The year 1977 was a crazy time for Britain. The country was struggling to maintain the upswing of the sixties, a time when London had felt like the cultural centre of the world. The city now stank with the disrepair of a country running on empty both financially and seemingly morally. If there was one band determined to shake Britain out of its slumber it was the Sex Pistols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A band born out of the frightful London punk scene, it was a situation they not only relished but it was a scene that had been built and crafted by the band and their Bromley contingent for this very purpose. Forged in London\u2019s West End and, more importantly, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood\u2019s boutique shop \u2018SEX\u2019, the scene really took shape under their tutelage. It was there that the ethos of punk had been expertly conjured out of ripped fabric and safety pins. They would bring disorder to the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the summer of \u201977, the Sex Pistols<\/a> had already left an indelible mark on British society. Their song \u2018God Save The Queen\u2019 had rumbled HRH Queen Elizabeth II\u2019s jubilee celebrations as the band tore down the Thames screaming their desperate need for revolution, or at the very least their desperate need to be heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a song that sent shockwaves across the nation and was therefore routinely banned by radio and television stations \u2014 BBC was no different, stopping the band from performing the number two single (a hotly debated topic itself) on the famous Top of the Pops<\/em> weekly chart show. However, that all changed when the band screened the promo video for their next single \u2018Pretty Vacant\u2019 \u2014 a lip-synching festival of \u2018fuck you\u2019 to the establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The track was a bastion of that very sentiment. As Johnny Rotten, the band\u2019s menacing frontman and songwriter said of the track to Rolling Stone<\/a><\/em>: \u201c\u2019Pretty Vacant,\u2019 the concept, turned into really just kind of a football chant. And it was adopted on the terraces by quite a few firms \u2013 firms being gangs of hooligans.\u201d He continues: \u201cThere is an irony in that song because we weren\u2019t very pretty, and we were far from vacant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Posted from: https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/sex-pistols-pretty-vacant-top-of-the-pops-story-1977\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n