Deep in Vogue: How Madonna Threw Some Shade and Out Posed McLaren on the Ballroom Floor

 

Malcolm Mclaren and Madonna Face Off 

 

'This has got to be a special tribute to the Houses of New York ...'

I. 

 

Is voguing - the highly mannered dance craze inspired by the exaggerated poses struck by fashion models and which emerged out of the predominantly Black and Latino LGBT ballroom community in the 1980s [1] - still a thing in 2026? 

 

Apparently ... 

 

Indeed, according to some accounts, it is not only still extremely popular in some quarters, but continues to evolve stylistically, becoming ever more elaborate and performative, whilst still retaining the angular arm and leg movements for which it's famous and still playing with gender and sexuality in all its polymorphously perverse fluidity [2].

 

Here, however, I wish to pop, dip, and spin back in time and discuss the release of two singles; the first by Malcolm McLaren and the second by Madonna ...

 

 

II.

 

'Deep in Vogue' is a track by Malcolm McLaren and the Bootzilla Orchestra, featuring Lourdes and Willi Ninja. It was released as the third single from McLaren's fourth studio album, Waltz Darling (Epic, 1989) [3] and inspired by the New York voguing scene which had captured his imagination: click here.  

 

It was the first record to bring voguing to mainstream public attention, pre-dating Madonna's 'Vogue' by ten months. It topped the Billboard dance chart for a week, but only got to number 83 in the UK singles chart, so wasn't exactly what you call a hit.

 

Madonna's track, by comparison, was a massive hit - going to number one in countries all over the world (including the US and UK) - and is frequently credited with popularising what had previously been an underground dance movement in NYC and a few other cities. 

 

Indeed, to this day there are many people who think she invented voguing in much the same way as Adam Ant invented the Prince Charming dance back in 1981 [4], whereas, actually, she was simply appropriating and commercially exploiting ballroom culture - much like McLaren, though far more successfully - even if, to be fair, she did enlist Jose Gutierez and Luis Camacho of the House of Xtravaganza [5] to choreograph the accompanying music video (dir. David Fincher), and even if she involved other members of the ballroom community in its production.  

 

'Vogue' recived positive reviews from music critics upon its release and, retrospectively, it is now regarded as one of Madonna's career highlights. It has sold to over six million copies to date. Fincher's video - essentially a tribute to old school Hollywood icons - is also highly regarded by fans and critics alike.

 

And, I have to admit, I like it too: it's slicker and more seductive than Malcolm's track, although it's arguably his track that best honours the Houses of New York and which has a certain authenticity to it, rooted more firmly as it is in the underground scene. Some have called it a true mirrorball manifesto.      

 

So how did Malcolm react to Madonna's take on the vogue phenomenon? 

 

Apparently, he was more than a little miffed. But I find it hard to feel too sorry for him when he speaks of being ripped off (for obvious reasons) [6] and it's impossible not to love the Queen of Pop's song and video: click here.  

  

 

Notes

 

[1] The origins of voguing are disputed, although the drag artist Paris Dupree is often credited as being one of the first to mimic the poses of fashion models on the dance floor to the beat of the music. 

      Dupree famously featured in Jennie Livingstone's 1990 documentary Paris is Burning (named after an annual ball organised by Dupree). And Dupree was also the founder of the House of Dupree, which encouraged young urban queers to express themselves in ways that would confuse mainstream (i.e. white heteronormative) culture and place such firmly in the shade. Sadly, Dupree died, aged 61, in NYC, in 2011.  

 

[2] This post is not intended to be a complete history of vogue, but, in brief, there are three distinct styles: old way (pre-1990); new way (post-1990); and vogue fem (circa 1995). Old way is the style popularised by McLaren and Madonna; new way is perhaps the most demanding in that it requires physical dexterity and flexibility in order to pull off the moves; vogue fem, meanwhile, involves exaggerated feminine movements and is influenced more by ballet and modern dance than the world of fashion; it can be dramatic ( i.e., fast and furious) or soft (i.e., graceful) in nature.  

 

[3] For those who like to be accurate in these matters:  'Deep in Vogue' was originally released in the UK and Europe as the B-side to the 'Waltz Darling'. The record was then re-released in Europe in 1990, after it went to number one on the U.S. Billboard Dance Chart and after Madonna's 'Vogue' became a hit (credited to Malcolm McLaren and the House of McLaren).

 

[4] Funnily enough, this dance, choreographed by Stephanie Gluck for the 'Prince Charming' video, might be said to contain voguing elements and it is even set in a ballroom. 

 

[5] Dancers Luis Camacho and Jose Gutierez, both members of the House of Xtravaganza, were already famous in New York City's underground ballroom scene as voguing pioneers.   

 

[6] As Paul Gorman reminds us in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 616: 

      "The last verse of 'Deep in Vogue' is a word-for-word lift of the final paragraph of an article about the ballroom scene which appeared in New York's Details magazine the previous year [Oct. 1988] and was written by Johnny Dynell's partner Chi Chi Valenti. She successfully sued McLaren and his publisher for infringement."

      Thus even if Madonna did refine some of his ideas for her song and accompanying video, he can't really complain; as he was fond of reminding others - all great artists steal.     

 

The Talented Malcolm McLaren and the Visionary Andy Warhol

Image posted on Instagram by Young Kim 

(12 Jan 2026) @youngkim.xyz

 

 

I.

 

It's sixteen years ago this coming April that Malcolm McLaren died [1] ... and it's ten years ago this coming May that the ICA hosted an event in memoriam [2]. 

 

Essentially, the argument advanced by Young Kim and other speakers was that Malcolm was a uniquely gifted individual and that not only did he exert a seminal influence on fashion, music, and the arts during his lifetime, but that his ghost continues to haunt contemporary practice [3].    

 

Indeed, the claim was made that McLaren is England's answer to Andy Warhol ...  

 

 

II. 

 

Today, on the occasion of what would have been his 80th birthday, I'd like to endorse the above argument, agreeing that there needs to be a fundamental reappraisal of McLaren's legacy and that the (now boring) idea that he was a mere charlatan or talentless swindler, needs to be dispelled once and for all. 

