It has been common knowledge for years now that the SEX PISTOLS were 'kept' off the number one 'pop' slot in the British hit parade during jubilee week in 1977, but it has been usually assumed that it was just a simple case of the BBC telling big fibs and swapping round the first and second places in the charts on jubilee week thus letting ROD 'the mod' STEWART have the top spot instead so as not to ruffle any old 'blue-blood' feathers but it looks like it was more extreme than that.
Last night during a 1970's bashing TV programme that was taking the piss out of all things British in the 1970's (like the mania for painting and/or decorating everything the colour of pooh, which is fair enough because it's a crime to think back and remember how many people had brown coloured homes! sofas, carpets, furniture, the lot!) that was being presented by that old seventies DR WHO bloke who read an interesting tale from his script, it was one about how RICHARD BRANSON had received a "mysterious phone call" telling him that the numbers were not just changed around on the charts that week, the whole system of record chart compiling was changed just for that one week, meaning over 200.000+ sold copies of GOD SAVE THE QUEEN were unrecorded.
To do this would take a lot of people and would be no mean feat, especially keeping the whole operation quiet, which was managed with much ease. and the odd thing is that this isn't one of those stories that are repeated in books, websites, DVDs and god knows what else, this story has remained relativity quiet, it bloody makes you wonder if 'they' can keep an operation like that on something so open as the 'pop charts' so quiet then the sky is the limit to what they can hush up, but it does make 'them' look a little over the top with hindsight and it gives the SEX PISTOLS the moral number one in that affair completely, and for all time now.
Its not often the 'hidden powers' let their guard slip and show their hand but they fucked up with the SEX PISTOLS single, it will never go away and will forever be part of royal history, just like old WAT TYLER (who was another cheeky rude off his nut type) except they couldn't kill a record like they did TYLER, i bet they didn't count on that!
But on the lighter side, the show had a new (for TV) slant on the 'punk' question, instead of going back to any of 'THE authoritative' books written by 'him' or 'him' they instead took the piss! and it was refreshing to show punk rockers on telly as humans and not some kind of pain inflicting horde hell bent on stabbing old ladies with safety pins as they usually are.
What the show homed in on was the 'trampy' 'i don't care look' and just how long it took to look like you didn't bother what you looked like, WATTIE of THE EXPLOITED was shown as one fine example of the preening peacocks with perfect hair that spent more time in the bathroom doing their hair and jewellery and getting ready to go out than any other style around during the 1970's (and lets face it WATTIE hasnt been seen with his hair out of place much over the years has he?).
It was quite amusing to see punk rockers shown as humans on TV for a change, i don't suppose it will happen to often though but even once was nice.
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