SEX PISTOLS/THE GREAT ROCK'N'ROLL SWINDLE VD 2510 (-79) UK SOUNDTRACK

                                                                                   

 Soundtrack to a British mockumentary movie, meaning to depict the whereabouts of the UK punk movement in the late seventies, with most focus on The Sex Pistols and their manager Malcolm McLaren. Haven't seen the whole movie yet myself, but guess it's as chaotic as this album. The band had already split after Johnny Rotton left and Sid Viscious was down on drugs, which would kill him before the album was released. So this is not a freshly recorded Sex Pistols album, more a patchwork made by McLaren, where he among other things use old rehersal tapes with added bass and drums. Also letting other singers in to replace Rotton, as old band members Sid Vicious, Paul Cook, Steve Jones and himself, besides famed train robber Ronnie Biggs and musician, actor and TV presenter Edward Tudor-Pole. To make it even more complicated the album has been released in different variations with diverging track lists, which is the reason the tracklist inside fold/out is incorrect and an insert with correct tracking had to be enclosed. All the above would be enough for any band fan or student of rock history, but how does it sound? Even after listening through I seriously don't know, but under the circumstances maybe not that bad. The mended 1976 rehersal tracks suffer from half-ass audio, but still very ok punk rock, French street musicians doing their version of "Anarachy In The UK" is odd in a very good way and Ronnie Biggs "No One Is Innocent" is quite all right. My favourites here world be Sid Vicious doing covers of "Something Else" and "C'mon Everybody", though I hear his mock version of "My Way" as mostly tragic considering he passed away after an overdose just a while later. All in all McLaren's act of greed, flogging the dead horse as hard and ruthless as he could, which he also gladly admitts. But good or bad it is a testimony from a very special time and place in rock history and therefore valuable, at least for me. Issued and reissued through different formats, trackings and sleeve designs all over the world through the years. I can't count them all. Not sure if this is a first or second UK press. In any case it came with labels as shown here in a glossy fold/out cover with two stickers and a one-sided insert. (ZÖNT*) (For more on Sex Pistols please also check post on the first UK press "Never Mind The Bollocks"  https://monolover.blogspot.com/2012/06/sex-pistolsnever-mind-bollocks-77-1-1.html  )