Brown Bread: Malcolm McLaren

Malcolm McLaren, the man who irreversibly changed the face of British music as manager of the Sex Pistols, died yesterday, aged 64.

He had suffered from mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer, for some time and, despite a recent period of good health, his condition had deteriorated rapidly in recent days, according to his spokesman. He died in Switzerland yesterday morning and his body is expected to be flown home to be buried in Highgate cemetery, north London.

McLaren was never troubled by the idea of failure. He once revealed that he was greatly influenced by an art teacher who told him “We will all be failures. But at least be a magnificent, noble failure. Anyone can be a benign success.”

He was to punk as Brian Epstein was to The Beatles, a facilitator, but also one who recognized that any artistic “movement” becomes a parody of itself simply by being identified as a “movement”. Punk was a corrective to disco and prog rock. We needed it at the time.

R.I.P. Malcolm McLaren 1946-2010

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Dame Vivienne Westwood leads tributes to Malcolm McLaren