GROUPS BROUGHT KNOWN IN ONE MIG
The music industry is not always loyal to the lazy and ragged, and managers and producers do not always want to risk their wallet for insane ideas of unknown musicians. In addition, in order not to get lost among thousands of musical groups, you need to make a lot of effort. And it is worth making one mistake, and you are already on the sidelines. Simply put: it is difficult to make a star of yourself. But whether a talent, or originality and brilliance of images, or if at all the mysterious fate of fate sometimes turn into glory, which supposedly falls from the sky.
Few people know about the legendary Sex Pistols. The history of these iconic punks began back in 1972, when three schoolmates – Steve Jones, Wally Nightingale and Paul Cook created The Strand, also known as The Swankers.
Guys periodically visited the store Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die, which belonged to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. The latter in 1974 came up with the idea of creating a provocative group, and he, without hesitation, chose the guys from The Swankers. Moreover, he helped come up with a new name for the band and found a charismatic vocalist. They were nineteen-year-old John Lydon, who is also Johnny Rotten, a “street guy” with purple hair and a torn T-shirt with the words “Pink Floyd”, on top of which a felt-tip pen was casually displayed “I hate”.
Already in 1976, the Sex Pistols rolled around the clubs in London and its environs. They did not record the records, and they were not played on the radio, but the popularity still grew day by day. In August of the same year, the Sex Pistols first appeared on television – their first single, “Anarchy In The U.K.”, sounded live and aroused keen interest of the audience in punk, the personification of which the group was already then.
However, soon, due to the defiant behavior of the group members and their uncontrollable vandalism, major scandals occurred, including on television. At the same time, bassist Glen Matlock was replaced by Sid Vicious – a friend of Rotten, who really couldn’t play, but he was a real, “canonical” punk. Despite the atmosphere of scandal surrounding the band, they managed to get on the label A & M. The press widely covered the signing of the contract on March 10, 1977 on the square in front of Buckingham Palace, but a week later the contract was terminated – the leaders were shocked by the hooligan behavior of the musicians in the company’s office. But the interest was shown by the Virgin, with whom the Sex Pistols released the single “God Save The Queen” in June of the same year – a kind of slap in the face to the government.
October 28, 1977 released the only studio album of the group – “Never Mind The Bollocks”, who took 1st place in the British charts.
On January 18, 1978, after a long tour, Rotten announced that he was leaving the Sex Pistols. Obviously, his stay in the group: by this time the relationship between him and McLaren was not the best, and the image of the group and its musical direction became a burden, which held down his artistic aspirations. Vicious went to New York, where he later died from a drug overdose, Cook and Jones flew to Brazil with McLaren, and Rotten to Jamaica, then founding Public Image Ltd. That’s the short but intense story of the Sex Pistols is over.
The Sex Pistols were not the first punk band, but not to be denied – they were and remain one of the most prominent embodiments of the subculture. The influence exerted by the group on modern music can be compared to that which Elvis Presley and The Beatles had at various times.
Perhaps the secret of success is precisely to put together a group with childhood friends? Anyway, in the case of U2, everything started almost the same as that of the Sex Pistols – from school.
U2 appeared after fourteen-year-old Larry Mullen Jr. left a note on the bulletin board at his school: “The drummer is looking for musicians to create a band.” At that time, punk rock was extremely popular, and teenage groups sprang up everywhere – Bono (vocals and guitar), Edge (guitar, keys and vocals) and Adam Clayton (bass) soon responded to the announcement. It happened in Dublin in the autumn of 1976. Since then, the group has remained unchanged.
Thanks to the victory in the competition for St. Patrick’s Day in 1978, the young team received 500 pounds, which they spent on recording a demo tape. Together with her, popularity appeared and began to grow, the group acquired a manager – it was (and still remains) the former TV man Paul McGuinness. But the musicians could not break out of Ireland. Their first two singles, “Three” and “Another Day”, were released only for the local market.
Everything changed after a contract with the label Island Records in May 1980. At the same time, the first “overseas” single U2 – “11 O’Clock Tick Tock” appeared.
