Public Image Limited : When did you get off the bus?

I love most of their singles. Although Second Edition is one of my desert island disks, "Rise" is for me their peak.

"Happy?" was so damn muddy, mixwise, I played it once, quite liked the last track, never went back to it.

only actually really got on the bus properly after seeing them live this time last year. So none of the above.

Listened to Album the other day and really enjoyed it. A great bunch of musicians for that one, but still really coherent.

have never investigated past flowers of romance, which has to be an oversight given 1st/2nd are some of my favourite albums

got off the bus when i saw PIL performing a terrible version of 'anarchy in the uk' on the tube, offended my punk purism or somesuch bs, wld prob love it now

got off the bus when i saw PIL performing a terrible version of 'anarchy in the uk' on the tube

definitely a public transport-related joke here

I basically still care about them through Flowers Of Romance, but I kept buying the albums through Album (suppose I'm kind of curious again about those mid '80s ones now -- haven't heard them in forever.) Happy is when I completely stopped paying attention, so that's what I'm voting for. (Though I've still never heard Commercial Zone -- in fact, I just checked a record guide to refresh my memory about what that one was.)

Also, I've got a CD best-of (early/mid '00s probably) called The Greatest Hits, So Far, but I couldn't tell you a thing about any song after "Rise," I don't think. Should probably play that again sometime. And yeah, like Alfred, Metal Box (have an actual metal box, but a reissued one)/Second Edition is one of my favorite albums ever.

I own that comp too; it boasts the new single "Don't Ask Me Why."

Much of their post-'86 material sounds like spikier INXS.

I own that comp too; it boasts the new single "Don't Ask Me Why."

Happy. Chronologically that also probably corresponds with my generally tuning out rock (in a very broad sense, yes) in general. I liked Album but was unimpressed when I saw them live around the time it came out. John Lydon resembled the Phillies Phanatic a little too much.

I'm not sure I've ever heard Happy?

Live in Tokyo. cool cover promising "interesting" music inside. DID. NOT. DELIVER.

^^

after "this is not a love song"

IMO anyone who bailed before Album missed one of the best albums of the 80s.

Album was their last effort I paid any attention to (although I do inexplicably own a copy of That What is Not).

Happy? has a few good songs on it (mostly "Seattle" and "The Body") but you might as well just get the "Seattle" 12" and be done with it.

The guitar sound on Album reupholstered my pussy.

I don't expect anyone else to share this sentiment, but I adore 1989's "Disappointed." It rises to a magnificent pitch.

Did anyone ever hear Lydon's Psycho's Path? (contender for worst album title ever)

ha I was going to mention "Disappointed" (why because it's fantastic) but I really stopped paying attention after that song

didn't bail; just hated much of his '83-'84 crap. kinda liked Happy, and REALLY dug Album back then, tho--haven't listened to either in full for the past couple of decades now.

xps

Lots of Psycho's Path tracks on Youtube.

The Peel session of "That What Is Not"s "Cruel" is excellent.

I feel like I might actually own the "Pyscho's Path" title track on some "electronica" compilation, but I have no idea where I'd look on my comp shelves to find it. (Also, didn't Lydon do a pretty good track with Leftfield once? Or am I confused about that?)

Yeah he did - Open Up

'That What Is Not', I didn't like the single from it so I couldn't care for that album. As for "Greatest Hits - So Far", the new track there ('Dont Ask Me') was actually brilliant.

Seattle is ace innit? I like it better than most of Metal Box that i've heard (and hated).

commercial zone is the most recent PIL album i still listen to, though the singles are great up through album

actually, for whatever reason, commercial zone is the only PIL album i listen to with any regularity

Went back to Album not long ago, and was surprised by how little I liked it, given how much I liked it in high school. So I guess the answer is Flowers of Romance, which still sounds great. Though the technically correct answer to the thread's title question is Happy.

I voted That What is Not because it was the first time I finished listening to a PiL album and knew right then and there that I never wanted to hear it again. Wasn't a huge fan of 9 though some of it was still pretty good.

Really very fond of Seattle, the guitar part especially is totally fantastic.

9 was the first one i bought - 'disappointed' was huge on postmodern mtv/120 minutes that summer. i own nothing past second edition now (though i always mean to get flowers of romance) beyond an mp3 of 'rise' (and very possibly some other tracks i'm forgetting/never listen to in some kroq end of year chart folder). still enjoy 'seattle' when i hear it on 80s radio stations, 'disappointed' still manages to provoke nostalgia.

I have the original Metal Box (with Keith Levenes autograph) that is now blackened with corrosion. It remains my favorite PiL record. Never really got into anything beyond that. I think I hit the wall with Lydons voice after a while.