 

For this image of him - which, admittedly, he is largely responsible for inventing [3] - obscures his significance as an artist and sells short his multidisciplinary body of work predicated on the radical manipulation of media and the staging of situations.

 

Having said that, the claim that McLaren was England's Warhol is, whilst bold and interesting, an imperfect analogy. 

 

For whilst there are certain similarities and points of comparison - both postioned themselves as creative directors rather than traditional artists and both understood how art was absolutely tied to commerce and commodification - Warhol and McLaren were rooted in very different cultures and I think their aesthetic and world view was, in key respects, disparate. 

 

I also suspect that (if pushed) McLaren himself would concede from beyond the grave that Warhol, who had left an indelible impression on him as a teenager in the early 1960s, was a far more profound artist, full of darkness.

 

Ultimately, whilst Malcolm hit targets no one else could hit, Warhol hit a target no one else could envision ... [5]      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Malcolm McLaren, born 22 January, 1946, died of peritoneal mesothelioma in a Swiss hospital on 8 April 2010, aged 64.  

 

[2] The two-day ICA event consisted of The Legacy of Malcolm McLaren: The Clothes (20 May 2016), followed by The Legacy of Malcolm McLaren: The Art (21 May 2016).

      The first was a panel discussion chaired by McLaren's long-term partner (and heir to his Estate) Young Kim, was meant to feature writer Paul Gorman, fashion designer Kim Jones, and magazine editor Ben Reardon, and address Malcolm's life-long obsession with clothes and his frequent forays into fashion design. Unfortunately, Jones and Reardon couldn't attend the event, so Gorman persuaded Simon Withers onto the stage to contribute, which he did with great success. Click here for more details.  

      The latter was a panel discussion between ICA Executive Director Gregor Muir, Young Kim, author Michael Bracewell, and curator Andrew Wilson, followed by a screening of McLaren's 86 minute film Shallow 1-21 (2008). Click here for more details.  

 

[3] Supporters of McLaren (like me) will point to the fact that via his conceptual boutiques operated in partnership with Vivienne Westwood, McLaren left his sartorial signature on the fashion world and effectively invented the visual language of punk; that with the release of his pioneering first solo album, Duck Rock (1983), McLaren introduced hip-hop and world music to a British audience; and that the moving-image works made at the end of his career saw a fascinating return to his art-school roots, utilising a distinctive concept of musical paintings.  

 

[4] Mclaren is largely responsible for his own negative reputation due to the role he adopted in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980). As he himself later confessed, he thought everybody would understand it was meant to be comical and self-mocking, but, unfortunately, people took it seriously: 'I was too good an actor'.  

 

[5] I'm paraphrasing Schopenhauer here who makes this distinction when discussing talent contra genius in Vol. 2, Ch. 31 of The World as Will and Representation (Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 393-415. 

      According to Schopenhauer, whilst a talented individual thinks faster and more accurately than most people; the person of genius sees a different world, although only insofar as they look more deeply into this world. 

 

 

 Thanks to Paul Gorman for providing information on the ICA event. 

 

 

An Open Letter to Simon Reynolds on Malcolm McLaren and the Art of Living Like a Hobo

Simon Reynolds and Stephen Alexander 

 

I.

 

Thank you for your remarks on a recent post entitled 'Destroy Success' (7 Nov 2025), in which you were either highlighting (without judgement) the paradoxical aspect of Malcolm McLaren's life and multifaceted career as an artist - the successful failure; the professional amateur; the bourgeois anarchist, the inside outsider, etc. - or you were making some kind of moral appraisal [1] and suggesting (without actually using the terms) that he was a fraud and a hypocrite.

 

I'd like to think you were doing the former and that any antipathy towards McLaren that you feel is nonethless born of love and an ongoing obsession with this fascinating figure: "Even now, despite all the reprehensible things he did and the suspicion that he helped misdirect a generation [...] I can't quite amputate McLaren from my consciousness." [2] 

 

I couldn't help wondering if perhaps you also begrudge the fact that, in his final years, Malcolm was paid large sums of money to give talks all over the world to people in business as well as the arts, travelling first class and staying in the best hotels, etc. But then, why would that be the case when you also give lectures and interviews on an international stage in your capacity as a hard-working pop-historian and pedagogue ...? 

 

 

II. 

 

Your main gripe seems to be that enjoying the rewards of such a lifestyle is further evidence of Mclaren's hypocrisy: "I mean, it's not exactly 'living like a hobo' ..." [3]

 

But, here again, I would disagree: for living like a hobo doesn't mean begging in the streets like a bum [4], anymore than being a punk means adopting a certain look or thinking one has to be angry and miserable all the time in order to be militant, like the po-faced political ascetics who would preserve the purity of the punk revolution. 

 

Whilst the etymology of the term hobo is uncertain, I like to imagine it could be an abbreviation of homeless bohemian, a description that could well be applied to McLaren who "cultivated the mannerisms and appearance of a bohemian outsider" [5] and whose life involved constant travel and a deliberate rejection of conventional work and societal norms; partly out of a desire for freedom and sometimes just for the fun of it. 

 

Malcolm may not have illegally hopped freight trains, but he rarely paid for his own travel - or even his own cigarettes! - and, just like a hobo, he was an extremely resourceful individual, flitting between London, Paris, and New York just as he had once flitted from art college to art college, living on his wits and other people's generosity. 

 

Above all, McLaren stayed true to the number one rule of the Hobo Code [6]: Decide your own life; don't let another person run or rule you. 

 

And one recalls, of course, that Duck Rock (1983) may have thanked many people for their collaboration on the project, but it was solely dedicated to Harry K. McClintock; better known by his hobo name, Haywire Mac, whose Hallelujah! I'm a Bum (1981) Malcolm insisted was crucial to an understanding of duck rock or hobo-punk as he conceived it and an album he made me buy in Collet's bookshop [7].  

 

 

III. 

