SEX PISTOLS

The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle

(Virgin Import)

by Mitch Cohen

Eddie Cochran's "Something Else" is a funny song about class distinction and aspiration, about what to settle for (the not quite ideal car) and what not to settle for less than (the dream girl). On The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle, the Sex "Pistols soundtrack/epitaph, the late Sid Vicious sings it in a goofy, boyish voice that more than any press post-mortem (except Lester Bangs' Village Voice report), more than Vicious' mangling of the thick-headed "My Way" ("To think/I killed a cat"what a pathetic claim of callousness), made, me feel something vivid about his life and death—not sadness, more like fierce rage about the wastefulness of misdirected rock emotion.

★ ★ ★