Happy, Album, and 9 were the three that I listened to most when I was 13-14 and just getting into "Weird" (at least weird by the standards of pop/rock radio at the time...) music. I haven't heard them in years and I have no real desire to. I remember when That What Is Not came out, I tried to like it, but ultimately decided it was a crappy record and I stopped listening to PIL.

Oddly, I had a very similar reaction to Stoned and Dethroned by JAMC a short while later. It's funny how a bad record can make you stop caring about a band. I still love the early JAMC stuff(especially Up Too High, and the 4 track version of On The Wall...best drum sound ever...) but I haven't heard anything the did after that record to this day.

As I got a little older, I got into the first three PIL records. 2nd edition was on endless repeat on my car cassette deck sometime in the last 90's, and PIL and Flowers were records I picked up around the same time. During my last move(a year ago), I decided to sell my copies of 2nd Edition and Flowers. I don't think they are bad records, I just have no desire to listen to the again. I still own the first one, but never play it.

They are one of those groups who had a lot of potential and just didn't realize it and then got dragged down by careerism. It is a shame that the early line up couldn't get it together and make a few more great albums.

As it stands, IMHO early Jah Wobble records shit all over PIL from a great height. I have infinitely more time for the How Much Are They EP and the Snake Charmer EP. I think a lot of it just boils down to the fact that I really don't give a shit about rock music anymore. There is nothing wrong with rock per se, I am just over it.

Honestly I can't listen to FOR despite much effort: it's 'experimental' in a half-assed way.

I returned This Is What You Want to the record store when it came out, traded it right back in for a Swans LP. So that one.

Did anyone ever hear Lydon's Psycho's Path? (contender for worst album title ever)

yes

it is not good

Did anyone ever hear Lydon's Psycho's Path? (contender for worst album title ever)

Yes.

I thought it was pretty damn good.

Albums: after Metal Box. I sort-of meant to get around to buying Flowers Of Romance, but economic circumstances went against it.

Singles: after "Don't Ask Me".

"Disappointed" in the running for best PIL single though.

Didn't we poll them?

This is not a love poll: Best/Favourite Public Image Limited single Poll

oh yeah, *I* did...

Think I would have voted for 'Home' in that.

also, for those who haven't seen this..:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/DSC00335.jpg

Paris au Printemps remains my fave PiL, btw--even tho i never really listen to it these days (i generally wimp out to the more sedate strains of ye olde Metal Box instead, tbt). but, man, the fucking ambiance of the thing is so beyond oppressive that i don't believe i could ever imagine better (or more appropriate) doomsday scenario music. add to that the fact that the live version of "Poptones" contained therein may well be my favorite live rock + artist/audience interaction performance extant (Wanker: "ATTACK! ATTACK!!"; John: "Wanker-shut-up..."; Audience "?"; John: "I'll walk of this fuckin stage if you keep spitting...DOGGG!"). and that its got a great/sick painted cover "portrait" of Lydon-Levene-Wobble as Jackass-Big Bird-looking thing-hirsute swamp beast(?), too. so, yeah, i really dig that one. and the sound of the original vinyl edition is truly brootal. but in a really good way. (sound on the cd sucks, natch. but then whadja expect?)

off, maybe...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ILM OTM imo

"Disappointed" still their second best single (after "Public Image")

Anyone thinking of getting back on the bus for <i>This is PiL</i>? Heard the new track linked over at <A HREF="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/song-premiere-public-image-ltd-deeper-water-20120517)";>Rolling Stone</A> and it seems okay enough. Got the <i>One Drop</I> EP for RSD this year but still haven't gotten around to listening to it...was a bit scared, tbh.

Whoops, meant to convert my code. New track is at http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/song-premiere-public-image-ltd-deeper-water-20120517

Yeah, almost bought the e.p.

Should, really...

huh that's pretty good!

Actually I really like that new track!

I don't think I ever got off the bus with PiL, but Lydon's collab with Afrika Bambaataa would make me get off any bus or cliff

After two spins, the new album is half-brilliant, half-not-doing-it-for-me. About the same as "That What Is Not" in terms of hit/miss ratio. I'm particularly enmored with "Lollipop Opera", which feels like a Fall song!

I don't think I ever got off the bus with PiL, but Lydon's collab with Afrika Bambaataa would make me get off any bus or cliff

wtf @ this, "World Destruction" is a killer single

One Drop ep is very good.

Aero otfm. "World Destruction" is all-time, and I bet it'd get a helluva reception in any club

Oh, and the track PiL did on the Dennis Miller show is fantastic:
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=vyOJ91KYh7E

Never got off this bus

Not really.