 

In sum: living like a hobo is primarily about adopting a certain attitude and recognising the creative potential within failure - if I may return to this word. In a piece for The Guardian written two years before he died, McLaren wrote:

 

"I've always embraced failure as a noble pursuit. It allows you to be anti whatever anyone wants you to be, and to break all the rules. It was one of my tutors [...] when I was an art student, that really brought it home to me. He said that only by being willing to fail can you become fearless. He compared the role of an artist to that of being an alchemist or magician. And he thought the real magic was found in flamboyant, provocative failure rather than benign success. So that's what I've been striving for ever since." [8] 

 

McLaren's, therefore, is a very special understanding of failure; an artistic and philosophical understanding of the term. 

 

One is almost tempted to bring Samuel Beckett in at this point; for Beckett (as I'm sure you know) uses the symbolic figure of the tramp to explore various existential themes and informs us that what we learn from failure is not how to succeed in the future, but, at most, how to fail better [9]. Success, says Beckett, is not even an option; we are destined to fail - such is the tragic character of Dasein.

 

The fact that Beckett - like McLaren - affirms this and finds in it a source of darkly comic satisfaction, is something admirable I think. Nietzsche would call it a pessimism of strength [10] and he made it a central teaching of his Dionysian philosophy; a philosophy that, like McLaren's vision of punk, finds creative potential in destruction and flamboyant failure. 

 

McLaren had his successes - but he didn't chase or desire success. Indeed, if anything - and again to quote your own words Simon, if I may - he was thwarted by success [11]. His dream was always to go down in flames or sink beneath the waves [12].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm referring here to the claim made by Reynolds that Paul Gorman's excellent biography of McLaren failed to give a "moral appraisal of its subject". It was an allegation swiftly refuted by Gorman, who rightly pointed out that the primarly task of a biographer is to write a critically objective study, not pass judgement. 

     See: Simon Reynolds, 'Serious Mayhem', a review of Paul Gorman's The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2021), in The London Review of Books, Vol. 44, No. 5 (10 March 2022), and see Paul Gorman's letter in response in the following issue (44. 6), dated 24 March 2022. Both can be read by clicking here.             

 

[2] Simon Reynolds, 'Serious Mayhem', as cited and linked to above.   

 

[3] Simon Reynolds, comment on the TTA post 'Destroy Success' posted on 10 Nov 2025 at 16:56. Click here. 

 

[4] In the revised and expanded fourth edition of his The American Language (Alfred A. Knopf, 1937), H. L. Mencken argued that although commonly lumped together, tramps, hobos, and bums are actually distinct fron another. Both tramps and hobos like to travel around and lead an itinerant lifestyle, but the former try to avoid work preferring just to dream (and drink), whereas the latter, whilst enjoying some prolonged periods of unemployment, essentially want to work, albeit in a series of jobs with no desire to establish a long term career. As for the bum, according to Mencken, he neither wanders nor works.  Obviously, such a fixed and rigid classification is highly questionable.     

      

[5] Simon Reynolds, 'Serious Mayhem', as cited and linked to in note 1 above.  

 

[6] A set of ethical guidelines known as the Hobo Code was created by a hobo union during its 1889 National Hobo Convention, in St. Louis, Missouri.  It consists of more than a dozen rules intended to govern the conduct of hobos nationwide and help dispel negative stereotypes associated with their lifestyle. These rules essentially boil down to: 1. Respect the law. 2. Help fellow hobos. 3. Protect Children. 3. Preserve the natural environment.

      The National Hobo Convention continues to be an annual event - held in Iowa since 1900 - where the Hobo Code is still recognised. Readers wishing to know more are encouraged to visit the Open Culture web page on the subject: click here.  

 

[7] Collet's was a bookshop (that also stocked selected records and tapes) founded by Eva Collet Reckitt in 1934. It was famous for selling radical and revolutionary publications, particularly those from Russia and Eastern Europe, and acted as a hub for left-leaning intellectuals. 

 

[8] Malcolm McLaren, 'This much I know', The Guardian (16 Nov 2008): click here. 

[9] See my post on Beckett's short prose work 'Worstward Ho!' (1983) and the idea of failure (11 Jun 2013): click here.   

 

[10] This phrase - Pessimismus der Stärke - can be found, for example, in Nietzsche's 1886 preface to The Birth of Tragedy (1871), where he describes it as a "predilection for what is hard, terrible, evil, problematic in existence", arising from strength and well-being rather than decadence or enfeebled instincts. 

      See 'Attempt at a Self-Criticism', in The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Shaun Whiteside, ed. Michael Tanner (Penguin Books, 1993), p. 3.    

 

[11] Simon Reynolds, 'Serious Mayhem', as cited and linked to in note 1 above.  

 

[12] It is interesting to note that, etymologically, the term flamboyant that Malcolm used in relation to the kind of failure he aspired to, comes from the French and means 'flaming' or 'wavy'. 

  

 

Who Was That Young American Press Lady?

Lee Ellen Newman: Press Goddess 

Charisma Records (c.1983)

I.

 

As Paul Gorman reminds us in his excellent biography, when Malcolm McLaren presented his groundbreaking new record 'Buffalo Gals' to the executives at Charisma Records in the autum of 1982, excitedly telling them how kids "'danced on their heads to this beat in the middle of the streets of New York'" [1], he may have anticipated a little bemusement, but not such angry incomprehension and resistance. 

 

Unfortunately, however, that the track was "a stylistic aural collage to rival McLaren's work in fashion, interiors and design was entirely lost on the record company ..." [2]   

 

The head of promotions declared that it was not music and refused to take it to the radio stations; poor old Tony Stratton-Smith wondered how he was going to recuperate at least some of the monies paid out in advance; and, according to McLaren, the only person who stood up for him was "'the press lady: a young American, new in her job'" [3].  

 

 

II. 

 

The question becomes: Who was that young American press lady?

 

And it's a question I'm happy to answer; not only because today happens to be her birthday, but because Lee Ellen Newman is one of the people I will always be grateful to.  

 

For she it was who advised me on the importance of building a wide network of contacts, of cultivating a likeable public image, and of remaining calm under pressure (even if, unfortunately, I never quite managed to accomplish these things to her high professional standard).  

 

And she it was who taught me how to write concisely and persuasively and to master the art of what is known in the PR world as strategic storytelling; i.e., the deployment of a cleverly structured (and seductive) narrative in order to appeal to a target audience and achieve a specific goal [4].  

