Metal Box -- does anyone hate this as much as me?

Statements like these drive me up the wall. HE IS NOT A FANTASTIC SINGER. HE CANNOT SING. FACT. I mean, the generic album and bits of _Happy?_ are fantastic, but that doesn't mean that Lydon can or ever could sing. There is a special Hell being prepared for me where John Lydon howls the entire Bryan Adams catalogue at me for all eternity.

OK he isn't a singer. I still take him over most of what's available.

mmm, true that. and the bass and drums sound FANTASTIC.

But really, it is genius. Levene's riff on "Poptones" is incredible! It goes around and around and around...forever! And ever! And EVER! And listen to Lydon's lyrics!! They rule!!

Not easy listening, though. But Levene is hardly wanking. He, even more so than Wobble, is the anchor of that band. Thus, the suckage following his departure...

But I do like about half the songs. Poptones is great.

I think this is my favorite quote of the thread.

It doesn't have anything to do with whether I like it or not. It has to do with being one of the ways in which the record is overrated.

It may not have an effect on how you like the music, but it does affect you you like the *album*. For instance, I'd hate the new Björk "Family Tree" because of its format. Actually, if I liked Metal Box a lot and wanted to play it often, I'd be annoyed at having to flip the records so much. But the fact that it comes in an actual metal box makes me like it again. Packaging does bleed over into how I perceive the album.

Still...."Poptones" and "Swanlake" are uproariously, gloriously ugly in the most intriguing way.

Alex in NYC is OTM. (snuff films and Killing Joke (same difference) aside)

The good thing about its rosetta-status is that people keep writing about it, and when one of the writings-up is good (as today) it prods me back into listening to it and enjoying the bits I do enjoy.

Killing Joke, however, I do tend to like quite a bit. But....you knew that.

This is funny then, because supposedly the original idea for Led Zeppelin IV was to release the 8 tracks as 4 ep's. (it's true - read all about it in "Hammer of the Gods"!)

Anyway, I don't have the box I only have Second Edition, and for me it's a stone classic. Best bass sound ever. In fact, I think I once blew out a woofer on a cheap Cerwin-Vega speaker cranking this thing up.

(Yes, I have that American Bandstand performance on tape. No, I don't have time to dub it for anyone yet. Yes, I do plan on getting a video card and digitizing it someday. Yes, the possibility of, uh,... some HORRIBLE NET THIEF appropriating it for peer-to-peer sharing is possible as well.)

I'm willing to be convinced but I basically agree with most of what Ben and Alex are saying. Aside from side 2, especially "Poptones" which is great, I find it a fairly tiring and not-particularly-rewarding listen these days. (I hadn't played it in a long time but I just put it on because of this thread. It made me want to put on New Order afterwards, whom I've also not listened to in a long time. I'm liking them though.) I never really got the vocals. Is the sound quality on Metal Box better than that on Second Edition? Otherwise, I don't even see what's good about the mastering.

Wait, they did this in order to *smell funny*?

I have long said that if Mark David Chapman had gotten the last names wrong and killed John Lydon in 1980, he would now be the most deified dead rock star EVER. Except for maybe Elvis.

Try the Wire's claim that Tortoise's Millions Now Living Will Never Die is Gen X's Metal Box.

EURGH. That's not damning with faint praise, that's abuse that makes all the hatred on this thread for Metal Box seem like warm cuddles.

Bloody fantastic album, of course, and I'd also be interested in knowing if the sound quality on Metal Box differs greatly from Second Edition.

sure. most stuff that gets 'classic' status is.

''Albatross is turgid (people always go on about what a challenging intro to the album it is--yes, putting a tedious moan up front is challenging, I suppose).''

yes, but no one 'sings' like this. It can come off as tedious because he is repeating things over and over again but this is a good groove. repetition in this case is good.

They really should have gone with the original design of using sandpaper on the outside jacket.

..And I loved it from day 1. .. Curious what you think of "Four Enclosed Walls" ...?

The News That Should Have Been, from 1980: EX-PISTOL ROTTEN'S BAND HIT WITH PLAGIARISM CHARGE BY OBSCURE AVANT-GARDE SECT: Bizarre Lawsuit Sure To Result In "Trial Of The Century" Say Legal Experts. "I'll fight this to the bitter end," vowed Mr Debord at a news conference before refusing to answer any more "cuntish questions" and firing a water pistol repeatedly into the crowd. (Settled out of court six months later after Debord is unable to provide any evidence that a 'Situationist International' ever existed...)

It'd have to be. 3 12"s @ 45 RPM beats 2 12"s @ 33 RPM anyday, from a mastering point of view.

Rubbish. I love many many records that have 'classic' status. In fact, when it comes to rock, I am an unreconstructed canonist.

"yes, but no one 'sings' like this. It can come off as tedious because he is repeating things over and over again but this is a good groove. repetition in this case is good."

True, no one else sounds like a loon lowing across the marshland at 6am. This may or may not be a good thing. It's not the repetition of the vocals or the groove that bothers me, it's that the groove is so plodding. It's not funky, it's not disorienting/spaced-out/dubby, it's just there, stumbling wearily but implacably forward, and it bores me.

well I'm anti-canon. this is one of the few recs in the canon that gets the nod from me.

''It's not funky, it's not disorienting/spaced-out/dubby, it's just there, stumbling wearily but implacably forward, and it bores me.''

Lydon's keeps repeating the same words again and again in this bored manner and the music reflects that. its the music's function to have some bored element. Punk bands always talked abt being bored, this had the 'I'm bored' in the music. great!

and as far as its dubbiness goes its not dubbier than dub from that period but then again it isn't meant to be that. its a mashing dub and some kraut stuff too. so its funky but not that funky.

frankly, it's a bit too repetitive and overlong for me (I'm not the kin. Still better than anything they did later. But Death Disco is indeed wonderful, in THEORY. I liked it more when I was in my "I only want to hear music that's WRONG! Finger to the mainstream!" phase. Delta 5's "Mind Your Own Business" is kinda the direction I wish they'd gone more in.

When people say 'dubby' they're usually referring to JW's bass, but there are other dub techniques in there too - like the way the rhythm will stay the same but the high hat or snare is suddenly filtered and uses another set of frequencies. King Tubby does this all the time.

the later releases of the music(second edition) not only have poorer sound quality, they are flawed by losing this concept.

I changed my mind!* Metal Box is actually quite brilliant. For some reason it clicked for me this time. Lydon sounds like Gollum. Levene sounds like he's scratching your eyes out. Wobble is implacable (I like that word today). The electronics are genuinely strange, alienating in that way that electronics were back then--you know, they sound like they're wheezing from some big gray mainframe that takes up half a room. The drums are just like, heavy, man. It's a big granite slab of sound rolling over you.

I think my problem was that I bought the album after reading the usual rhetoric about it, and then I didn't hear what I expected to hear based on that rhetoric. I still don't, really... but I like what I hear instead now.

* Well actually, I still think the suburbia-is-conformist stuff is cliched (suppose it wasn't at the time tho) and just wrong, Albatross is a dirge, and it really doesn't have much to do with dub. Even the bass isn't dubby--it's just fat and high in the mix. I only hear about one moment where he plays anything like a dub bassline (midway through Graveyard I think), most of the time it's more rock. And OK, they phase the drums every now and then. But dub is a process more than anything else, and they don't apply that process anywhere--there's no abrupt mixing in and out of instruments, no space in the music (the opposite--it's claustrophobic), no echoing....they're still playing songs, not deconstructing them. Not that it matters, but "avant-garde dub" is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot in relation to this album.

Nope. Beyond that...it's brilliant.

Statements like these drive me up the wall. HE IS NOT A FANTASTIC SINGER. HE CANNOT SING. FACT.
I say that someone could have a terrible voice and still be a good singer.
Its like comparing Bob Dylan to Michael Bolton.
Bob Dylans voice is horrible, but uses (what little he has) in a fun and interesting way. Bolton has a fine set of lungs but is excruciatingly annoying.
Lydon is more toward the Dylan end of the spectrum. Sure, he's shrill and squeaky, but he's a blast to listen to.

Agree/Disagree?

And sorry, but Bob Dylan doesn't use his voice in a fun way.

("WHAT FRIIIEEENDS ARE FO-O-O-O-O-O-R! O-O-O-O-O-O-O-OHHHH!")

Even if I liked the vocals on this record better, I think I'd still find this statement incredible.

Julio: Is Metal Box really part of the 'canon'?

Anthony: I agree that Delta 5 are better than PiL, but that's not much of a criticism because D5 are also better than 99.9999992% of everything in the known universe.

VINDICATION. Stuff him in the Wicker Man and watch him burn.

Great album but I'd love a remastered CD.

With a handful of exceptions, you've pretty much heard the good stuff.

yes. I have seen it a couple of times on classic albums pages in music mags. it gets voted as one of the best alb of that period and it gets connected with the whole 'wasn't 1979, like, the BEST YEAR EVAH FOR MUSIC!'

By all means enjoy him if that's the style of vocals you like, but calling him a singer is very much like calling Biz Markie a singer for the bellowing he does on "Just A Friend".

(And to completely confound expectations, Lydon trying to do Whitney's version of "I Will Always Love You" is probably the FUNNIEST THING EVER.)

Listened to Second Edition last night, gawd what a fucking great record, "vocalist" or not. Haterz are insane.

I AM NOT WRONG. The man has only sung FIVE NOTES in his entire career. He does so in a shrieky, histrionic way no matter what the song is. Jesus Christ, people!
His blood pressure is 260 over 100! Intensive care...Stat!

dan learned the def of singing at school. and we all know schools suck.

punk= impressionism
post-punk = post impressionism.

would you complain that Van Gogh could'nt paint?
because compared to social realist or other 19th C skools the guy has got NO CHOPS.

impressionism burst that bubble. like punk.

if Lydon doesn't convince you to buy into the misanthropic mood then, sure, you can consider him a crap singer.

Me? He sold me. Post-punk expressionism, he is the Van Gogh of vocalists maaaan.

btw: how would "real good singers" have coped with the themes of metal box? How owuld say, Ella, have interpereted all that claustrophic, dub influenced, post-punk, anti-corpotate after pistols angst? sweetly? or with a five-note off key whine?

'Albatross' is abt Mclaren for instance but I haven't looked up the lyrics in a while or heard it. maybe tonight.

sean: the metal box CD (with the metal case, which is what i have) doesn't have an info booklet but mine came with a small piece of paper with the track listing and who's in it (though it doesn't say what they do).

I'll give you the tracklisting and who's in it.

heh...thanks to marcello again. was looking at 'Church of Me' and he did a write up on metal Box. go there.

I listened to some of the tracks again. Lydon's vocal on 'Chant' is prob my favourite. an example to every up and coming singer.

Look Dan, if you want great singing go to Lydon, albert ayler and Kurt schiwitters OK.

look at the entry for jan 8th

OTM, except for the condescending tone.

i like that my can has completely rusted!!

levene's name is also spelt as 'leven'.

also i always thought the albatross they were getting rid of was the notion of lydon as pop star/spokesman/punk prophet/working class hero (nad that was why Wobble sang it)

ah!

Not sure I'd shell out 40 bucks for that 3LP reissue, but does the CD Metal Box reissue (in the metal case) sound way better that the Second Edition CD? If so, I might go for that.

Other: I thought Pash hated this, now I find he love(d) it. I'm confused.

More other: During an interview at the time, John mentioned that there were loads of tracks dropped, and a bunch of 'between track' snippety bits also unused. Hey, I'd like the long version. This being the first album I bought with wages.

(Thankyou, but I think it's supposed to be Wobble's voice on Albatross or something)

also i always thought the albatross they were getting rid of was the notion of lydon as pop star/spokesman/punk prophet/working class hero (nad that was why Wobble sang it)

actually for a while I thought Lydon sang on 'albatross' but in fact its Wobble's vocals (he does a good impression of Lydon, of course). Lydon comes in at the end of albatross with the 'Only the Lonely' bit.

Not true then, mark?

1) The first time I even heared that rumour
2) It's so John singing, it's silly.

I can't find a source for this rumor either, on Google at least. Ben? Julio? Gaz?

I read what I posted above, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, in retrospect. I think I think the album itself is ok, if somewhat lacking compared w/the 1st, but it's a terrible terrible "influence" record?

I'd buy another copy to listen to, but I can't get motivated, TBH.

More other: Jim Walker mentioned in an interview that there's also addtional material for First Edition. He talks about a track called. "You Stupid Person" that supposedly was to be the second single. According to him it has "one of Levene's most blistering guitar lines." In Walker's opinion many of the discarded tracks like "You Stupid Person" are much better than what was included on the first album. If these exist I want to hear them too.

It doesn't even sound like Wobble, anyway.

Reading this thread is depressing me - are y'all just flexing your anti-canon muscles? "Albatross" is one of the greatest lead-off songs evah. It has the otherworldy quality of an alien consciousness made flesh, simultaneously spacious and claustrophobic, sensuous and stringent. As a statement of purpose or level-setting of expectations it can't be beat.

Being able to find Second Edition in almost any record store in America during the 80s was a hope beacon for the disaffected drowning in a sea of spandex and glitter. And it still sounds as peculiar as it did then. People can brand Metal Box an arthouse joke, but there's a rigorous approach driving the music.

Compare it with The Flowers of Romance (which I prefer as an album overall) - they won't be mistaken for each other, and each coalesces into a singular statement. If you took any track from one and put it on the other, it would stand out as dissimilar. They aren't some random collections of sound farted out in the studio.

Certainly Lydon et al were pricks to everyone they met who wasn't stuffing blow up their noses at the time, but the same could be said of musicians from Miles Davis to the Beastie Boys. At least PiL pushed the enfant terrible schtick to the max, and made great theatre out of it - the American Bandstand appearance and the riot at The Ritz being prime examples. It's the lack of such chutzpah that reveals most current indie fux0r bands to be mere fashion victim cutouts, shadows of rebellion, when they reach the national stage.

(My EDITOR ought to be doing this sort of thing...)

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (soto.alfre...), July 11th, 2006.

All due respect to you and Dan, but saying "that guy can't sing!" and "how tedious!" are two of the least interesting observations to be made about Metal Box and The Flowers of Romance. The latter is one of the most out-there breakup albums ever recorded.

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=6F0D4EDC2718739D

Marcello, perhaps while he's cleaning up the "Albatross" paragraph, you can get him to help you with an entry on Edward III's theory that Flowers of Romance is the most out there break up album in history. I'd be extremely interested in reading that.

Still, I'm w/ Mark: "Albatross" doesn't sound a thing like Mr. John Wardle.

My first copy of "Commercial Zone" was a cassette, and this started with the instrumental "The Slab" as side one, so with that you have one long wait (until track three) with totally unfamiliar PIL music, ten minutes in and you could convince yourself there'd been a mistake.

Why?

-- Jesus Dan (djperr...), July 12th, 2006.

As Ned would say, we're entering ninja of the obvious territory.

-- Jesus Dan (djperr...), July 12th, 2006.

Guess I wasn't sufficiently clear; saying "that guy can't sing!" and "how tedious!" about PiL is akin to saying "Phillip Glass is repetitious," "Sonic Youth is noisy," or "The Beastie Boys are obnoxious." The band's making a clear + conscious decision to operate in a certain manner; observing that they're abrasive and difficult listening doesn't do much aside from pointing out the obvious.

Hope you're being ironic when you say something "sucks" immediately preceding an accusation of making lazy blanket assertions!

I'd say this was patently untrue until punk broke in the mainstream.

Maybe you were posting under another name and my quick skimming of the thread failed me, but I thought all of your comments were about Lydon's voice and singing capability except for one where you agreed that the album is tedious!

Is there really any reason that someone who heard an album once, nearly twenty years ago, can give any opinion that goes further than "I thought it was ok / I didn't like it"? I wouldn't be surprised if the singing and a sense of tedium are really all you remember, which is still pretty damn good for a couple decades.

Carol Channing was always more of a character performer than a SINGER and she was doing this in an arena where character voices are commonplace; I don't have a problem with her but she's not my favorite performer in the world.

Maybe you were posting under another name and my quick skimming of the thread failed me, but I thought all of your comments were about Lydon's voice and singing capability except for one where you agreed that the album is tedious!

2 + 2 = ???

There is a post upthread where I state that I didn't think PiL gelled until they released the generic album. One could deduce from that that I don't think PiL did anything particularly great before then and, due to the subject of my other posts, the overriding reason is because the people involved didn't know what to do with Lydon's limited voice.

haha xpost

what did THEY do with it on generic dan?

That said, due to sound issues among other things, I had been hunting around on ebay off and on for the last year or so to pick this album up in the original format. Well, that and I think the film cannister packaging would look really nice next to my other records and it succeeds as a conversation piece. So I started this thread back up hoping that someone had seen or listened to the reissue. Then I promptedly bought it anyway, because I'm dumb like that.

Admittedly, once someone asks to actually hear the album, there's no way in hell I'm going to toss on something like Albatross or Chant first since Lydon's caterwauling is grating and they're pretty tedious. Other points on the album really benefit from the looseness, though, and the stretch from Swan Lake to Graveyard at the core of the album (or as a couple sides on the vinyl, I don't have the breakdown of what's on each side handy) make for a compelling reason to not throw out the record.

Mostly, I think the instrumental arrangements are much, much stronger and support the stuff Lydon's doing vocally. Also I really, really, really like the guitar work on that album.

After the Sex Pistols, Lydon could've done anything he wanted, including hiring the best session musicians he could find (as he did later on Album Generic PiL). He didn't, and that was a clear and conscious decision as much as hiring trained musicians was. Lydon wasn't just some idiot on the loose in the studio. He's a smart guy, and he had some definite ideas about what he wanted to get done and how he was going to go about doing it. They all involved purposefully violating most of the common practices of musical decency and good taste, however.

I'm not a tonedeaf nincompoop; matter of fact it irritates when Nelly Furtado or Ashelee Simpson or whoever is singing out of tune on national television. But that's because of the context, as you point out w/ Carol Channing. The point of those PiL albums was to explore chance, purposeful incompetence, experimentation, abrasiveness, and dissonance.

They had to be on to something - people are still listening to and analyzing these records today, and that's based on more than just Lydon's cult of personality (at least, it is for me).

Even at the time the records had quite an impact, and not just among the scuzzy punk rabble, because of Lydon's decisions. Example: He kicked out the engineer assigned to Flowers of Romance because he could tell the tape op was an able, competent, knowledgeable, thinking person who was willing to take chances and work unconventionally. Result? Phil Collins later hired as an engineer the tape op that Lydon had personally raised the profile of; he wanted that same exquisitely massive drum sound (sidenote: Dan, don't ever listen to Flowers of Romance - it makes Metal Box sound like Gaucho). Jah Wobble had never played bass before Lydon tapped him for PiL. Result? Kate Bush purchased Wobble's bass rig because she wanted that huge sound he became famous for.

Even saying "I can't sing for shit but I've got something interesting to say so I'm just gonna do it" is a clear and conscious decision (as opposed to saying "I don't know how to sing, I'm going to take lessons until I'm good enough" or "I don't know how to sing I'm just going to stay off the stage") - though it seems to be one you don't approve of. If you disagree with the underlying conceptual framework of those PiL albums, then yeah, of course you're going to hate them. That doesn't mean there weren't concepts behind them.

