[3] The Sex Pistols evolved from the Strand (sometimes known as the Swankers), formed in London in 1972 by teenagers Steve Jones on vocals, Paul Cook on drums and Wally Nightingale on guitar.

[4][5] The band regularly hung out at two clothing shops on the King's Road in Chelsea, London: John Krivine and Steph Raynor's Acme Attractions[6][7] and Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die.

[8] The shop then became a focal point of the early London punk rock scene, bringing together participants such as the future Sid Vicious, Marco Pirroni, Gene October, and Mark Stewart.

[20][21] Describing the social context in which the band formed, John Lydon said that mid-seventies Britain was "a very depressing place ... completely run-down, there was trash on the streets, total unemployment, just about everybody was on strike ... if you came from the wrong side of the tracks ... then you had no hope in hell and no career prospects at all.

The band's core early followers—including Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin and Billy Idol, Jordan, and Soo Catwoman—came to be known as the Bromley Contingent, after the suburban south-east London borough that several of them were from.

[51] His cut-up lettering—based on notes left by kidnappers or terrorists—were used to create the classic Sex Pistols logo and many subsequent designs for the band, although they were actually introduced by McLaren's friend Helen Wellington-Lloyd.

[52][53][54] Reid has said that he used "to talk to John [Lydon] a lot about the Situationists ... the Sex Pistols seemed the perfect vehicle to communicate ideas directly to people who weren't getting the message from left-wing politics".

Although regarded as seminal to the growth of English punk rock, and Cook and Jones being fans of the album,[67][68] Lydon has repeatedly rejected that it influenced the Sex Pistols, claiming that they "were all long-haired and of no interest to me.

[98] The musician and journalist John Robb later described the record's impact: "From Steve Jones' opening ... descending chords, to Johnny Rotten's ... sneering vocals, this song is the perfect statement ... a stunningly powerful piece of punk politics.

On 1 December 1976, the band, accompanied by members of the Bromley Contingent, repeatedly swore during an early evening live broadcast of Thames Television's Today programme, hosted by Bill Grundy.

[119] In one journalist's later description, the Pistols had "stoked a moral panic ... precipitating the cancellation of gigs, the band's expulsion from their EMI record deal and lurid tabloid tales of punk's 'shock cult'".

[147][148] Its lyrics–"God save the queen / the fascist regime..She ain't no human being / and there's no future / in England's dreaming"–lead to widespread outcry from the British tabloids,[149][150] leading to several major chains withdrawing it from sale.

[153][154] "God Save the Queen" opened at number 2 on the official UK record chart for Jubilee week, behind Rod Stewart's "I Don't Want to Talk About It".

[155][156] Attacks on punk fans rose and in mid-June, Rotten was assaulted by a knife-wielding gang outside Islington's Pegasus pub, causing tendon damage to his left arm.

[157] According to Cook, after the "God Save the Queen" single and the Grundy incident, the Pistols were public enemy number one, and there was a rivalry between gangs of rockabillies, Teddy Boys and punks, which often led to violence.

[173][174] Containing the track "Bodies"—in which Rotten says "fuck" six times—and "God Save the Queen", and featuring the word bollocks in its title, the album was banned by Boots, W. H. Smith and Woolworths.

[181] The Pistols January 1978 US tour was initially scheduled for nine dates, but due to Vicious's drug use and the breakdown in the relationship between Lydon and McLaren was cut short after seven shows.

The album was released by Virgin Records in February 1979, and consisted mostly of cover songs and new tracks sung by Jones, Vicious, Cook, Biggs, McLaren and Edward Tudor-Pole.

Two more singles from the soundtrack were put out under the Sex Pistols name, with Tudor-Pole and others singing "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle", and "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone", which featured a Rotten vocal from 1976, ; both fell just shy of the Top Twenty.

[213][214] After leaving the Pistols, Rotten reverted to his birth name of Lydon and formed the influential post-punk band Public Image Ltd with former Clash member Keith Levene and school friend Jah Wobble.

Finally, on 16 January 1986, Lydon, Jones, Cook and the estate of Sid Vicious were awarded control of the band's heritage, including the rights to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and all the footage shot for it—more than 250 hours.

In his autobiography, Lydon attacked the film, saying that it "celebrates heroin addiction", goes out of its way to "humiliate [Vicious's] life" and completely misrepresents the Sex Pistols' part in the London punk scene.

[238] A UK tour was later announced for September 2024, which was officially billed as "Frank Carter and Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols do Never Mind the Bollocks".

Even as the media treated them as pariahs, the potency of their music and their image spoke to an audience waiting for something different than the prog and soft rock sounds that ruled the charts in the 1970s, sparking a revolution that is still playing itself out.

Many among the audience of about forty became leading figures in the punk and post-punk movements, including Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto, who organised the gig, Bernard Sumner, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Mark E. Smith, John Cooper Clarke, Morrissey and Anthony H.

"[246] According to the music journalist Ira Robbin, "the Pistols and ... McLaren challenged every aspect and precept of modern music-making, thereby inspiring countless groups to follow their cue onto stages around the world.

"[282] While the Conservative triumph in 1979 may be taken as evidence for that position, Julien Temple has noted that the scene inspired by the Sex Pistols "wasn't your kind of two-up, two-down working class normal families, most of it.

[284][285] In 1980, critic Greil Marcus reflected on McLaren's contradictory posture:[286] It may be that in the mind of their self-celebrated Svengali ... the Sex Pistols were never meant to be more than a nine-month wonder, a cheap vehicle for some fast money, a few laughs, a touch of the old épater la bourgeoisie.

It may also be that in the mind of their chief terrorist and propagandist, anarchist veteran ... and Situational artist McLaren, the Sex Pistols were meant to be a force that would set the world on its ear ... and finally unite music and politics.

The Sex Pistols were all of these things.Critic Bill Wyman writes that Lydon's "fierce intelligence and astonishing onstage charisma" were important catalysts, but ultimately finds the band's real meaning lies in McLaren's provocative media manipulations.