Public Image Ltd is John Lydon’s band after the Sex Pistols that is much more musically astute and innovating . Some of it you’ll listen to you’ll “think my god, were they trying to sound as weird and bad as possible but accidentally made something quite interesting?”. The opening track Theme is pretty much 11 minutes of random noise. It doesn’t even sound like it was rehearsed or that no one other than the drummer and dub bassist extraordinaire Jah Wobble had any sorta music training at all. Like they were in the studio and someone hit record and the producer went ’oh shit! Do something!’ John Lydon just wails “and I wish I could die” guitarist Keith Levine seems to just be playing random chords when he isn‘t doing random solos, what I’m describing would sound like a godawful noise to some but to other people like me the whole thing really just grabs you by the balls and seems to be the whole ‘fuck you’ attitude the Pistols were going for in their entire career successful achieved in one track. As I mentioned the bassist Jah Wobble is an great bass player, he pretty much the person who made me want to say fuck guitar playing I’m going to be a bass player, and I was and still am. This was not only the first post punk album I’d ever heard but also the first album were the bass did not take backseat to the guitar but went up front and made it’s own seat. Singer John Lydon doesn’t so much sing on the album as he does yell angrily at who ever pisses him off whether it be the Catholic Church or former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren (Public Image, Low Life), yet he manages to do so with quite intelligent lyrics so he doesn’t come off as overly whiny. Religion I is a spoken word poem by Lydon about the corruption and needlessness of the Church while Religion II is the same only in song form, and is the first technical song on the album. The lyrics themselves could be the best on the album if not of the entire band’s career.

Stained glass windows keep the cold outside
While the hypocrites hide inside
With the lies of statues in their minds
Where the Christian religion made them blind
Where they hide and prey to the God of a bitch spelled backwards is dog
Not for one race, one creed, one world
But for money
Effective
Absurd

The track is held from taking off into batshit random jam session by Jah’s ominous bass line. Low Life as mentioned before was written about Malcolm McLaren, for those of you who don’t have any idea that is he was the Sex Pistols manager who like to take credit for other people’s ideas and talks a lot of bullshit. That being said Low Life is a poisonous attack on him, Lydon calls him a “bourgeois anarchist”, “ego-maniac traitor”, “ignorant selfish” for those of you who are 1 IQ point above having to mandatorly wear a helmet when playing with your legos John Lydon hates Malcom and has often stated it numerous times in his career. If I were Malcom I would feel humbled that 2 of the best tracks off a ground breaking album like First Issue were attacks on me with great music, I’d probably brag about it to all my friends and become the president of PiL fan club just to piss Lydon off so I could get more good material out of him. Another track which was probably written about if not directly inspired by is Public Image. It is also probably the most accessible song on the album with amazing dub bass with guitar that works. The track musically still sounds like it’s from another planet, I’m still waiting for more songs to sound like this in todays music. But in saying that if First Issue sounds like jam music from Mars then Metal Box might as well be from another universe entirely.

Fav tracks:
Theme
Religion II
Public Image
Low Life
Annalisa

They really pushed the experimental tag with this one. I don’t even know If I’d call this shit post punk, it’s more like post music. I usually don’t quote Gwen Stefani songs but ’this shit is bananas’. It’s the kinda sound Thom Yorke whishes he can make while he holds a Can album in one hand and Kid A in the other. I’m serious I have never and probably will never hear something that sounds so well for lack of a better word, different. I remember one critic describing it as ‘alien dance music’, which pretty much somes it up the beats and bass lines are funky enough to hear at club just not one on Earth. The opening track Albatross is the much well educated and sophisticated cousin of the spastic Theme from First Issue. Were Theme was largely random noise Albatross is focused and has structure. The only thing that the two distant cousins have in common are they both have a great danceable groove worth bass line and both coming in at 11 minutes. As for the lyrics on the album they are largely abstract and most of the time you have no idea what the fuck Lydon is talking about something about his mother dying? I dunno. The abstract lyrics are a major contrast to First Issue’s very direct rants where the music largely took backseat. Here the music comes first and is much more precise in being weird. Swan Lake is a song revolved around Jah’s funk bass line while Lydon wails about his dying mother, or so I have read. But as mentioned you never really know what the hell he’s talking about. Radio 4 doesn’t even bother with lyrics because it’s a nice synth instrumental track. Come to think of it the whole album seems like it could’ve done well with out Lydon. It’s like they recorded the album then John showed up to the studio and they thought ‘oh yeh we have a singer, well lets just put him in there somewhere’. But maybe that’s what the album was made to sound like. Another track Poptones an extra bright diamond in the sea jewels that makes up Metal Box. