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1902Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories
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1904Sherlock Holmes
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1908Christabel Pankhurst
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1912Captain Scott's Diary
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1913G. B. Shaw's Pygmalion
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1914Suffragettes protest
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1917Wilfred Owen: WWI poetry
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1925Art in poetry
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1925Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
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1928Nottinghamshire dialect
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1929BBC English
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1939Wanted poster for Hitler
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1939World War II ultimatum letter
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1943Make Do and Mend
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1948Immigration from India
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1955Chinese restaurants
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1959Paul Robeson's Othello
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1960Sylvia Plath
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1964The Beatles in the USA
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1969Man lands on the moon
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1970Women's liberation magazine
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1973J.G. Ballard, Crash
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1976Punk fanzine
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1976The Sex Pistols
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1984J.G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun
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1991Angela Carter, Wise Children
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Intro
On 2 December 1976, the now iconic punk band, The Sex Pistols, were invited on to the primetime television programme, The Today Show. During the interview, the presenter was ridiculed by the band, and a flood of 'rude words' went out live to the nation! There were so many complaints, and so much fuss made in the media, that the little-known Sex Pistols became a household name.
Along with The Ramones in America, and The Clash in Britain, the Sex Pistols kick-started a revolutionary new music genre. Punk, with its anti-establishment lyrics and do-it-yourself attitude, appealed to a British disaffected youth, who were experiencing widespread unemployment and social unrest.
This front page of The Daily Mirror from 1976 documents the interview that caused such a fuss. Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock (later replaced by Sid Vicious), formed the band in 1975. Their success was aided by their manager Malcolm McLaren, co-owner of the clothing shop, 'Sex' with designer Vivienne Westwood. Their brief time in the limelight ended in 1978 after the release of their debut album Never Mind The Bollocks in 1977, but their legacy has lived on in British culture ever since.
Image Copyright: John Frost Newspaper Archive.
Shelfmark: British Library Newspaper Archive.
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