I've got no doubt that Rotten loves to 'throw a spanner in the works' so to speak and The Pistols could have ended up sounding like an edgier Faces without his imput.Fine [and for the time brave] though the selection was,I do feel that some of his choices were a quirky take on established tastes.
He dismissed 'sixties bands' after admitting he had been obsessed by The Beatles and then picked an obscure track by The Creation that could have fitted on the Sargent Pepper LP.He didnt choose the Velvet Underground [a name many were dropping at the time]but instead went for John Cale and Nico.He has since admitted loving Pink Floyd,but they are off limits at this time,so he goes for Can..A lot has been made of his love for reggae,but this he shared with both Clapton and the Stones.
http://www.myspace.com/thekandytangerineman
yeah, but hold in back for a sec... he was just a 21 or 22 year old working class kid living in the late 70's... even from the foresight of being a record collector in 2007, he is dropping some serious serious shit... Bobby Byrd "back from the dead" is a track even alot of serious funk fans don't know (that and "headqaurters" are his best post JB stuff)... he is playing the cream of the crop from that time and most artists he played (beefheart, tim buckley) garner far more respect now than they did then! (makes me wonder when people will wake up to the greatness of Peter Hammill!)
also, as any music nerd will tell you, splitting hairs is the most important part: ie. Nirvana are good, Pearl Jam are shit... pre-Tommy Who are great, Tommy and Post-tommy who are shit...
I think, Mclaren's character aside, that THE most interesting thing about this is Rotten asserting his individuality and how that breaks with Mclaren's mapped out (proscriptive) vision of what punk should be about.
I have mixed feelings about this because obviously it works really well as a selection and adds some depth to "the man".
But perhaps it also humanises "Johnny Rotten" and takes some of the power away from punk being a complete negation of 70s mainstream values. It's less threatening if he is a nice bloke with a good record collection.
What do other people think about that? I haven't made up my mind by any means.
i think it was neccesary... the "year zero" punk image of Rotten as the country's nightmare had gotten old for both him (the violence he suffered) and for the public (a one dimensional bugaboo can only last so long)... it was perfect for the time, the mythos of the painfullly rage filled lad from the gutter raging against the Queen and hippies and basically being a living echo of the Goebbels quote "when i hear the word 'culture', i reach for my gun", yet ironically it took a man of culture to produce such a fascinating "anti-culture" figure... i mean, the "real" embodiement of Rotten would be people like Jimmy Pursey and his various Oi disciples, but they don't have one kilowatt of his star power or creative force, do they?
Rotten WAS a persona and this was the first time the mask was taken down...
in the Jon Savage book i believe Savage says something like "to McLaren this was a shit intertview, as it established Lydon as a man of taste and humanized him and removed his threat. johnny rotten revealed himself as a mild mannered chap with a streets of islington accent"...
he does become less threatening, but he does become more interesting...
the role of "Rotten", was by definition self-limiting and self-destructive... how long can one pretend to hate ALL MUSIC, especially when one is creating such amazing music oneself?
reflect all that thru the terror of being a nation wide enemy and you can see why the cartoon image of Johnny Rotten ran it's day...
it's ok tho, for those who like their mainstream value rejectors to always indulge in complete negation, don't forget Johnny's pal, Sid!
