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?)

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"