 

So, thanks Lee Ellen for being an early mentor, a dear friend, as well as one of the few figures in the music business that Malcolm always had affection for. 

 

And happy birthday!

 

Notes

 

[1] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman, in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 517.

 

[2] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 516.     

 

[3] Malcolm McLaren, quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, p. 517.  

      As Gorman goes on to elucidate, Charisma seriously considered taking legal action against McLaren on the grounds that he had grossly overspent and that "he was in breach of the contractual obligation to deliver music of acceptable commercial value". 

      However, 'Buffalo Gals' became a top ten hit in the UK and other countries and this "proved sufficient for Charisma to back off from its legal posturing" and press on with release of McLaren's debut album Duck Rock (1983) and other singles taken from it, including McLaren's biggest selling and highest charting hit, 'Double Dutch'.

      Relations between the artist and the record label failed to recover, however, even though Charisma would release two further McLaren albums: Fans (1984), which fused opera with R&B; and Swamp Thing (1985), composed of out-takes recorded between 1982 and 1984, which I like, but everyone else hates; McLaren's version of 'Swingin' the Alphabet' ('B. I. Bikki') is even more hilarious than that given us by the Three Stooges in their 1938 short film Violent is the Word for Curly (dir. Charley Chase): click here.     

 

[4] It may sound a bit cynical and manipulative and some might view strategic storytelling as a form of what is called by our political friends spin. In my experience, however, it's more a game whereby you give a journalist, for example, what they want for a good feature and they give you what you need in order create excitement around the artist you are representing and boost sales of whatever it is they're promoting. In other words, strategic storytelling is an exercise in backscratching rather than backstabbing and the wilful deception of others.  

 

 

Readers who wish to know more about Buffalo Gals should see the post entitled 'And They Dance by the Light of the Moon ...' (19 Feb 2019): click here.

 

Readers who think they might enjoy a post in which I reminisce about my time with Lee Ellen at Charisma Records should see the post entitled 'Memories of Summer '84: Charisma' (17 July 2024): click here.  

 

 

Russ Bestley: 'Turning Revolt Into Style' (2025): Notes on Chapters 6-8

Russ Bestley: Turning Revolt Into Style (Manchester University Press, 2025)

Stephen Alexander (à la Jamie Reid): God Save Russ Bestley (2025)

 

 

I. 

 

I have my own tale to tell in relation to the theme of Chapter 6 - 'Industry and the Individual' - or punk vs the closed shop. 

 

In 1982, I worked for six weeks at 19 Magazine in the features department, on an attachment as part of a degree course. I arranged and conducted an interview with Vivienne Westwood at her West End studio. The fashion editor at 19 wasn't happy - as I’d not sought her permission - and the NUJ rep wasn't happy either, as I wasn't a member nor even a paid employee. And so, even though the features editor loved the piece I wrote on Westwood, it went unpublished. 

 

I hate the bosses and the management. But, despite "intersecting concerns regarding class" [a] and worker's rights, I hate the unions and their restrictive practices too.

 

 

II.

 

"By the late 1970s, the original punk scene in the United Kingdom had been largely commercialised through the rebranding of new wave and post-punk ..." [200] 

 

That's true: but we should also recall that "some of the movement's more successful exponents" [200] were more than happy to collaborate in this and to assume elevated positions within "a revised and updated professional arena" [200]; i.e., to build careers and to make something of their lives.    

 

In other words, there were ambitious and aspirational individuals who wanted to get ahead had no issue with transforming from punks into yuppies and celebrities:

 

"The entrepreneurial spirit of punk [...] afforded entry to the fields of journalism, popular music, film, photography and design for those who chose to take the opportunity and run with it." [200] 

 

Some may still have pretended they wanted to 'smash the system' or 'disrupt it from the inside', but we all know most simply wanted to feather their own little nests and, whilst wearing their designer suits, turn rebellion into money.   

 

"To some critics", writes Bestley, "it was like punk had never happened" [200] [b]. 

 

Or, rather, I would say, it was as if the Sex Pistols had never existed.

 

 

III.

 

On the other hand ... 

 

I don't much care either for those who continued to cling on to a "stereotypical model of punk [...] despite the proliferation of new styles and the fragmentation of post-punk in myriad new directions" [201]. To paraphrase Jello Biafra: 'you ain't hardcore 'cause you spike your hair / when a [stuckist] still lives inside your head [c].     

 

Like Bestley, I'm less than impressed by hardcore punks in the early 1980s who "seem fixated on death, destruction and war, with little of the humour or self-awareness of the previous punk generation" [202]. 

 

And the hardcore punk designers were less than imaginative too, giving us "illustrations of stereotypical 'punk' figures replete with studded leather jackets and mohican hairstyles" [202] which have helped to establish "a set of generic graphic conventions that unfortunately still resonates across global punk scenes today" [202].

 

Bestley concludes: 

 

"Unlike the first wave of punk designers, who quickly moved on from what were fast becoming stereotypical visual symbols - such as the swastika, safety pin and razor blade - this punk generation seemed stuck in a time loop (or doom loop) of its own making." [202]

 

 

IV.   

 

Away from the hardcore dinosaurs, "punk and post-punk dress styles shifted [...] to the more flamboyant and expressive end of the dressing up box" [204], as a colourful new romanticism replaced punk nihilism; in 1980, McLaren and Westwood closed Seditionaries and opened Worlds End; out with the black bondage trousers and in with the gold striped pirate pants. 

 

Ultimately, writes Bestley, "the punk 'revolution' was to prove largely ineffective in its ambition to move away from pop music traditions and long-standing business practices, with many artists [...] falling into line as the industry took control" [204]. 

 

Rather irritatingly, Bestley (like so many others) seems prepared to let Rotten off the hook and give him far more credit than he deserves:

 

"Seeing the winds of change, Sex Pistols vocalist Johnny Rotten quit the band at the end of a disastrous North American tour in January 1978. Going back to his real name, John Lydon, he quickly established a new group, Public Image Ltd., with the explicit intention to turn the image of the rock performer upside down and to critique the exploitative practices of the music indusry from the inside." [204]

 

Firstly, Rotten didn't 'quit the band'; he was thrown overboard by McLaren with the agreement (or, if you prefer, connivance) of Cook and Jones who didn't like the fact Rotten was behaving like a prima donna, if not actually morphing into Rod Stewart [d].

