That the Sex Pistols were about as “real” as The Monkees was something we tried to ignore at the time, if we even realized it at all. (…)
As I got older, though, that paradox became a feature rather than a bug.
How eye-wateringly audacious:
McLaren & Co. “topping from below,” selling a “fake” group to not one but two all-powerful, shamelessly greedy and colossally stupid record companies, rather than the other way around.
It was The Sting — a blockbuster film of the time — with guitars.
And the joke, it turned out, was even on the group itself:
The Sex Pistols accidentally recorded one of the greatest albums ever put to vinyl.