By the way, they were awesome live in 2010 with some interesting reinventions of old songs. There's been a bunch of live shows from that tour released, anyone have a recommendation on which one is the best?

there is a live show or two on spotify, which I guess were released? they are pretty good, and I liked the new single, will check them out again if they tour since I missed that 2010 show. but yeah, happy through that what is not is some serious dregs that they wisely have avoided in recent setlists.

album is a fucking classic though, I love it (along with Swans Burning World, the other 'laswell jazzbo sellout' production from the same era)

"World Destruction" is the sound of two all-time musicians reaching their nadir at the exact same moment.

there remained an awful lot of nadir to go, man

btw I won't hear a thing said against "Disappointed."

finding it hard to believe that anyone hates 'world destruction'

we live in a world that has made Justin Bieber an international superstar, of course there are people who hate "World Destruction"

oh not you too, Dan

Huh! I'm genuinely surprised it has its fans!

GTFO, World Destruction slays.

this recent anti-WD mood on ILX takes me completely by surprise

Want to boldly say something like 'Album is the only thing involving Laswell I ever need to hear again' but ehh I guess there's Ask The Ages.

what, She's The Boss didn't move you?

D^%E&Y*&^(&*#$^*(

World Destruction is classic - took me ages to figure out what that song was when I kept hearing it on KROQ as a teen

oh not you too, Dan

wtf, no not me too, I'm just saying it's kind of crazy to assume everyone loves a song (unless that song is "Wanna Be Starting Something")

I could be wrong but I think Alfred was referring to your Bieber diss.

That's not even a diss (even though it's true I intensely dislike Bieber), it's more an acknowledgement of the existence of Venn diagrams

so.....should I check out their show on Friday?

it could be good, it could be bad

it could be wrong, it could be right

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maxe3u9vhF1qa6myvo1_250.jpg

they put a hot wire to his head!

now in the endless summer, I could be happy or in distress, depending on the company

I never imagined a time when Brian Wilson would look better than John Lydon.

i saw them in 2010 and the first issue/metal box stuff was FANTASTIC - even if none of them actually played on it. The "psycho's path"/"rise"/"disappointed" seemed to please those old enough to remember them from college radio, but I just waited it out. Latest song they played was that Leftfield "Open Up" number though - would totally see them again on a Plays Metal Box tour but not sure about the new material.

i should exclude "psycho's path" from that college rock comment

Wobble & Levene have been doing Plays Metal Box shows this year, to Lydon's withering contempt

Things that don't earn Lydon's withering contempt:

- John Lydon
- Butter advertisements
- The Slits

- Poly Styrene

To give him his due, it really is good butter.

I wonder how that Wobble/Levene ep released earlier this year is?

The Slits

I've never heard someone go off on someone else as savagely as Lydon did when talking to me about Ari Up (this was in the early 90s, long prior to her passing.) He was not kind. I've since heard he spent a lot of time teaching Ari's kids to read, since she didn't believe they needed to know this herself. I've never heard him much praise the Slits, to be honest . . . though he was quite lavish in his praise for the Raincoats.

I wonder how that Wobble/Levene ep released earlier this year is?

Pretty good so long as you're not expecting Metal Box II. But don't bother, as it appears that all four tracks appear in the new album, plus six more. I haven't heard that, so I can't confirm that the versions are identical, but buyer beware.

a bit more on this: http://www.contactmusic.com/news/john-lydon-i-was-too-busy-playing-daddy-to-reform-pil_1346009

http://i46.tinypic.com/35d6rkk.jpg

http://i45.tinypic.com/19xuhi.jpg

"World Destruction" is the sound of two all-time musicians reaching their nadir at the exact same moment.

Not helped by the fact that Laswell has never understood that just because two things have never gone together before that doesn't mean they necessarily should.

I don't know why I'm enjoying this as much as I am... Think I was prepared for the worst?

http://concert.arte.tv/fr/europunk-public-image-limited

It's good to have low expectations, you can only go up.

I listened to "Happy" and "9" recently and dug almost all of them aside from a few tracks. Still looking for a good recent live set.

The one I just linked to is from last month btw - Feb 25th.

listened to 'seattle' only today. have never ventured into anything later than that song, but i do love it

oh wait. 2013. sorry. Xp

They're touring the US again. Should I get back on the bus? Haven't listened to 'em in ages.

http://www.johnlydon.com/images2/pil-cycle-jersey.jpg
.. and onto the Bike?

"The wheels on the bike go ROUND AND AROUND, AROUNDAROUND ROUND ROUND..."

Free bus with every copy..

Release Date 28 October 2016
Product code
5701491
Format
Quadruple CD Album
Label
UMC / Virgin EMI
On 28th October, PiL will reissue the seminal albums ‘Metal Box’ and ‘Album’. ‘Metal Box’ was the band’s second album, originally released on 23rd November 1979 and ‘Album’ was their 5th studio album and was originally released on 3rd February 1986, marking 2016 as its 30th anniversary.

