Here We Go!
A look at the Sex Pistols collection.
This time we’ve got… the second instalment in the Anniversary Edition series: the NMTB 21st Anniversary Edition CD.
NMTB turns 50 next year, in 2027. To mark the occasion, I’m working back through the various “anniversary” releases that have appeared over the years.
🧷 Basic Specs
- Title: Never Mind The Bollocks (21st Anniversary Edition)
- Artist: Sex Pistols
- Format: CD
- Release date: 28 October 1998
- Label / catalogue no.: Virgin / CDVP2086
- Sleeve: Digibook
🧷 Track listing
- Holidays In The Sun
- Bodies
- No Feelings
- Liar
- God Save The Queen
- Problems
- Seventeen
- Anarchy In The U.K.
- Submission
- Pretty Vacant
- New York
- EMI
The standard 12-track version.
🧷 Pressing & Variant Info
✔️ Disc
The label is a bright pink.
Matrix runout: “846652 2 :1:5 EMI SWINDON” / “IFPI L042”
It marks easily coming in and out of the case, so I keep it in a non-woven sleeve with a felt mat.
✔️ Digibook Packaging
A properly vivid yellow and pink.
“Original Analogue Master” printed on the front.
The back carries both release dates (28.10.77 / 28.10.98). Twenty-one years to the day, as it happens.
I haven’t photographed it, but the spine carries the barcode number rather than the catalogue number.
💡What’s a Digibook, Anyway?
This one’s a “digibook”, but it’s worth explaining what that actually means.
A digibook is a type of digipak. Digipaks have a CD tray glued to a card backing, giving a more upmarket look than a standard jewel case. The format was developed by AGI in the US, aiming to bring back some of the artistic scope that vinyl packaging had, which CDs had rather lost.
They can be built in all sorts of ways — 3-panel, 6-panel — and one variant takes that further, folding the booklet itself into the packaging. That’s a digibook. So this CD is, specifically, the digibook type of digipak.
Worth noting: because it’s card, it sometimes gets mixed up with a “papersleeve” (紙ジャケ) pressing. The two are quite different things — more on that another time.
✔️ Booklet
The booklet includes photography by Dennis Morris, the Sex Pistols’ official photographer, alongside a reproduction of the poster that came with SPOTS 001 and other original artwork. Plenty packed in.
✔️ Reply Card
▲Reply card (front)
▲Reply card (back)
This is what the Discogs note means by “some copies include a business reply card”.
Front: pre-printed with the addressee, “Strickland Fairhurst” (a London design studio, 222 Canalot Studios, 222 Kensal Road, London W10 5BN). Just add a stamp and post it back.
Back: details Dennis Morris’s photo book DESTROY – Sex Pistols 1998 (Creation Books), plus related titles (Satellite, Sid’s Way). There’s space at the bottom for name, address, postcode, date of birth and gender — send it back and you’d apparently get information on the 16 photos used in the CD booklet. A promotional card, essentially.
🧷 Collector’s Notes
✔️ Why “21st”?
Why 21 years, rather than 20 or 25?
Britain has a bit of a tradition around 21 as a coming-of-age marker — the “key of the door” custom, where you’re handed the door key on your 21st birthday. Perhaps this was timed to play on that.
That’s only a guess, though.
And I don’t recall ever seeing it explained that way officially.
✔️ Fans’ Favourite NMTB
Among fans, this original analogue master often gets named as the top pick.
Compared to the much-maligned 1993 digital remaster, it’s noticeably clearer, with better-defined sound.
Alongside the SEXBOX1 and SHM-SACD versions, this is one of my own favourite pressings of NMTB.
Which one I reach for depends on the day, mind.
I do rather wish this one had had a Japanese pressing.
🧷 Coming Up Next
Next time: instalment three, the Silver Jubilee 25th Anniversary Collection.
See you then!
byebye👋
For collectors interested in Japanese editions
If you are drawn to the design and information found on Japanese releases, particularly obi strips, you may want to take a look at my Never Mind The Bollocks Japanese CD OBI Gallery.
This page organises each obi strip variation issued for the album individually, presenting the obi itself as the main focus in a collector-oriented reference format.
It is intended as an entry point for those interested in Japanese obi strips.
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