 

Secondly, the North American tour may have been ill-starred, but it was not 'disastrous' in the sense that I think Bestley means. Rather, it was the consummation (or perfecting) of the nihilism that always lay at the heart of the Sex Pistols project and should be celebrated as such. Rotten's was a necessary sacrifice; just as Sid's death, which secured his tragic and iconic status, is a promise of life and its eternal recurrence [e].         

Thirdly, whatever his 'intentions' we all know 'Lydon' [f] signed an eight album record deal with Virgin and received a £75,000 advance from Branson [g] soon after exiting the Sex Pistols, with the latter promising to promote PiL at the forefront of the post-punk scene.   

 

And we all know the abject figure Lydon is today [click here and here].  

 

 

V.

 

This is true enough - and a good thing, I think:

 

"The new post-punk scenes moved away from focusing purely on music and lyrics to far more visual expressions of style and taste, along with a wider range of philosophical and aesthetic concerns ..." [207]

 

I'm not sure that references to oblique postmodern theory by music journalists such as Paul Morley necessarily makes them pretentious, however. And, besides, surely we might question the supposed moral merits of humility? The dreary utilitarianism (and realism) of the English intellectual tradition is not something I would wish to defend.  

 

After all, pretension is a form of pretending and, as my friend Thomas Tritchler likes to remind me, pretending is a vital and productive act of the imagination [h]. 

  

 

VI. 

Anyone for electronic music ...? 

 

No thanks: I don't care about (or care for) the Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Ultravox, Gary Numan ... et al. 

 

As Malcolm always said: 'A man sitting on a mountain top tapping two sticks together makes a much bigger sound than all the electronic music of today.' 

 

And who really wants to see pop stars standing behind synthesisers like clerks behind the counter of a hightstreet bank?     

 

 

VII. 

 

Bestley closes Chapter 7 with a couple of paragraphs that essentially summarise the book and so merit being quoted at length:

 

"Graphic design and commercial art have a long-standing relationship with both advances in technology [...] and artistic or cultural trends. While this book has argued that much punk graphic design was heavily impacted - or even driven - by access to materials and technology, punk's visual provocations clearly also had antecedents in Dada, Surrealism and the Situationist International, together with Pop Art and its inherent critique of the distinction between fine art and the commercial arena ... But those connections were often indistinct, serendipitous and stylistic, rather than formal - and the same can be said of the similarities between post-punk or new wave music graphics and the new styles emanating from American and European designers in response to postmodernism." [230]

 

"As all these converging themes illustrate, the historical relationships between punk, art history and design are highly complex, with punk and post-punk graphic approaches drawing upon earlier visual conventions while they themselves helped to inspire a new generation of design professionals working outside the subculture. Whether that fits the model of postmodernist theory or not is something of a moot point, since punk's historical moment intersects so closely with wider changes in the arts, media and politics that it is almost impossible to separate causes from consequences." [230-31][i]   

 

 

VIII. 

 

"Popular music has changed irrevocably in the past forty years." [233] 

 

Well, that's true - but then everything has changed, hasn't it? Change is the only constant (becoming is ironically stamped with the character of being, as Nietzsche might say) [j]. 

 

One of the things that has significantly changed for Bestley is the fact that popular music no longer plays such a crucial role in the lives of the young: "The  notion of music as a core element of personal identity and (sub)cultural capital seemed to fall away in the 1990s, a process that accelerated in the new millennium." [235]

 

When Bestley and I were teenagers, the first question we would ask of anyone was: What bands d'you like? And that pretty much determined the relationship (or lack of relationship) going forward. 

 

But young people today pick 'n' mix from a variety of music genres and have a much wider range of interests; "from film to fashion, celebrity culture, sports, literature and the arts" [235]. They don't care about shared communal identity so much as their individual right to like what they like and share selfies on social media.   

 

This doesn't bother me as much as it bothers Bestley, who bemoans the fact that pop music is once again "simply a form of light entertainment or background noise" [235] and that rock music was also sent into sharp decline by "banal television 'talent' shows and the return of the pop music Svengali in the odious form of Simon Cowell" [235]. 

 

As for punk? Well, punk "became recuperated [...] through the cementing of a set of visual and musical tropes that could be picked up and regurgitated in the affectation [...] of a generic 'punk' identity" [235].

 

Indie, meanwhile, is dismissed as "the bastardised offspring of the original independent post-punk scene, combined with a postmodern, sometimes ironic and often conceited form of self-reflection in musical approach, dress style and design" [236]. 

 

And, finally, don't mention the post-punk revival of the early 2000s; because that was merely a commercial pastiche "with highly successful groups adopting some of the gestures and signature styles of their late 1970s forebears, though often with little of the wit or intelligence" [236].

 

Ouch!  

 

Even today's reinvigorated interest in music graphics is greeted with more sorrow than joy: 

 

"Sadly, this interest is often linked to home decor and interior styling, with 'album art' displayed on bookshelves or in purpose-made frames hung on the wall - a marker of the owner's cool taste and cultural capital, rather than an object with a function and purpose." [236]

 

Again, all this is absolutely true, but I simply don't feel his pain. 

 

As for themed live events and corporate festivals ... the answer is: don't go! 

 

I wouldn't dream of heading up to Blackpool for the Rebellion Festival, although, funnily enough, I wouldn't mind visiting the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas that Bestley mentions; "a massive former warehouse building in the Arts District. now dedicated to preserving the history and heritage of punk rock while offering guided tours led by ageing pop punk musicians" [237] - and a gift shop!

 

Like it or not, this is who we are today; not fans in the old (authentic) sense, but consumers in search of a simulated (or ersatz) experience they can be posted about on Instagram or uploaded to YouTube [k]. 

 

Malcolm McLaren decried such toward the end of his life as a karoake culture - i.e., one which lacks substance and originality and relies upon pre-existing ideas and old styles constantly being recycled and repackaged - and, to be honest, I'm a little disappointed Bestley didn't refer to McLaren's TED Talk on this topic [l].  