The album’s will both be issued as 4 CD and 4 vinyl LP super-deluxe box sets, as well as digitally. The editions will include rare and previously unreleased material along with a live disc. The CD version’s feature additional tracks to the vinyl editions due to running time restrictions, however, the vinyl edition will include a download card for all tracks on the CD version’s. ‘Metal Box’ will be issued in a square metal tin (CD & LP) (the 1979 original was issued in a round metal film canister) with an embossed PiL logo. Both super-deluxe editions will include a 72 page booklet together with an exclusive poster, art-prints (LP version) and postcards (CD version).

With all lyrics written by John Lydon ‘Metal Box’ was recorded with original PiL members Keith Levene and Jah Wobble. Original drummer Jim Walker had left, to be replaced by a succession of drummers. ‘Metal Box’ came out less than a year after PiL’s debut ‘Public Image: First Issue’ yet it was nothing like its predecessor. Things had changed, and so had PiL. 

While outside pressures mounted PiL channeled their energies (negative and positive) into a record that would set them apart back in 1979, and indeed today in 2016. Whether it be John’s powerful and passionate vocals; Keith’s wailing guitar and melodic synths; Wobble’s sub-disco reggae basslines; or the crashing rhythm that holds it all together, ‘Metal Box’ has many strengths. The album was originally released as 3 x 45rpm 12” singles, housed in a metal ‘film’ canister. As made by ‘The Metal Box Company’ in London’s East End; hence the name. The deluxe edition includes rare and unreleased mixes from the recording sessions, along with B-sides and BBC sessions, plus a live recording from a now legendary unplanned show at Factory Records Russell Club in Manchester arranged on the day of a Granada TV appearance.

Tracklist:
Disc 1:
Remastered album
1. Albatross
2. Memories
3. Swan Lake (Death Disco)
4. Poptones
5. Careering
6. No Birds Do Sing
7. Graveyard
8. The Suit
9. Bad Baby
10. Socialist
11. Chant
12. Radio 4

Disc 2:
B-sides, mixes & radio sessions
1. Death Disco (7” edit)
2. Death Disco 12”
3. Half Mix / Megga Mix (b-side)
4. Death Disco - BBC TV, Top of the Pops July 12.7.72
5. Memories 12”
6. Another (b-side)
7. Poptones - BBCRadio 1, John Peel Sessions 1979
8. Careering - BBC Radio 1, John Peel Sessions 1979
9. Chant - BBC Radio 1, John Peel Sessions 1979
10. Poptones - BBC TV, Old Grey Whistle Test 5/2/80 (audio)
11. Careering - BBC TV, Old Grey Whistle Test 5/2/80 (audio)
12. Pied Piper (rare compilation-only track)

Disc 3:
Unreleased Mixes
1. Poptones (version 3) (unreleased)
2. Swan Lake (monitor mix)
3. Albatross (monitor mix) (alternative mix)
4. Swan Lake (“master”) (alternative mix) (unreleased)
5. Unknown INST Jam 1 (“Chant”) (unreleased)
6. Unknown Jam 2 (“Megachant”) (unreleased)
7. Music from an Oven (aka Memories) (unreleased)
8. Radio 4 (“symphony suite”) (unreleased)
9. Home is Where The Heart is (original mix) (unreleased)
10. Unknown INST 2 (unreleased)

Disc 4:
Live at Manchester, Russell’s Club (The Factory) 18/6/79 (unreleased)
1. Chant
2. Swan Lake (aka Death Disco)
3. Memories
4. Public Image
5. Annalisa
6. No Birds Do Sing

LOL:

Metal Box has many strengths

Seriously, tho, this looks pretty awesome.

man that is a whooooole lotta filler

For me, it's all about the first three albums and Commercial Zone, and the odd track here and there after that but not full albums.

The parts on 'Memories' where the track completely changes sonically as a result of two different mixes of the same track being edited together is such a genius production decision.

A lot of people followed this arc of "growing out of" the Sex Pistols and realizing that PiL is, like, waaay better, but for me it was the other way around. Metal Box was one of my first left-of-center postpunk discoveries but at some point it "unclicked" with me (the hype wore off? I got more honest with myself?) and I can't even remember what I saw in it.

"GET PISSED / DESTROYYYYY" > the whole jittery awkward situationist smartypants scene

i adore album

I think the Order of Death might be my favorite PIL thing.

critical support for post-Levene PiL regime - even the drabbest bits of Happy? And 9 have John McGeoch doing something interesting off in a corner of the mix -

but i leap off the bus with the arrival of that noxious single Don’t Ask Me - maybe i am doing it wrong but that seemed to me a really repellent little ditty

The drum sound on "Rise" is so awful I've never listened to the entire album (or anything after tbh). The rest of that song (Steve Vai aside) could be salvageable but those are some of the worst drums of the '80s.

huh, the drum sound is part of its weird charm for me

"Don't ask me" John didn't write.