From a percussive standpoint, I think Dan would like Flowers far more than Metal Box/Second Edition

"Metal Box" is a colossal record for me personally, as is "Flowers of Romance". Won't hear a word against them -- would that more people made records this audacious. I remember there being a little cottage industry of offshoot bands -- the Basement 5 and the Bollock Brothers, for instance -- but somehow rock never picked up on this strand, this sound. People might say My Bloody Valentine came close, or PRML SCRM. But those bands are dreamy-romantic or adolescent-commercial in comparison. Nobody matches the utter don't-give-a-fuck nihilism of "Metal Box", and I think that attitude also becomes a sound that nobody matches.

Do I think Dan should give Metal Box another chance? Sure.

Does he have to? No.

O TEH ROCK CANON COLORED GLASSIZ

(teasing)

I'd say the same about Flipper's Gone Fishin'

"One By One" in particular. Oh man.

-- San Diva Gyna (and a Masala DOsaNUT on the side) (dot@dot.dot), July 13th, 2006.

That kind of makes sense - there's a certain sensuality to Skinny Puppy; PiL was aggressively trying to destroy any pleasure people could take from their music, they really rub the listener's nose in it. Think about it: First Issue comes out, and people say, "Great rock record! Love those riffs!". Now then, let's destroy the guitars for Metal Box! People say, "At least the bass is still incredible." Fuck that, fire Jah Wobble for Flowers of Romance!

Fact remains I've got plenty of "fuck you" records on the shelf (Metal Machine Music or Jehovah My Black Ass... REM Is Air Supply anyone?) and none of them get pulled down with the frequency of Metal Box or Flowers of Romance.

Uh-oh, kudos from Momus! Isn't that the kiss of death in these here parts? ;)

I can totally see what Momus is saying here, BTW.

fuck i wish i knew where that tape was.

btw - i too tried this album once when i picked it up for a fiver, and thought 'WTF', however, this thread is making me listen again.

ta

I think this should be your new screen name, Donut. Either that or a band name.

I think "at length" and "to a great extent" are the same. Tell us Dan Perry, what draws you to the (metal) box repeatedly despite your disinterest!

(to the tune of "Big Rock Candy Mountain")

Or John Lydon covering "Domino Dancing."

I remember making cookies once when I first heard and went crazy over Jane's Addiction "Mountain Song".

All gone!

Woah!

the 'albatross' version has phasing all over the drums and what might be a slowed-down melodica. it also has lydon squawking "i am an albatross!" in parts. an... acquired taste.

WOW! Hooray! one of my favourite tracks of all time is now 10 minutes long! It's a little off the 'perfect hi-fi experience' but it's well worth getting and THANKS! for telling me about it.

Mind you, that 'remix' of Albatross is as I said above. It has an 'augustus pablo' style melodica, and someone squawking as per "fodderstompf" over the top. Whatever they are saying you can't tell as it's all drowned out by the melodica. And, suspiciously, the track fades out at exactly the same point as the album track. Is it a fake? Well, if it had been mixed better, it might have been interesting. But then it might have showed up the fakery, if it is such.

American Bandstand - "Poptones"

It seems both tracks have been nicked from the "Best of British £1 notes" DVD of John Lydon.

Apparently, it has three 'monitor mixes' of MB tracks. So, go there.

I've got an audio recording of the Ritz riot in '81, too.
http://www.furious.com/Perfect/pil.html

Ah, those were the days!

*coughs, totters away on cane*

listening to this for first time in six or seven years: ye gods. what kind of mood do you have to be in to enjoy this?

A challopy one.

j/k I like this album

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/0510/Public_Image_Ltd_-_American_Bandstand_-_800517.mpg

In addition to a lot of this being about Malcolm McLaren, just as much or more is about his mum dying, which i don't think got mentioned

"what kind of mood do you have to be in to enjoy this?"

