With official celebrations set to begin this Saturday and running through Tuesday, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee commemorates the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II accession to the throne in 1952 following the death of her father, King George VI.

Besides the ever-so-important, Bank Holiday Weekend, a number of events ranging from the Epsom Derby Race, a BBC concert at Buckingham Palace, a Big Jubilee Lunch, the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons, the weekend events will conclude with a Service of Thanksgiving, which will be held at St Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday 5 June.

There’s even an official Queens Diamond Jubilee song which will be launched on Friday and played for the first time on Radio 2 and the BBC’s One Show, Friday at 7:00pm. Both Andrew Lloyd Webber and Gary Barlow (of Take That fame) have been working with musicians across the globe to record the ‘official’ song for such an historic occasion.

Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen the center of controversy again after 35 years for much different reasons

Seems as though Universal Music is planning a 2012 re-release of The Sex Pistols classic punk version of God Save the Queen, which the band originally recorded for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee back in 1977. While the 2012 controversy centers around the re-release, the 1977 controversy centered around the album cover and the song lyrics. At the time, the BBC and commercial TV and radio refused to play it and many record shops and high street chains such as Woolworths and WH Smith were unwilling to stock it. Yet, amidst all the controversy, the song still made it to number two in the official charts.

Not everyone is happy with the 2012 re-release, including former Sex Pistols bass player, Glen Matlock, and Pistols frontman, John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten). Both are strongly against the re-release of the song that was originally written to stop the English people from being ‘mistreated’, a veiled reference to the English class system. Lydon released a statement stating that the re-release “…totally undermines what the Sex Pistols stood for” adding further: “I am pleased that the Sex Pistols recordings are being put out there for a new generation, however, I wish for no part in the circus that is being built up around it. The Pistols were inspired by anger and poverty, not art and poetry.” You decide….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtUH2YSFlVU