The credits have all the band named, which is fine as John has always done that with all his songs, there's a fair few drummers getting royalty cheques that other bands wouldn't..

I think 'Disappointed' was his last great single.

But, if you enjoy your job and don't want to quit, then carry on! Let's not get precious about it ..

Allan Dias wrote 'Don't Ask Me'

I love the drum sound on Album :)

I think 'Seattle' was his last great single. The only post-Levine album I've heard in full [by accident] is That What Is Not, which ranges from passable to terrible.

"Rise" is the best coulda-been INXS single, "Anger is an energy" one of my favorite maxims.

I do prefer the single remix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXBFh05uVXU

if you enjoy your job and don't want to quit, then carry on! Let's not get precious about it

This would make a wonderful maxim for ILM

Yeah, but.

"The parts on 'Memories' where the track completely changes sonically as a result of two different mixes of the same track being edited together is such a genius production decision."

Lester Bangs mentioned that in his review of the album:
https://www.fodderstompf.com/ARCHIVES/REVIEWS/MBox_Bangs.html

"I read in NME that (Memories) was directed at the "Mod Revival" in England but then I don't believe anything I read in NME anymore. Whether or not it applies to "Happy Days", Grease, all the proliferating falsifications of what I and everyone I know experienced once in what it is now so convenient to call "the fifties" or "the sixties," as if life was really measured or lived in arbitrary decades, when the history books are sold like comix I for one will still be listening to Lydon: "You make me feel ashamed / Enacting attitudes / Remember ridicule? / It should be clear by now / Your words are useless, full of excuses, false confidence / Someone has used you well / Used you well."

Then, on the album version, the whole sound shifts, into a new and hotter realm. It's something I have never in my life heard anyone do in the middle of a track, and as the grooves begin to burn themselves away he resumes: "I could be wrong / It could be hate / As far as I can see clinging desperately / No personality dragging on and on and on and on / I think you're slightly late / Slightly late...""

It's striking - the whole mix goes through a phaser, or something like that. I remember hearing "Careering" somewhere, so I picked up The Greatest Hits, So Far, which is in chronological order, with "Don't Ask Me" at the end. And then gradually the first few albums. The debut is a throwaway with one classic single, Metal Box is excellent, Flowers of Romance sounds like an ancestor of some of the stuff on Peter Gabriel's Real World Records, and then the discography gets very bitty. About the only thing I remember of "Warrior" is that it was in Wild Orchid.

I remember "Order of Death" from Hardware. The rest of This is What You Want isn't very good. I haven't heard anything from 1990 onwards, apart from "Acid Drops", which didn't enthuse me. Given Lydon's willingness to work with top studio talent on Album it's fascinating to imagine him collaborating with Peter Gabriel. It might have worked! There's a muezzin-esque aspect to his vocal delivery at times, as if he was delivering a call to prayer. I can imagine the soundtrack of Last Temptation of Christ with John Lydon warbling all over it.

I can't tell if he decided at some point in the 1990s that PiL was a joke novelty band, or not. Or if he was ever serious about making it a going concern. He had no trouble generating publicity but it never seemed to benefit the band. And yet Rise was obviously intended to sell a lot of records.

this thread revive has sent me down a pil 1983-1990 rabbit hole

some stray observations

the 1983/4 “cabaret” band were probably better than their reputation - and maybe the neutered sound of Live In Tokyo isn’t a fair indication of their sound - like, there is a bit of rockin’ overplaying but they generally do a decent take on the material - this footage is pretty great and i would totally have loved to see this show, Pistols cover and all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr5SBwMfmZA

the interviews here are very good reading if (as i do) you enjoy philosophical reflections and/or score settling by musicians who had a minor part in a major band

i had no idea Robert Poss was almost in PiL!

i knew Alan Dias wrote Don’t Ask Me but that doesn’t make it a good single?! i was a very unlikely rabid teenage PiL fan in 1989 who was totally into the current line-up - when it came out I couldn’t understand how it was the same band. Dias says he hates how soft it sounded in the interviews linked, would be keen to hear his demo.

John McGeoch absolutely lifts all the material he contributed to in PiL but he also got up to some slightly surprising stuff in the late 1980s, lots of little whammy bar semi-metal peacocking - i guess he was kinda replacing Steve Vai so it kinda makes sense that he’d go a bit in that direction - still love him heaps

(the interview - via link in post above - with Nick Launay about Flowers of Romance is fantastic)

had no idea that Malachi Favors played on album!