UK release 1979. Mood music.

I'm not sure I can define the mood, but I spent a lot of time in it when I was in my early twenties, certainly.

"Stoned and angry" might come close?

It's a lot more mellow than it's sometimes prtrayed though.

Sorry, anything that has Poptones and Death Disco/Swan Lake on it is never going to be mellow in my book.

it does have other tracks on it

Yes, but those rather dominate the mood.

(YMMV, of course. But woah, I'm never coming round your gaff to chill out.)

Despair and anger. Very big in 1979 - see also Joy Division.

This album is fun.

Despair and anger. Very big in 1979 - see also Joy Division.

and Fear of Music...and...

WTF I can't believe you haters

That clip is making me rethink life in a good way.

Boy, Dick Clark sure yanked down that American Bandstand clip in a hurry. Bummer.

How much of the Lydon bio deals with the PIL era? Because the idea of reading yet another history of the Pistols or about anything after Flowers of Romance hardly seems worth the effort.

Speaking of, Metal Box is kinda screaming for the 33 1/3 treatement, no?

That clip is making me rethink life in a good way.

― Pete Scholtes, Saturday, 16 May 2009 17:51 (4 hours ago) Bookmark

I agree, but I can't believe it's not butter

i read lydon's book a long time ago and IIRC he doesn't discuss the PIL era at all.

Typical. There's a book about PIL but it's not available in the states. Maybe one of these days I'll splurge and buy it at the import price.

NO BLACKS, NO IRISH, NO DOGS does not cover the PIL era.

I shouldn't still get wound up about people hating the Pistols, because the records were meant to be hated, but face it, no Pistols, no PIL. No Punk, no post-punk. I've recently been bingeing on the various Mark E. Smith bios, and one of them describes him listening to "Holidays in the Sun" obsessively. But Mark is just another "Tuneless, rhythmless wanker who clearly makes no effort to sing anything that even remotely relates to what the musicians are doing".

Yes. I need to hear that sometimes.

OK, this thread then.

I was running through the PIL album pages on Wikip, and noticed that when recording one track for Metal Box, the thought went round "yeah, it sounds like The Doors, dunnit?" to general approval.

So, officially, "Albatross" is their sort-of take on "Riders on the Storm"

Metal Box is hard to love, but then PiL never really wanted anyone to send flowers. Can't agree with this general slagging of Levene, however. The guitar on the first changed something fundamental about how guitars sounded, distorted but also shiny and clean. It was something genuinely new and exciting. Loads of people ripped it off, or went trad in opposition to the trend. You could make similar arguments for Poptones.

should read "guitar on the first single changed somehthing etc.."

Nobody is slagging Levene on the basis of his Guitar playing.

Still, now I have to sing it:

Riders on the storm
riders on the storm
getting riid of the al-ba-trossssss

The OP most certainly was!

I didn't mean you Mark. I had been reading early threads.

I mean posts. Brain barely functioning tonight

WTF I can't believe you haters

― akm, Saturday, May 16, 2009 4:23 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

this album is perfect.

also, for how "difficult" it's supposed to be i remember thinking it was poppier than i expected when i first heard it.

it's basically a ramones record compared to flowers of romance.

seriously

Kind of a downer, though.
I have to be in the mood for it.

yeah, not really getting this thread. i've never thought it was that super difficult of a record. loved it the first time i heard it as a teenager and still do.

let the take flood down!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmfzuAd_u2E

s/b takes ffs never mind

A take is raining, across the border.

thought this had been revived for this

As I’ve commented before -j can’t stand some of the trivial puerile shit that you see on Twitter . I mean I co wrote metal box-that’s heavy shit, but whatever , I often ponder -what’s better ? Munchies or Rollo ? The crunchy biscuit base of the former or the classic chewy latter pic.twitter.com/a6r6exdCn5

— Jah Wobble (@realjahwobble) November 20, 2021

ive got a mind to buy the best, before the rest

(maltesers)

pil stinks.