Malcolm McLaren combined the vim of old-fashioned music biz shysters like Larry Parnes with the intellectual uproar of Guy Debord and those spikey thinkers from a century back. You would never accuse him of sleepwalking. He was schooled by his fierce grandmother and by a questing, art college ethos. He wasn't strong on finishing a project, but Malcolm was a proper firestarter.
He was such a vibrant and contrary soul that you can only find bits of the shrapnel in books like England's Dreaming, Up They Rise and England's Dreaming. Alternately, there's a Sex Pistols book by Fred and Judy Vermorel that relates the day-to-day stress, inspiration and unintentional havoc from the days of Johnny Rotten. When McLaren revised the story with The Great Rock And Roll Swindle, he sounded smug. Actually, those Jubilee antics had been really alarming.
Even if he hadn't given punk a deal of bravado, you would still have to give Malcolm some credit for fusing attitude to early hip hop and Burundi beats, to waltzes, samplers and Puccini. At his best, he could sell any number of frisky ideas, and alongside Vivienne Westwood and Jamie Reid, it was indeed a supreme team. He showed us the pretty vacancy of 1977, but he also prompted so many other adventures. We owe him.
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