Malcolm McLaren (born 22 January 1946) is an English impresario and self-publicist who is best known as being the manager of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols.
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He had been attracted to the Situationist International movement, which promoted absurdist and provocative actions as a way of enacting social change.
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In 1971 McLaren and his partner, the designer Vivienne Westwood, opened a London clothing shop called Let It Rock on the Kings Road. The shop sold Teddy Boy clothes and McLaren and Westwood also designed clothing for theatrical and cinematic productions
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McLaren travelled to New York City for a boutique fair in 1974 and it was there that he first saw the New York Dolls. He convinced the band that he could do a better job of managing and promoting them. McLaren designed red leather costumes for the group and utilized a Soviet style hammer and sickle motif for their stage show as a provocative feature in promoting them.
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By 1975 McLaren had started to manage The Strand, the band who would later become the Sex Pistols.
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His solo career has been highly innovative and conceptual, with each album representing a new idea or musical novelty, similar to later years career of Madonna, though several years ahead of her style changes.
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In 1983 McLaren released Duck Rock, an album which mixed up influences from Africa and America, including hip-hop. The album proved to be highly influential in bringing hip-hop to a wider audience in the UK. Two of the singles from the album (“Buffalo Gals” and “Double Dutch”) became major chart hits on both sides of the Atlantic.
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He then turned his eyes to electronic music and opera in the UK top-20 single, Madame Butterfly, based on the opera. The track is arranged with drum machines, atmospheric synthesizers and spoken verses – a format which was the blueprint for house music-inspired songs by bands like Pet Shop Boys (and especially their 1986 single West End Girls, New Order and Beloved.
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In 1998, he created a band called Jungk, consisting of three Asian females intended to emulate appeal of the then popular Spice Girls. However, this project was not a commercial success.
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In the 70s, McLaren and his wife were devotees of Macrobiotics, the radical vegan diet.
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The Situationist International was not absurdist. If you want absurdist, go for Pataphysics (espoused by the french writer Alfred Jarry, who wrote Pere Ubu), or later the surrealists.
McLaren was more into the Lettrists of Isadore Isou, a precursor of the situationist international. The S.I. was much too demanding for the likes of Isou, McLaren or Westwood. Methinks.