The Sex Pistols may have made only one studio album in their time, but the legacy of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols remains crucial to the history of punk in the U.K. and beyond. The band was divisive, provocative, and rowdy. But in terms of mainstream fame, they are one of the best-known pioneers of early punk.
It’s a bit of an oxymoron, the term “mainstream punk.” Still, The Sex Pistols got to that point with time and—let’s face it—controversy. Their manager, Malcom McLaren, seemingly cooked up a lot of the controversy. However, the band’s public antics, image, and attitude, combined with the brash and irreverent music, cemented their legacy. (Even after they burned too hot and flared out.)
In 1977, several days before Never Mind the Bollocks was released, the album drew unwanted attention. Specifically, the promotional display in the window of the Virgin Records store in Nottingham. A police officer spotted it and took offense to the bold display of the word “bollocks.” He asked the store manager to remove the record from the window. Naturally, the manager didn’t comply, instead plastering 32 copies of the album in the shop window.
This led to an arrest and a court case citing the Indecent Advertisement Act of 1899. The whole thing seems to be a bit of personal prudishness that got way out of hand. But in a 2015 blog post, Virgin Records owner Richard Branson, who signed The Sex Pistols to his label, revealed that the police officer had reached out to him.
Police Officer Who Arrested Record Store Manager Over ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ Album Display Tells All
In the post, Branson shared the message the officer, Phil, sent him. At the time, it had been 38 years since the incident. Now it’s more like 48.
“As a relatively young uniformed police inspector with the Nottinghamshire Constabulary, it was my team who were on duty when the Sex Pistols album Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols was posted in the window of your Virgin Record Store on Queen Street, Nottingham in 1977,” the letter stated. “Although all that was asked of the Store Manager was cooperation to remove the album sleeve, through inefficient negotiation, all we achieved was 32 copies plastered across the 16’ x 8’ shop window.”
The message continued, “Being one who does not run from a fight, I trawled through ‘Stone’s Justice Manual’ (three volumes and not the most exciting read) and found the Indecent Advertisement Act 1899 with power of arrest ‘found committing’. As they say, the rest is history.”
How Did The Sex Pistols Win Their Indecent Advertisement Court Case?
The main argument in the court case was that “bollocks” is a slang term for testicles. The prosecution considered the display indecent. Branson explained that he called a linguistics professor at Nottingham University to ask his opinion.
“‘What a load of rubbish,’ he told me. ‘Bollocks has nothing to do with balls. It was a nickname given to priests in the 18th century,’” Branson wrote, quoting the professor. He continued, “In fact, The Sex Pistols album title could be translated as Never Mind the Priests, Here’s the Sex Pistols.”
Phil, the police officer, said in his message that he actually enjoyed watching the court case unfold. “’I sat there totally amazed at the ingenuity of the defence calling the Professor of Linguistics from Nottingham University,’” Branson quoted in his post. “’I had no regrets at the loss of the case because to have had [lawyer] John Mortimer QC and Sid Vicious in the same room was totally surreal but utterly memorable.’”
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The post On This Day in 1977, The Sex Pistols Released an Album That Led to a Record Store Prosecution Just for Displaying It appeared first on VICE.