  

IX.   

 

Returning to his theme (not quite like the proverbial dog to its vomit, but like someone with an itch that they simply have to scratch, even if it causes irritation to do so), Bestley writes:

 

"Punk's visual conventions [...] were appropriated, mimicked and blatantly copied by a rampant branding and marketing industry that is always on the lookout for material that might communicate an elusive sense of authenticity and agency. From trainers to power tools, credit cards to hamburgers, punk graphic conventions have been milked for all they are worth in the pursuit of profit. [...] Meanwhile, identikit, cosplay 'punks' around the globe adopt outfits lifted directly from the stylistic dead end of 1980s hardcore punk, in a desperate search for subcultural legitimacy." [237]

 

Again, all of that is true, but one wonders why Bestley cares so much (to the point, indeed, of writing a 250 page book about it)? I suppose it's because he believes that just as beneath the paving stones lies the beach, so there is "much more" [238] beneath the surface of punk and post-punk graphic design than meets the eye. 

 

What would this hidden punk substance "beyond stylistic gestures and visual tropes" [238] be one wonders? And why should it have priority over the latter? 

 

I suspect, for Bestley, this (metaphysical) substance consists of content, function and purpose and is what guarantees that the superficial (material) expressions of punk possess value and meaning. 

 

I have to admit, I find that a little odd coming from a graphic designer. One might have expected him to remain courageously at the surface, affirming forms, tones, and words; i.e., the world of appearance [m] (which is perhaps the only world that exists for us).  

 

Unfortunately, we do not have time to enter here into a philosophical discussion about "punk as a concept and its manifestation" [247] in physical form (a statement almost Platonic in its dualism which makes me wonder if punk wasn't simply another form of idealism all along).    

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Russ Bestley, Turning Revolt Into Style: The process and practice of punk graphic design (Manchester University Press, 2025), p. 190. All future page references to this work will be given directly in the post. 

 

[b] Writing in the following chapter of his study, Bestley notes: 

      "Even the arch Situationist behind punk's original graphic provocations, Jamie Reid, found a creative home in the mid-1980s, taking up the offer of a studio at Assorted Images to develop his art practice. While Reid never did make the leap to the commercial graphic design industry, he did continue to collaborate with musicians, artists, filmmakers and political activists, embracing the potential of new print reproduction tools to create a new aesthetic." [215] 

 

[c] The paraphrased line is from the Dead Kennedy's track 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off', written by Jello Biafra, and found on the EP In God We Trust, Inc. (Alternative Tentacles, 1981). It was also released as a single in November of that year.   

 

[d] For more on Rotten's dismissal from the band in January 1978, see the post entitled 'It Was on the Good Ship Venus ...' (4 March 2024): click here. 

      As indicated here, Rotten was starting to develop certain starry pretensions and thinking about how he might develop a long-term (possibly solo) career in the music industry. In this, he had the backing of record company executives, who saw him as a valuable asset and someone whom - unlike McLaren - they could work with (see note g below). 

 

[e] See the post 'Sid Vicious Versus the Crucified' (3 Feb 2024) - click here - where I explain what I mean by this.  

 

[f] On being told that 'Johnny Rotten' was a name owned by the Sex Pistols management company (Glitterbest), John Lydon reverted to his birth name.  

 

[g] Lydon also enjoyed a very nice, all expenses paid 'working holiday' in Jamaica, staying at the Sheraton hotel, accompanied by Richard Branson and others in the first three weeks of February 1978. In addition, Virgin agreed to pay for the rehearsal facilities and studio time for the new group Lydon planned to get together.  

       Later that same month, Lydon also flies to LA for a meeting with executives at Warner Bros. and to solicit further support for his (still unformed) new band. They eventually pay him £12,000 and Lydon uses the cash to buy a flat at 45 Gunter Grove in Fulham, West London. 

      Finally, let it be noted that when Lydon takes McLaren and Glitterbest to court in 1979, Virgin - supposedly neutral and in favour of an out of court settlement that will allow both the Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited to peacefully coincide on the same label - are clearly more in Lydon's camp than McLaren's. 

      The public school hippie Richard Branson - "four years younger [...] but by far the smarter businessman" - was arguably motivated by a degree of personal animosity towards McLaren; not least because he disliked the derisive nickname, Mr Pickle, that the latter coined for him. When Cook and Jones were offered a record deal of their own by Branson, the former Sex Pistols switched sides and Glitterbest's case (such as it was) pretty much collapsed. 

      Note: the line quoted is from Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 355.

 

[h] See the third part of Tritchler's post on the malign/ed art of faking it (27 Dec. 2014): click here.   

 

[i] One wonders if Bestley has ever considered the possibility that there are no causes and consequences - i.e., that the theory of cause and effect is a convenient and conventional fiction that we impose on reality in order to simplify and understand the complex chaos of events and which enables us to posit concepts such as free will and moral responsibility.  

 

[j] See §617 of The Will to Power, trans. and ed. by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, 1968), p. 330.  

 

[k] As Bestley later notes: 

      "Viewed from a contemporary vantage point, 'spectacular subcultures' such as punk, that centered on tribal affiliations and subtle (or not so subtle) visual tropes, appear to have come from another age. The internet, personal blogs, influencers, social media and search engines have redefined modes of discovery, criticism and taste-making." [247] 

 

[l] See McLaren's TED Talk on the topic of authentic creativity contra karaoke culture (October 2009): click here. 

       I have to admit, McLaren rather surprises - and rather disappoints - with this return to highly suspect notions of authenticity, originality, substance, etc. Here was a man who once celebrated style and, as an artist, understood the importance of the surface (see note m below). 

      It pains me to say it, but one wonders if, in this final public presentation, it's fatigue, and age and illness that speaks (McLaren died six months afterwards, aged 64, from a form of asbestos-related lung cancer (mesothelioma)).    

 

[m] I'm half-quoting and half-paraphrasing from section 4 of Nietzsche's 1886 Preface to The Gay Science, written in praise of those artists who, like the ancient Greeks, knew how to be superficial out of profundity.   

   

Notes on the Introduction to Russ Bestley's Turning Revolt Into Style can be read by clicking here. 

