“E.M.I.” – The Sex Pistols
(Words/music: Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, and Johnny Rotten, available on Never Mind the Bollocks, Virgin 1977)

Earlier this week, I was reminiscing about my cassette walkman.  I remember spending hours in high school plugged into it, usually carrying at least one spare tape “just in case” I got stuck somewhere and needed to listen to more than one cassette tape in its entirety lest I’d be forced to interact with someone.  I grew up in the CD era right before CD-Rs became popular (a quick aside – I remember going to a computer show with my dad and getting blank CDs for roughly $2 a piece and thought they were a bargain!), so I rarely bought a new album on cassette.  Instead, my travelling companions came in two varieties – homemade tapes either with an album on each side (or a mix of CD tracks and radio recordings) or bargain bin tapes.  I made a couple huge finds – most prominently I got a copy of R.E.M.’s Chronic Town at a department store going out of business sale.  I also remember having the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks tape in this collection (and I’m sure it’s in one of my shoeboxes somewhere), and I have a very vivid memory of sitting at school waiting for a band rehearsal as the second side of the tape played.  I identified with punk rock because it was many things that I wasn’t at 14 - adventurous, brazen, and uncompromising.  In many ways, this cassette is my personal punk rock emblem – while my peers walked around with portable CD players, I let the cassette wheels’ gentle hum mix in with the power chords.

The Sex Pistols might be more known for their attitude than for their music, and while personality was more important to the Pistols than to some of their peers (The Clash, for example, became more defined by their eclecticism than their attitude, especially in their later years), they deserve a little more credit.  Sure, these songs sneer, spit, and scoff all over the place, but they’re also well written.  “E.M.I.” embodies this balance between spirit and craft.  It’s a dig towards their former label (and by proxy a dig at the “punk as a fashion statement” sentiment), but it’s not as obtuse as the Pistols usually get accused of being.  Sure, they explicitly name the target, but it’s more a list of (reasonable) complaints rather than a libel suit waiting to happen.  It’s a cathartic release of this frustration, but it’s also catchy as hell, from the chanting of the label’s name in the background to the way John Lydon (then Rotten) annunciates every syllable.  He instinctively knows what to distort and what to rush through in order to bring his audience right in line with him.  Looking back at it, especially with it at the very end of Never Mind the Bollocks, “E.M.I.” seems like a triumphant middle finger towards their detractors.  Sure, it’s not polite to gloat when you’ve won, but sometimes it just feels right.

More on The Sex Pistols: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm