“Anger is an energy,” John Lydon sang on Public Image Ltd.’s nihilistic anthem, “Rise.” That emotion courses through his memoir. Lydon spits anger at the church, the monarchy, the record business, his bandmates, & Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren. Surprisingly, Lydon doesn’t spare himself. At various times he laments his ugliness, his insecurity, & his impetuosity. But the book isn’t just 300 pages of spleen venting. It’s an exhilarating, insightful account of the rise & fall of inarguably the most important British band since The Beatles.

The book’s subtitle is something of a giveaway for what’s to come. Lydon situates his long-percolating rage in his childhood. As the son of Irish immigrants growing up in North London, he was used to seeing signs that read, “No Irish, no blacks, no dogs” hung in local shop windows. This cemented his outsider status at an early age, & that carried through his early unsuccessful experiences in education & work.

Any memoir is a selective account of a life, but to Lydon’s credit, Rotten at times reads more like an oral history of punk music. In addition to Lydon’s narrative, we get interview transcripts from fellow Pistols Paul Cook & Steve Jones as well as other key figures from the time, including Chrissie Hynde & Billy Idol. And, crucially, the book closes with a chapter written by Lydon’s father that recounts his son’s devotion to his mother. The result is what makes the book so compelling: we come to see Lydon as a conflicted, infuriating figure that we both admire & revile.

I’ve been a fan of Lydon & The Sex Pistols for 30 years. But I still learned some things:
Fashion played a much larger role in punk’s genesis than I realized.
Richard Branson played a pivotal role in signing the Pistols, which means he’s been around forever.
No one – & I mean NO ONE – liked Nancy Spungen (the hanger-on allegedly stabbed to death by bassist Sid Vicious).

My one criticism is that Lydon dwells too long on the court case that extricated the band from McLaren (we didn’t actually need to read so many affidavits). But if you’re a fan of The Sex Pistols – or punk music in general – this is a must read.

I read this when it was first published and the thing that's stayed with me is how immature John Lydon is. The book was written more than a decade after the whole Sex Pistols things, and Lydon is still trying to bury Glenn Matlock. Really? Was he that bad? You haven't got over him yet? I mean, you kicked him out, so you won. Disappointing to see how little growth Lydon has had over the years. He had his moment in the spotlight, and it's been years of milking it ever since.

I doubt John Lydon and I would get on - he'd probably consider me far too nice. Reading his story of the Sex Pistols and the germination of the punk movement is definitely interesting, though, providing some clear understanding of why such a movement came about and what it meant to one of its founding fathers. And this book is very much about what it meant to Lydon. I am sure it meant other things to other people: quite probably things that Lydon would find foolish, in many cases. Of course, I think some of his philosophy is rather asinine. But that might just be my "nice"ness talking!

A patchy bio. As expected from Lydon this is a bio full of bile but sometimes he does overdo the drama and nothing new is learnt.