There is a lot of curiosity about
Pistol,
the six-part television series devoted to the fast-paced biography of the Sex Pistols.
As May 31, the date scheduled for the premiere, approaches, the production company FXP maintains a strict embargo on the sequences filmed by Danny Boyle.
They have only leaked some photos that have caused some concern: the selected actors, well, they do not look too much like the original members of the Sex Pistols.
Does that matter?
Not too much: we trust in Boyle's ability to stage this comedy-drama that,
grosso modo,
we all know.
We have known for more than 40 years that the supposed revolution of the Pistols was actually an ideological elaboration of the music press.
Although the topic has prospered so much that many still believe that the Pistols were the youthful reaction to Margaret Thatcher, when the group had already ceased to exist when Maggie became Prime Minister.
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The day the world met the Sex Pistols
If it weren't for the gruesome deaths of Sid Vicious and his girlfriend, everything would have remained in pure picaresque narrative.
And there was something of a masquerade, with the survivors hitting each other blindly in pursuit of the piñata of the money accumulated by Malcolm McLaren, his voracious
manager.
That he would have enjoyed the paradox of the current respectability of the former outlaws: in certain territories, including Spain, the series is exclusive to the Disney + channel.
They could boast of being anarchists, nihilists or situationists but they hire the best lawyers in the City.
As you may have heard, John Lydon tried to scupper Boyle's project by vetoing original recordings, objections that were easily resolved with a six- or seven-digit check.
He was defeated in court: the smart guy in the band had forgotten that, due to a prior agreement, the use of that music is decided by democratic vote.
And that both Steve Jones (guitarist) and Paul Cook (drummer) always need hard cash.
In his eagerness to control the story of the Sex Pistols myth, Lydon has ended up playing tricks on McLaren, the conceptualizer of the group.
Lydon accepts the overexploitation of the recordings.
And, despite his blackmail failing, he will also benefit from
The Original Recordings,
the umpteenth compilation of the Pistols, which will coincide with the premiere of Boyle's series.
Cover of 'The original recordings'.
Must be some kind of record.
In their hectic life, the Sex Pistols released an album and a handful of
singles
with mouthwatering b-sides.
Such a small legacy has been the basis of a dozen ugly and incomplete compilations that successive record companies (Virgin, EMI and now Universal) tend to justify by the group's impudence, although it has long sounded like a poor excuse for not doing a
sound
upgrade
.
The Original Recordings
today exemplifies the short-termism of the business: it's about putting out the product on multiple supports, so that at least the accumulating fans bite.
Here it translates into a compact disc, a double vinyl and - just what the world needed - a cassette with five different covers.
Someday it would be convenient to talk about record collecting as a pathology.
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