 

Notes on Chapters 1 & 2 of Russ Bestley's Turning Revolt Into Style can be read by clicking here. 

 

Notes on Chapters 3-5 of Russ Bestley's Turning Revolt Into Style can be read by clicking here. 

 

The Sex Pistols - Who the Dickens Were They?

Malcolm McLaren: Oliver Twist Manifesto (42 x 32 cm)

Double-sided flyer created for the Sex Pistols' final British show 

Christmas Day, 1977 [1]

Punk came out of this strange culture that had been repressed through the Victorian times ... 

The Sex Pistols were something more feral and more dark and native to the English psyche than rock 'n' roll 

and Malcolm saw them very much in a Dickensian way. - Julien Temple 

 

 

I. 

 

I spent a fair amount of time earlier in the year arguing that D. H. Lawrence can be thought of as a Sex Pistol: click here, for example. But to think of Lawrence as a proto-punk is not to suggest that we might think of the Sex Pistols as Lawrentian. 

 

In fact, if we are to think of the Sex Pistols in English literary terms at all, it makes far more sense to conceive of Johnny Rotten and company as neo-Dickensian characters. That's certainly how Malcolm McLaren attempted to portray them late on in their career, as the above flyer, written by him in December 1977, illustrates.

 

It begins:   

 

They are Dickensian-like urchins who with ragged clothes and pock marked faces roam the foggy streets of gas-lit London. Pillaging. Setting fire to buildings. Beating up old people with gold chains. Fucking the rich up the arse. Causing havoc wherever they go. Some of these ragamuffin gangs jump on tables amidst the charred debris and with burning torches play rock 'n' roll to the screaming delight of the frenzied pissing pogoing mob. Shouting and spitting 'anarchy' one of these gangs call themselves the Sex Pistols. [2]

 

It's obviously a fantasy vision of the band. But the question is: why does the fantasy take this particular form? Why reference ragamuffin gangs and pogoing mobs, etc? Is it just because McLaren's grandmother adored Fagin and made him read Dickens as a young child, or is there also a wider political context?

 

II. 

 

Before addressing these points, let's first give a bit more background to the production of the flyer ...  

 

By the end of 1977, life had never looked so good for the four Sex Pistols; three hit singles, a number 1 album, and about to commence on their first American tour. 

 

However, things were rapidly coming apart at the seams as relations amongst members of the band - never particularly good - had significantly worsened due to various factors including Sid's addiction to drugs (and to Nancy), Rotten's loathing of McLaren, and Malcolm's desire to ensure the band were remembered as a spectacular failure rather than a benign success.     

 

And so, in hindsight, it isn't all that surprising that the two shows played on Christmas day in Huddersfield - the first, in the afternoon, a benefit gig for the children of striking firemen and the second, in the evening, for fans of the band in and around West Yorkshire - would prove to be their final British performances.

 

Perhaps sensing that the end was nigh, Mclaren began to reimagine the Sex Pistols as so much more than merely another boring rock 'n' roll group. And so he wrote the above text for distribution at the events and illustrated with artwork by George Cruikshank from the original 1838 edition of Oliver Twist [3].

 

According to Paul Gorman, this flyer "acted less as a promotion for the Pistols than a commentary on both his Jewishness and his strange relationship with the group" [4]. But it also demonstrates McLaren's (somewhat bourgeois and overly-romanticised) understanding of working class culture as inherently rebellious, violent, and non-conforming and that returns us to the politics of this manifesto ...

 

 

III. 

      

It's often the case that when commentators discuss the Sex Pistols in terms of politics they immediately reach for their French dictionary and start talking about the Situationists and referencing Guy Debord's La société du spectacle (1967). 

 

That's not mistaken, but it does mean that less attention is given to the fact that the Sex Pistols are also very much part of an English history of insurrection to do with the so-called London mob and the Gordon Riots [5]. 

 

As the opening sequence of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) explicitly informs viewers, the roots of 'Anarchy in the UK' can be traced back to the 1780s [6]. That is to say, to a period fizzing with revolutionary and carnivalesque energies on both sides of the Channel and one that Charles Dickens wrote about in his (little read and rarely adapted) historical novel Barnaby Rudge (1841) [7]. 

 

Wilfully conflating mob violence with punk rock, the cinematic re-enactment of the Gordon Riots makes clear that McLaren saw the Sex Pistols as first and foremost a rejection of authority - be it of parents, teachers, priests, policemen, or soldiers of the crown - and representative, as Julien Temple rightly says, of "something more feral and more dark and native to the English psyche than rock 'n' roll"

[8].   

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The flyer was signed 'Oliver Twist' to emphasise McLaren's vision of the band as Dickensian urchins. It formed item 52 of the 71 item Stollper-Wilson Collection of Sex Pistols memorabilia auctioned by Sotheby's in October 2022: click here. 

      One of the most noticeable things about the flyer is the fact that Malcolm allowed corrections to the text to remain openly on display, just as they are on the Dickens manuscripts he saw as a child. As Paul Gorman reminds us, McLaren subscribed to the view that honest error is crucial to the creative process, rather than "'the icy perfections of the mere stylist'". 

      See The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 48, where Gorman quotes from an aphorism coined by the Victorian church architect J. D. Sedding (one often falsely attributed to Charles Rennie Mackintosh). 

 

[2] The rest of the text scawled by McLaren (with a wooden stick dipped in ink) reads:

 

This true and dirty tale has been continuing throughout 200 years of teenage anarchy and so in 1978 there still remains the Sex Pistols. Their active extremism is all they care about because that's what counts to jump right out of the 20th century as fast as you possibly can in order to create an environment that you can truthfully run wild in.

 

[3] The illustration by Cruikshank to which I refer depicts the first meeting between Oliver Twist and Fagin entitled 'Oliver introduced to the Respectable Old Gentleman'. It's an image which plays an important role in the mythologising of the Sex Pistols, paralleling as it does the first time that Malcolm and members of the band met with the nineteen-year-old who would become their singer and frontman: see the post 'On This Day ...' (22 August 2025): click here. 

