'I want a slice of pizza." --Last public words of Sid Vicious.

THE SEX PISTOLS may have been the greatest thing to come down the pike since the survivors of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre took their human pyramid act out on the road. Vibrating with frantic energy, they gave a shock to the world of rock and roll that made such bands as the Talking Heads, the Clash and Elvis Costello and the Attractions possible, and jolted Mick Jagger and his Old Masters into renewal. The Pistols have left rock and roll to the others; Sid Vicious is dead, and Johnny Lydon (nee Rotten), in light of his recent efforts with Public Image, Ltd., might as well be. All that remains is a movie, The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, due for release this summer, which promises, if nothing else, the usual bathukolpian prodigies of director Russ Meyer.

The soundtrack double album to that flick recently became available in import. The album raises the intriguing question of whether a defunct band can produce the best rock and roll of the year; the answer, despite the carping of the British press, is yes. The Great Rock and Roll Swindle gives us the most complete statement yet of the punk sensibility.

Punk rock emerged when rock and roll first became self-conscious, when the obvious possibilities of a new art form had been all but exhausted. The spontaneous creativity of the early years was replaced by an inhibiting historical perspective and a prevailing pessimism, a sense that there was nothing new left to do. George Thorogood, perhaps the most distasteful of a new breed of rock and roll reactionaries, declared his intention never to write his own songs because "Chuck Berry wrote them all already." Keith Emerson and other art-rock enthusiasts tried to lift the medium out of itself, and in so doing created something which, in Nick Lowe's phrase, had "as much to do with rock and roll as Walter Cronkite." Columnist Dave Marsh just got depressed and listened to old Who records.

BUT JOHNNY ROTTEN brought a new faith along with his vaseline-and-tale pomaded hair, a faith in rock and roll and its ability to survive its own history, a cocksure answer to the "Now what?" he mutters once between tracks on this wonderful new album. The answer consisted of a return to three-chord rock and roll and a reworking of old standards in an energetic new style. Their originality relied on performance, not form; rock and roll has always been wrapped up in personality and attitude, and the contumacious stance and demonic vigor the Sex Pistols brought to rock and roll renewed it and transformed it.

Seven tracks on Swindle exemplify this refurbishing of old hits. Rotten is in prime sneering form, fairly spitting out the three syllables of old Who warhorse "Substitute," bringing a feral edge to Boyce and Hart's familiar "Stepping Stone" and Faces standard "Whatcha Gonna Do About It." These old songs, worn by rehearing and rote performance, take on a new quality, derived from Rotten's conviction that they really matter, at least to him. Sid Vicious contributes two sock-hop numbers--"Something Else" and "C'mon Everybody"--and a rollicking remake of "Rock Around the Clock." Punk rock wants to be fun and these tracks succeed in being just that. As Johnny Rotten once said, "Rock and roll is supposed to be fun. You remember fun, don't ya? You're supposed to enjoy it. It's not supposed to be about critics, or spending 100 fucking years learning a million chords on the guitar. It's the spirit."

Necessarily, such a self-conscious form as punk will involve parody; as for the doomed Adrian Leverkuhn of Mann's Doctor Faustus, everything is a parody, of previous forms or even of itself. Creation of the new means the "deconstruction" of the old, and a sardonic snipe at other contemporary musical forms. The Pistols start parodying right off on side two with a symphonic version of "God Save the Queen," as much a parody of themselves as of art rock. A bizarre disco medley of "Anarchy in the U. K.," "God Save the Queen," "Pretty Vacant," and "No One's Innocent" follows on the same side. These, along with a French cafe version of "L'Anarchie Pour le U. K.," sung by Jerzimy on side four, and a delightfully absurd sax solo on "Belsen Vas a Gassa," evince a comic vision which makes this one of the funniest albums cut in a long time.

Mere parody, though, can never be satisfying. When, in Mann's phrase, "Art becomes critique," the self-consciousness of parody can be crippling and destructive. Perhaps the goal should be to combine a parodic sense with an underlying faith in the essential form and a dose of the new and vital. The Sex Pistols achieve this delicate balance on side two in their reclamation of "Johnny B. Goode" and Boston local Jonathan Richman's "Road Runner." Sure to be a legend of rock and roll, this track alone justifies the rather extravagant price which decorates the album jacket. Opening with the terrific backbeat and acid guitar which became the signature of the band. "Johnny B. Goode" leaps up an emotional notch when that manic wail of a lead vocalist begins to shrick:

Na na na na na na na na na New Orleans

Na na na na na na na na na evergreens

Na na na na na na na na na Johnny B. Goode

Go go go go go go go go go Johnny B. Goode

Go go go Johnny go go go go I don't know the words

It soon becomes apparent that Rotten knows maybe five words to the song--but who the hell knows the words to "Tumbling Dice," or could ever understand Bo Diddley? Rotten fills in with a banshee wail, like an infant tossed in boiling water. He begins a dialogue with the band: "It's fuckin' awful. Stop it. It's fuckin' awful. Oy oy Steve, Road Runner."

The band finally slips into "Road Runner"; Rotten doesn't remember that one either. With some help from drummer Paul Cook, he latches onto some random lyrics--the Stop and Shop, the modern world, and the refrain about the radio. He closes it off with "Do we know any other fuckin' songs?" ending one of the priceless moments in recording history.