anyway, my main take on sex pistols: boy band or no? is that you have to come up with a consistent set of criteria that a group meets to be considered a boy band, and the pistols were so inconsistent that it’s impossible to see how you could apply it to the without applying it to basically everyone
the long and short of this is that “boy band” is inaccurate unless you’re classifying most bands before the mid-80s as boy bands or girls groups, and that malcolm mclaren, vivienne westwood and each individual member of the pistols all had entirely different motivations for being involved
fwiw, my criteria is:
1. plays music written by producers/managers/label
2. public/personal life largely controlled by label (this one is subjective, i know, but important)
3. are part of a marketing strategy to sell items other than music
the pistols only meet 1/3 here
But no need really. When I saw the Pistols in 76 (at one of the Lesser Free Trade Hall gigs - unfortunately I think it was the second one, not the iconic first although I'm not 100% sure) their sound was pretty generic pub rock apart from Rotten's vocals. But a world away from prog...
... which was massive up until then. Steve Jones was doing Pete Townshend windmills! I was surprised that they were more musically competent than the rock press had made them out to be
I mean, when you look at their careers post-breakup, it's clear there was only one member of the band who couldn't really play his instrument.
(Though I've heard Vicious was a better drummer. But I'll leave that assessment to others.)
And of course when I saw them, and when they did for Never Mind The Bollocks, Sid wasn't in the band - it was Glen Matlock, also an accomplished musician. You could argue they were more of a boy band once he was replaced by Sid
i mean, he tried, and they told him to eat shit (he wrote a bit on the second record that’s such a mess), which is a major strike against both 1 and 2
