Sarcasm, irony, the height of fashion and BIG BASS SOUNDS (Public Image Ltd. in general)

Name: dave27

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Product:	Public Image Ltd. in general
Date:	12/11/02 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Blistering rock and roll

Disadvantages: Couldn't sustain the promise

THROBBBBBBBB!!!!!!

CHANK-CHANK-CHANK-CHANK-SKREE!!!!

If I wanted to.....

Public Image Ltd, a different kind of tension, a marginal, mainstream, hating, loving concoction of sound, with the height of earnest rock and throb and the lows of self deprecating humour. A shadowy, eerie stage, a singer crouching back to the audience, to one side a lean and befringed guitarist cranking out well weird trebly sounds, to the other a seated, stocky bass player in a hat sending out subterranean waves of sound, thumping away at the pit of the stomach while a faceless, nameless drummer at the bank pours out funky rhythms...

This is the unmistakable sound of PiL, initially a hobbyist diversion for John Lydon and Keith Levene, former mainstays of the Sex Pistols and the Clash respectively, but quickly assuming the position of brave new hopes, with the bizarre half man half seagull Jah Wobble lending an odd cocktail of gravitas and insanity to the mix.

Public Image Ltd exploded into the nation's consciousness with the distinctive and electrifying Public Image single. They rushed out the patchy First Edition album on the back of the single, and it was frankly a sickening disappointemnt, although it featured some strong tracks in amongst the dubious fillers.

However, shortly afterwards the blistering funk punk disco sounds of Metal Box recovered all that lost ground in one fell, triple 12 inch storm of barren dance sounds, captivating the audience and converting the unconverted. The album was a huge chunk of revolutionary dance rhythms woven throughout with the distinctive metal guitar of Levene and those extraordinary vocals from THE MOST SARCASTIC MAN IN ROCK AND ROLL.

Unfortunately, there was no more petrol in the tank and PiL simply fell apart following the triumph. They had the slippery Flowers Of Romance album to point to, but there was little substance to it and to all intents and purposes they might as well n
ever have been for all that they mattered.

It was a shocking rise and fall to be sure and oddly it all seemed so fitting, with the ironic wit of John Lydon refusing to allow himself to be absorbed. The whole thing seemed like a bizarre raspberry blown by the most charismatic lead singer on the planet. It was as if he was laughing behind his sleeve at his, like the whole thing, both the Pistols and PiL as some monstrous private joke, derived to give Lydon the ultimate self congratulatory chuckle.

And yet at the same time, PiL were incisive intelligent blistering rock and roll giants who could have been the biggest band on the planet, but chose instead to leave us with a remarkable album, several masterly singles and a host of laughs.

Salute this band and remember the good times.



PS Full album list

First Issue
Metal Box - Second Edition
Paris Au Printemps
Flowers Of Romance
Live In Tokyo
This Is What You Want . . . This Is What You Get
Album - Compact Disc - Cassette
Happy?
9
The Greatest Hits, So Far
That What Is Not
Plastic Box
Psycho's Path

PS No 2 - Interview with The Sun - goes like this

JL: This is the land of thin third-rate versions of mohawks with hair pointing forward. Horrendous. Designer punk. People feel rebellious when they wear it. Isn't that just being the way it's always been? Assholes running around in camouflage jackets. Have you begun?

Sun: Yes. Do you follow the music scene here very closely at all, So Solid Crew and the like?

JL: There isn't a music scene, it's obscene. There never has been, come on, it's like Jimmy Savile. You don't really respect very much at all, you trivialize everything and Tony Blair's been able to operate in that environment rather wonderfully. He's turned you into one big, dull gray - there's no get-up-and-go here, there'

s just no bollocks left. And it's odd to me but true, and I said it thirty years ago, the only true anarchists in Britain are the football hooligans. They're the only ones that actually do something. They don't know what they're doing most of them but at least there's a motivation in it.


This is the way, step inside....

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