I remember when "Disappointed" was on 120 Minutes a lot, and that may have been the first I knew of the band, tbh. I would have been ... 14 or so? Never bought that record, though. Weirdly, I do remember the New Order/PiL/Sugarcubes tour that summer (didn't go), and def. got into New Order and Sugarcubes, but again, not PiL. A couple of years later I finally got Second Edition and liked that a lot, but found myself gravitating more toward whatever Wobble and Atkins were doing elsewhere. Invaders of the Heart, Ministry, Killing Joke, etc. Not sure I ever bought a PiL album besides Second Edition, come to think of it, though I did like the odd song or two. I also saw the band on its reunion tour in 2010 but was not feeling it at all.

Funny enough, I did see the documentary, which has some incredible footage and good interviews but is still pretty boilerplate. The thing about Lydon is that he by his very nature sucks all the focus onto himself, always, which can be a bit exhausting. The end credits feature, for some reason, him hanging out with John Waters and meeting Ian MacKaye, and those fleeting moments made me wish for a movie that wasn't just another long episode of the Johnny Lydon show. He's always going on about how difficult this or that situation was, or this or that person was, but as if it wasn't totally obvious decades ago, *he's* clearly the difficult one. Again, by design. He might mock Malcolm McLaren's love of situationism, but Lydon embodies that more than almost anyone else, on an epic scale, all by himself.

What a strange recurrence - a song for Nora, who's on a journey into Alzheimer's, offered as a potential Eurovision entry for Ireland.
A beautiful sentiment but I find almost nothing in the song to enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc5v7FHx5Do

it doesn’t really feel like it belongs under the PiL banner, but given that my answer to the poll question is “1989”, i wish him all the best with wherever he wants to drive the bus

Love Hawaii, have been coming back to it every week or so.

this new album is better than I was expecting.

I keep meaning to give it a listen

This Is What You Want is so good. No 'what could have been's. Probably I do prefer the Commercial Zone versions of the songs at the front. But the weird stuff, which needs the production, is like some cross between The Flowers of Romance and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, lots of trembling freeform worldbeaty/fourth-world textures locked into the hollow digital grid, there's increasingly a lot of ritual terror lurking in the fire behind the singleminded Atkins stampede and John's unmoored vocal. Only thing is I'd add "Question Mark" (which I'm quite fond of describing as resembling an Adrian Sherwood deconstruction of Matt Bianco) to the record.

That's a great write-up - I have been revisiting TIWYW with fresh & sympathetic ears recently and yeah am finding the post-Flowers of Romance tracks much less throwaway than I used to

(also hear Flowers of Romance a little differently now too with the knowledge of Lydon being into Third Ear Band)

The funky stuff is definitely cooler with Levene on Commercial Zone - also a pretty complete record IMO - but the "lesser" Virgin versions sound increasingly good to me, absent considerations of band/creative politics the production really punches hard and if it was any other post-punk band it would be loved a lot more I reckon

Is there any consensus on the best compilation of PIL? They seem to be a group that 'should' have a good comp like Substance that outlines everything.

I don't know that they're terrifically well served by compilations - this one maybe as good a one-disc overview as any? gives you a sense of the trajectory but also features their most unbearable single as a very unwelcome final track - also has pretty gross cover art IMO

(kind of like if Substance had World In Motion tacked on the end, however you feel about that song it would make Substance less good)

looking at that track listing I can't find much to complain about but there is something underwhelming about it, weird because they were a strong singles band pretty much all through their OG incarnation

Yeah that one looks very 'whoever got that assignment' at the record label, got to get it out NOW as we are putting in this months BMG catalog.

I've got the Plastic Box one, which is the Substance album in their discography. Don't think it was that popular.

I was thinking more like say like in their heyday like Barbed Wire Kisses, Substance or Staring at a Beach were for their contemporaries.

ha, the greatest hits so far album was my introduction to Public Image Ltd. in 1989

It has the single mix of "Rise," my favorite

other Christmas 1989 CD present from my parents: Bob Mould’s workbook

Yeah the album version of "Rise" came as a big disappointment first time I heard it - the 7" mix is perfectly structured, the album version keeps losing momentum by (to my ears) swapping sections around too much.

Agreed emsworth, I get a lot out of John's familiarity with decade old hippy music being writ all over Flowers. The hard-rock underpin of later (pre-split) PiL probably is also consistent in its way with teenage John the Blodwyn Pig and Edgar Broughton Band fan.

Are they good/fun live nowadays? They're coming to my town next year

I never got off the bus with PiL and loved the recent live set I saw… I just think they’re only good 10% of the time (and it’s really worth it for that 10%)

I wish Lydon would collaborate with Radiohead sans Yorke, I feel like it would be simultaneously vindicating and humiliating for everyone involved

Last time I saw them was pre-pandemic, but it was a very good show. Lu Edmonds on guitar was great.

Discounting Plastic Box for being more of a box set, Greatest Hits So Far was their one high profile compilation... there are two more-cheapo comps (Gold and Rise: The Collection) which both have kind of weird track listings... I dunno, maybe they work upon listening.

