Malcolm McLaren, 1946-2010

LAT has the obit, "Malcolm McLaren Dies at 64; Punk Rock's Godfather Managed the Sex Pistols." And check this out:

McLaren was born in north London on Jan. 22, 1946, and was raised primarily by his grandmother. An art-college dropout, he was impressed by the fierce political energy unleashed by the Paris student uprisings of 1968. He also admired the Situationist International, a revolutionary political group whose provocative sloganeering influenced McLaren's later forays in music and fashion.

McLaren's ears were attuned to the discontented undercurrents, both in popular music and in British society, that gave rise to punk. During the summer of 1977, Queen Elizabeth II's 25th-anniversary Jubilee year, McLaren procured a boat and had the Sex Pistols cruise the Thames River blasting out "God Save the Queen," their caustic riposte to England's national anthem of the same title. The stunt got McLaren arrested but helped fuel the band's growing fame, or infamy.

But turns out McLaren embodied the epitome of capitalism, from Bloomberg, "Malcolm McLaren’s Legacy, From Sex Pistols to Business Anarchy":

McLaren was known in the industry for his cunning, self- publicity and a business brain that ran rings around Virgin Group’s Richard Branson. Under his management, the Sex Pistols signed with Virgin Records in 1977.

“I don’t really care if bands can play guitars or not,” McLaren said in a 1984 interview. “I want them to say something. But, above all, I really want them to make money. Lots and lots of it.”

And from Michele Catalano's commentary:

If you look at the Sex Pistols as just another band instead of the face of early punk rock, Never Mind the Bollocks (their only real studio album) is a pretty good album. Songs like Holidays in the Sun, Problems and Bodies are not bad. It’s not the not-so-great musical talent that bothers some punk rock purists, but the whole mystique of importance surrounding this album and the band. What they don’t want to own up to is that McLaren’s creation influenced thousands of punk rockers after them. The Sex Pistols defined the genre of punk for a time and, to an extent, still do. Even though the band was everything punk was not supposed to be – contrived, phony and commercial – McLaren’s grand experiment in exploitation is a lasting legacy in not just the punk genre, but the music industry in general.