Talk:Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

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My recollection is that the phrase was already in use around 1970, thus predating the song. Specifically, I seem to recall that it was used on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. But I don't have documentation for this. GMcGath 00:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Existence on New Boots and Panties

Sex and Drugs was most definitely available on New Boots shortly after the albums release, although uncredited on the cover. Copies began to appear within a month or so with it on side 2 - initially French pressings, possibly brought in to cover for the lack of stock when the album took off. Whether the later pressings were UK versions or French I can't remember. My copy is unavailable at the moment, so I can't check whether it was pressed in the UK. I do recall people used to check the track rings to see whether S+D was included, which would indicate it wasn't mentioned on the label, and probably just another Stiff wizard wheeze to sell records. Brieflysentient (talk) 14:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of initial sales

I removed the reference to sales limitations and Stiff's policy as it was conjecture, and incorrect conjecture at that. In fact Stiff struggled to get anything into the charts early on, or even achieve bulk sales figures, simply because a) EMI didn't give a toss about the stuff they distributed but didn't have a clue about, they were barely sold to the music trade as EMI reps had no idea how to deal with them and there were few shops which would stock 'punk' records anyway, so it was not worthy of sales concentration (Stiff was an EMI distributed label then), b) public exposure was minimal other than John Peel and NME (and to a minor extent Melody Maker) - word of mouth was all we had, and don't forget it was 'not suitable for playing on the Beeb', c) the shops that did sell their records weren't chart return shops and d) they sold to a small audience of the early punks and a few savvy people, minimal exposure and not the sort of people who would frequent mainstream chart-return shops.

Accessibility to stocking in chart-return shops would have immediately at least trebled the stock available from day 1, and in theory sales. Without that option, Stiff's very smart policy under limited options was almost exactly the opposite of what the entry suggests - delete early so purchasing was based on 'get it while you can', and concentrating sales on a critical minimal sales window, to hopefully hit that chart/exposure level that would have increased visibility and pressurised chart return shops to stock it. I'd suggest that without the very deliberate manipulation of punk singles sales information by the BMRB (as disgracefully shown by what happened to God Save the Queen), and the associated deliberate manipulation of the charts and stifling of non-middle of the road shops from the chart return system (later convincingly proven), the situation would have been very different for Stiff and many others. (livid-mode-after-all-these-years OFF) Brieflysentient (talk) 14:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]