, although much heavier than anything that followed, Suicide is still a very important punk album in it own right. Produced by Ric Ocasek of the Cars, the album contains songs veering from the dreamy, wistful “Cheree” to the 10-minute “Frankie Teardrop,” one of the most absurd and harrowing songs ever written.

Minutemen – Double Nickels on the Dime: Although marketed as a hardcore punk band, the Minutemen were anything but that. Combining punk with very strong elements of funk, country, spoken word and jazz, and putting it all into one 43-song, 81 minute album, the band created a sound that was all their own.

The Stooges – Self Titled / Fun House: Punk before punk, The Stooges released their first three albums in between the years of 1969 and 1973: the first two were the most groundbreaking. The Stooges and Fun House were two of the loudest albums recorded up to that point. Songs like “I Wanna Be Your Dog” went on to inspire every single rock band that has existed since then.

Big Black – Songs About F***ing: At a time when bands were dragging all their songs out too long and subtlety reigned king, Big Black were doing the exact opposite. Led by Steve Albini, one of the most prolific and eccentric men working in the underground music community, Songs About F***ing's 14 songs whiz by in just over half an hour, covering topics ranging from murder to rape to alcoholism (all in tasteless detail) as they go. Set to a harsh, grating backdrop of industrial noise, and even including out-of-leftfield covers of "The Model" by Kraftwerk and "He's a Whore" by Cheap Trick, Songs About F***ing is one of punk's finest moments. Misfits – Walk Among Us: Walk Among Us took the standards of punk in the early 1980s and turned them on their head. Utterly devoid of political confrontation or social uplift, embracing a costume sense that might have given Kiss pause and campy as hell, the Misfits were just out to entertain. Rewriting '50s and '60s melodies as hardcore punk songs, and drawing upon classic horror movies as inspiration, the band created their own genre: horror-punk. Not bad for an album that runs less than 25 minutes.