Few bands in history can claim to have had the popularity that the Pistols have enjoyed over the years. The great irony of this statement is that the Pistols really had no musical talent to speak of--they were truly and utterly a group of amateurs. The original members included Johnny "Rotten", Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, and Paul Cook. After a while, the bassist Matlock left the band, only to be replaced by the riotous Sid "Vicious". During their brief lifespan (1975-1978), the band recorded one album, the landmark Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols (1977).
The great irony of the Pistols is that by most account, they were the only band that were completely punk. If punk stands for being anti-establishment and a constant rebellious force, then how can it sustain itself? The very concept of a band, over a long enough timeline, is not possible in the reality of punk. This is simply due to the fact that bands become small corporations, who constantly need to sell themselves in order to survive. The Sex Pistols, in their short time, showed the greatest strengths and the greatest weaknesses of punk. On one hand, the Pistols pissed everyone off and forced a sleeping England to start making some changes. They did all this with simple 3-minute songs that played correctly and with enough passion had the power to galvanize and polarize thousands of individuals. But on the other hand, The Sex Pistols were victims of their own excesses and vanished as quickly as they came. In the end, the great tragedy of punk rock is its inability to evolve without compromising its values.