      I am grateful for this clever insight to Michael E. Kitson, writing in 'The Sex Pistols and the London Mob', an unpublished doctoral thesis submitted to Western Sydney University (2008): click here to view the abstract and to download the work as a pdf. As this post makes clear, I agree with Kitson's central claim that the culture and semiotics of the London mob was fundamental to McLaren's (distinctly English) punk project and that the influence of Dickens on McLaren's thinking cannot be overestimated. 

 

[4] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren ... p. 381. 

      Interestingly, McLaren signs his manifesto with the name of Oliver Twist and not with Fagin, as one might have expected, as the latter was the explicitly Jewish character in Dickens's 1838 novel and the leader of a group of youngsters whom he grooms into a life of crime. 

      Still, whichever character McLaren ultimately identified with, the fact remains that Dickens's novel played a seminal role in his thinking. In 2000, he named the book as one of his favourites in a piece for The Guardian, describing it as an "unforgettable journey into criminal behaviour" that not only transported him back to his own childhood, but which justified his desire to - and here he paraphrases from his own Oliver Twist Manifesto - "create an environment " in which he could "truthfully run wild" whilst overseeing a generation of artful dodgers.  

      To read the list of Mclaren's top ten books in The Guardian (21 Feb 2000), click here.  

 

[5] The Gordon Riots of 1780 saw several days of violent disorder and destruction in London motivated by anti-Catholic sentiment and instigated by Lord George Gordon. After the mob - which had declared its own sovereignty on the wall of Newgate Prison - attempted to storm the Bank of England, the government finally sent in the army, resulting in several hundred fatalities.

 

[6] Funnily enough, the opening scene of the Swindle set in eighteenth-century London - featuring crowds cavorting in the streets as they joyously string up effigies of the Sex Pistols above a huge bonfire - is one that even Rotten admits to liking, conceding that it amusingly captures the spirit of punk. See John Lydon, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs (Hodder and Stoughton, 1994), p. 289.

 

[7] I don't know if McLaren read Barnaby Rudge, but it's possible and Dickens's novel remains the definitive literary work detailing the phenomenon of the London mob at its height. 

      It's also more than likely that McLaren would have been (at least vaguely) familiar with Christopher Hibbert's King Mob: The Story of Lord George Gordon and the Riots of 1780 (Longmans, 1958), which provides a colourful reading of the historical record. 

      And finally, it should be pointed out that McLaren certainly knew of (and admired) the newsletter King Mob Echo produced by the British offshoot of the Situationist International, with whom he was acquainted whilst an art student in the 1960s (see Gorman 2020, pp. 95-98).

 

[8] Julien Temple, director of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), speaking in the audio commentary [2:13] provided as a bonus to the DVD release of the film in 2005: click here. Temple is speaking with the writer Chris Salewicz. Interestingly, while Malcolm sees the Sex Pistols as Dickensian, Temple prefers to think of them as a bit Chaucerian. 

 

 

On This Day ...

Sex Pistols: Johnny Rotten, Glen Matlock, Steve Jones, and Paul Cook

Photo by John Gray (1975)

 

 

I. 

 

I know that English historians who specialise in the early modern period will be keen to inform everyone they meet that today is the 540th anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth Field; i.e., the last major battle of the War of the Roses and the one in which Richard III bravely met his end (thereby bringing down the curtain on the Plantagenet dynasty and allowing the age of the Tudors to commence). 

 

And I know that English historians who prefer to get excited about the English Civil War will be reminding others that, on this day in 1642, Charles I raised his standard in Nottingham and effectively challenged the Parliamentarians to a fight (which, of course, did not end well for him and his fellow Royalists - losing not just his crown but his head seven years later). 

 

 

II. 

 

However, as a cultural critic more concerned with the art, fashion, and politics between 1870 and the present day, for me the most exciting event that happened on this date happened in 1975 at the Roebuck (354 King's Road) - namely, the first meeting between 19-year-old John Lydon and the other members of the band who were to become known as the Sex Pistols: Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock. 

 

As Paul Gorman notes, at the time Lydon "cut a remarkable figure visually [...] he had cropped and dyed his spiky fair hair [...] and wore distressed and customised clothing" [1], most notably a torn Pink Floyd T-shirt upon which he had scawled the words I HATE above the band's logo. 

 

Steve Jones - who christened Lydon 'Johnny Rotten' because of his green teeth - may have thought (rightly) that he was an arsehole, but he had also to admit Lydon had style, attitude, and intelligence. 

 

And Malcolm agreed: after Lydon auditioned to be the group's singer by miming to a self-chosen track by Alice Cooper that happened to be on the jukebox at SEX [2], McLaren instantly recognised the young man had star quality (the band members were not quite so convinced of this, but McLaren was insistent that they had found the perfect frontman - even if he couldn't sing). 

 

 

III. 

 

Nietzsche writes that he is the kind of philosopher who breaks history in two; that one day mankind will mark time before him and after him [3].   

 

Perhaps we might say the same of the Sex Pistols in relation to popular culture. 

 

Indeed, we might also say of the latter what Nietzsche further says of himself: one day, there will be associated with their name the recollection of something momentous; of a No-saying to everything that until they came along had been believed in as the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, but which was dismissed in 1977 with but a single phrase: never mind the bollocks!  

 

They were, by far, the most terrible band there has ever been; but also the most necessary; anarcho-nihilists who knew joy in destruction and believed in the ruins. 

 

What a shame then, that, fifty years on, Jones, Cook, and Matlock are performing punk karaoke with Frank Carter fronting a kind of ersatz version of the Sex Pistols and Rotten ... well, don't get me started on the abject figure he has become ... [4]   

 

 

 

Sex Pistols: Johnny Rotten, Glen Matlock, Steve Jones and Paul Cook

Reworking John Gray's 1975 photo fifty years on (SA/2025) 

  

Notes

 

[1] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 278.  

 

[2] The track in question was 'I'm Eighteen', released as a single in November 1970, it also featured on the album Love It to Death (Warner Bros., 1971). To listen to the song on YouTube, click here.

 

[3] See Ecce Homo, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Pengin books, 1979), 'Why I Am a Destiny' (8), p. 133.    

 

[4] I make my views clear on Rotten in a number of posts written over the last 12 years: click here, here, and here, for example.