The sequencing on Greatest Hits So Far is killer. "Flowers of Romance" into "This is Not a Love Song."

I have Rise (and indeed Plastic Box and So Far) and I think it works fine. It does feel like it's meant more for the car CD player except I don't drive.

It’s been a while since I listened to everything but iirc this band’s worst album by some measure was the debut

Yeah the album version of "Rise" came as a big disappointment first time I heard it - the 7" mix is perfectly structured, the album version keeps losing momentum by (to my ears) swapping sections around too much.

Seems like the CD version of Album on Spotify swapped versions; now it's got the single mix.

It’s been a while since I listened to everything but iirc this band’s worst album by some measure was the debut

i know we are all different and de gustibus etc. but you crazy

or maybe I’m the crazy one for listening to Fodderstompf more than once (the beat’s cool!)

My older sister bought Happy? when it was released, and I’ve come across it in many other contexts over the last almost 40 years, and I’ve only just now realized that the buildings on the cover spell out PiL.

I forgot there was this compilation also: John Lydon – The Best Of British £1♫'s

I love the Greatest Hits So Far cover art! Agree that "Don't Ask Me" is terrible.

In a way it was refreshing to hear Lydon acquiesce to cynicism so disgusting.

It feels (in the UK) like a song remembered, if at all, more for appearing on a Now album (in this case Now 18) than being a hit itself.

#2 on the U.S. "modern rock" chart!

xp I think that is why I know it - someone at school must've had that Now comp. I don't think I've ever heard anything off Happy or 9 or anything after that

stuff from Happy? and 9 got played on US college radio a lot and on MTV’s 120 Minutes

I remember seeing the video for "Disappointed" on regular daytime MTV.

or maybe I’m the crazy one for listening to Fodderstompf more than once (the beat’s cool!)

I like Fodderstompf! It’s not bad by any means but there’s a “limited by time and money and ability” quality to it that sullies the execution. I’m a “first album = best album” fetishist most of the time but in certain cases (Squeeze s/t) the “figuring it out” vibe makes for a less-rewarding listen

Hey, I've never skipped the "meggamix" version...

i checked out the two later compilations K.Kimberly posted and saw they both featured “Covered”, a song off the last McGeoch album that I have never listened to… wow i thought, perhaps this is a hidden gem!!!! but i am here to report back that it is NOT repeat NOT a gem and is in fact risible

Ooh 😲

"Covered" is PiL if they were Kingmaker or someone.

"Fodderstompf" is a major favourite. Just as addictive as anything off "Poptones" (8 minutes of a Wah bassline is enough to go on)

Now that's what happens when I'm typing at the same time as trying to stop my tea spilling everywhere

https://stereogum.com/2237549/the-alternative-number-ones-public-image-ltd-s-disappointed/columns

As an entry-point album (for a schoolboy knowing only / loving TIWYWTIWYG and Rise), 9 was great, and a C20th relisten held up as a successful attempt to take his writing concerns and the playing abilities of that lineup into a mersh contemporary style. That What Is Not was dire, but Don’t Ask Me had lowered expectations.

"Disappointed" is a tremendous song: when he starts babbling over the choir in the last minute, it's as moving as "Swan Lake/Death Disco."

listening to the 1989 live set on the "public image is rotten" box

seeing pil on this tour was my first live show (I was 14 - they were my favourite band and bizarrely they played an all-ages gig near my school, still feels like weird providence vibes)

anyway it is a slippery era - the only Levene-era songs that get a whirl are the first single and This Is Not A Love Song - I definitely remember in the 80s wondering how bands had managed to forget what made them special (the answer is chasing airplay in an increasingly corporate musical landscape I guess)

it is a good energetic slightly funky pop/rock show - none of the songs are too rhythmically straight-up, John McGeoch usually finds something interesting to do - but they definitely sit in some awkward space between arty and crowd-pleasing - which I enjoy! the awkwardness

it is a pretty credentialled band! Bruce Smith! John McGeoch! serious post-punk firepower - but Lydon's voice aside (and even that is nowhere near as potent as it was) - it is hard to see it as the same project as <1983, maybe there are elements I am overlooking? certainly a few years ago I wouldn't have considered that This Is What You Want had any compositional links to Flowers of Romance

I like this stuff but it is always kinda contested - in my MIND - it can't help but feel anodyne relative to what they were up to only a few years prior - it reminds me a bit of the Saints - first three albums legendary artistic statement - then Chris Bailey carries on making often perfectly nice music under the Saints name but it is palpably not the same band and perhaps the later music would be overall better-regarded if it weren't attached to the "brand"

anyway just thinking out loud - after spending some time with Momentary Lapse of Reason recently I think my new vibe is finding pleasure in bands' compromised 80s incarnations

oh and I was kind of surprised to see that their #6 Spotify song was Seattle - a song I like a lot, and maybe I can hear some sort of through-line between Levene's amazing playing on Poptones and McGeoch's lovely cascading guitar figure on Seattle

"Discounting Plastic Box for being more of a box set, Greatest Hits So Far was their one high profile compilation... there are two more-cheapo comps (Gold and Rise: The Collection) which both have kind of weird track listings... I dunno, maybe they work upon listening."

