Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols  

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Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols is the only album recorded by the seminal English punk rock band, Sex Pistols. It is now regarded as a classic and influential rock and roll and punk rock album by fans and critics alike.

The album was released on October 28 1977 on the Virgin Records label, amid controversy arising from the use of the obscenity (in British English) "bollocks" in its title.

Older versions of most of the album's songs also appeared on a bootleg album called Spunk, which consists of demo recordings the band had made during 1976 and January 1977, and which was released shortly before Never Mind the Bollocks.

Track listing

The original UK album (Virgin V2086) contained only eleven tracks, before the group changed their mind and decided to include "Submission".

However, Virgin had already pre-emptively produced stampers for the eleven-track version, and by early October 1977 had already pressed 1,000 copies. Rather than scrap these, Virgin released them anyway, initially as promos, then commercially, as an attempt to counteract a sudden flood of imports from France, where a twelve-track version of the album (including "Submission") had been released in mid-October by Barclay Records.

In response to this, Virgin also brought forward the album's intended UK release date by a week, and instead of waiting for the twelve-track album to be mastered, issued further copies of the eleven-track album (reportedly 50,000 copies, although some collectors now dispute these official figures as on the high side). Most of these copies included a poster and "Submission" as a freebie single.

Some of the initial 11 track copies saw a private import to Sweden and were sold for a few weeks at a record shop in Stockholm. The poster and "Submission" were not included at this stage. An article in a local paper warned people not to buy this "faulty" issue and advised them to wait for the 12 track issue that was about to be pressed. The article also had a quote from Virgin in London where they say all production and sale have been stopped, but some copies unfortunately leaked out through their export company. This issue had blank back cover and matrix numbers A-1 and B-1.

The twelve-track UK version began appearing in early November 1977.

As a result of the track listing confusion, several variants of the UK back sleeve exist: completely blank; omitting "Submission"; including "Submission"; and a misprint including "Belsen Was A Gas" and omitting several other tracks, based on artwork for an earlier rejected track listing.

All songs written by Steve Jones/Glen Matlock/Paul Cook/Johnny Rotten, except * by Jones/Cook/Rotten/Sid Vicious. All lyrics by Rotten (original "Seventeen" lyrics by Jones, original "Pretty Vacant" lyrics by Matlock).

Eleven track version

Side one

1. "Holidays In The Sun" – 3:22 *
2. "Liar" – 2:41
3. "No Feelings" – 2:56
4. "God Save The Queen" – 3:20
5. "Problems" – 4:11

Side two

1. "Seventeen" – 2:02
2. "Anarchy In The U.K." – 3:32
3. "Bodies" – 3:03 *
4. "Pretty Vacant" – 3:18
5. "New York" – 3:07
6. "E.M.I." – 3:10

• "Submission" was included with most copies as a one-sided seven-inch single (VDJ 24).

Twelve track version

Side one

1. "Holidays In The Sun" – 3:22 *
2. "Bodies" – 3:03 *
3. "No Feelings" – 2:51
4. "Liar" – 2:41
5. "God Save The Queen" – 3:19
6. "Problems" – 4:11

Side two

1. "Seventeen" – 2:02
2. "Anarchy In The U.K." – 3:31
3. "Submission" – 4:12
4. "Pretty Vacant" – 3:18
5. "New York" – 3:05
6. "E.M.I." – 3:10

• USA (Warner Bros. BSK3147) and Canada (Warner Bros. KBS3147) artwork is green on pink, track listing reverses "God Save The Queen" and "Problems".
• Original French track listing (Barclay Records 941 001) as UK eleven-track version with "Submission" at the end of side one.