Growing up, I wasn’t a fan of Punk Rock. I had read about a number of Punk bands in CREEM magazine. CREEM seemed to cover more punk than mainstream bands at the time, and so I knew who the Sex Pistols were but wasn’t really interested in Punk.

Somehow I got around to hearing the Sex Pistol‘s studio album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, and I liked the songs. The U.S. version of the album was released in November 1977 and I bought the vinyl album that, sadly, I no longer have. I recently bought a 2014 re-release that came with a digital download because I never obtained the CD version.

As I write this, I am listening to the album and thinking, this sounds like regular Rock music, but back in the mid 1970s it was raw, in your face, full of curse words and snot. I was into more refined music at the time, KISS, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest. Now I listen to later Judas Priest albums (Screaming for Vengeance for instance) and the beat is twice as fast as the Sex Pistols songs had. I guess groups like Blink 182 and Green Day have made “Punk” mainstream and part of the normal Rock landscape now.

The whole Bollocks album is great head bobbing music but I have a couple of favorite songs –

Holiday in the Sun has to be top of the list. The beat and riff are great and I actually learned this song on the guitar but never played it live anywhere.

Of course God Save the Queen is considered a classic now. It was catchy and thumbed their nose at British royalty. Great beat and catchy lyrics.

Although Punk Rock was not something I listened to in teens, I did make an exception for two bands – the Sex Pistols and The Damned. I’ll have to do a future Album of the Month on The Damned‘s album. That album has some memories tied to it.

So for being my first foray into Punk Rock I chose Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols by the Sex Pistols for Album of the Month.