I bought Greatest Hits: So Far back in the mid-1990s, and I remember thinking that the title was optimistic. I have a childhood memory of seeing the video for "Rise", but having no idea who sang it, and then many years later when I got on the internet I found out it was PiL. I also found out that "For America" was by Red Box. Two little mysteries solved by Altavista. I vaguely remember that one of the songs was in Wild Orchid. I'm going to google that. No, apparently not. But the soundtrack does have "Promised Land" by the Mark One version of Underworld. Perhaps I was thinking of that.

I remember playing Quake with Greatest Hits in the CDROM drive. "Careering" fits the game surprisingly well. I bought the albums on CD gradually, including a re-release of Metal Box that came on CD in a little tin with some really cheap foam as padding. My recollection is that the first album was John Lydon's version of McCartney, e.g. he wanted something in the shops as quickly as possible so he could declare his independence. The second album was awesome. Flowers of Romance was at the very least interesting. The Paris record was a waste of time. This is What You Want started and ended well. I remember hearing "Order of Death" in Hardware, and it's apparently the end credits music for the remake of System Shock that came out a couple of years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjIV_WiU34M

I also bought Album, and I had no desire to go any further. My understanding is that everything that follows sounds like Album but with worse tunes. To this day I have to be reminded that 9 exists. It's odd how some bands have a consistent member who isn't a musician - I'm thinking of The Fall - who nonetheless manage to produce a string of musically interesting albums. And yet Lydon apparently made Psycho's Path by himself on a laptop so perhaps he is musically gifted after all. He must have an enormous musical schwanstucker! That goes without saying.

"Ig maud blip", that's what the monster says in the novelisation of Young Frankenstein when he tries to sing "putting on the ritz". That was one of the few books we had in the house when I was a kid, so I read it a lot. Ig maud blip. It's strange to think of Public Image Ltd being a thing in the United States. Lydon had a militantly British singing voice and the US had its own set of punk icons.

anyway just thinking out loud - after spending some time with Momentary Lapse of Reason recently I think my new vibe is finding pleasure in bands' compromised 80s incarnations

Easily done there - it's the Floyd's Balearic beat/Chris Rea album

I did have a lot of love for Happy/9-era, it's a period that interested me a lot as a teen because it all seemed very unacknowledged, but it's been a good while since I've heard those albums in full so relistens await.

strange as it is Ashley, but Album, Happy?, and 9 were the band’s commercial peak in the US. In summer 1989 there was even a PIL, New Order, and Sugarcubes joint tour of American outdoor amphitheaters, with rotating headliners. wish I’d gone!

schoolboy knowing only / loving TIWYWTIWYG and Rise

oops i mean Order Of Death first there

xxp those albums seem like the perfect encapsulation of the poppy bush interzone

I also bought Album, and I had no desire to go any further. My understanding is that everything that follows sounds like Album but with worse tunes. To this day I have to be reminded that 9 exists

Album doesn't sound like its two immediate follow-ups: it doesn't sound like anything else, not even contemporaneous Laswell productions. The follow-ups sound like INXS.

omigod I'm watching Marty Supreme as I wrote the last post and...."Order of Death" pops up.

Seattle and The Body do not sound like INXS c’mon Fred

The brittle funk? They sure do. And I meant my analogy as a compliment.

inxs were more melodic

That's true, though I can imagine Hutchence wailing through "Disappointed."

closer to Max Q than INXS

musically I hear it, vocally no, which is what I assume Alfred meant

Yup

anyway I had the same experience most of us probably did, which is that I liked Happy and 9 when they came out, then deciced they sucked, and now I appreciate them fine for what they are. And even though the newer PIL albums were pretty cool on first listen, I find myself listening to Happy and 9 more than I ever listen to them (I still listen to Album more than any of them)

Everything up to and including Album, which sounds better to me all the time, even aspects I don't always love (Vai's shredding at points for inst) I can at least appreciate in a "wow you are really going for it huh?" way

I've tried with everything after & on paper that band should be great but...eh Some of the reunion stuff hasn't been too bad, some of it is just awful though

This thread also inspired me to pull out Plastic Box which is such a frustrating thing becuz it never can decide if it wants to be a solid career overview or a collection of alternate mixes/rarities and ends up settling on "the records but the songs are out of sequence"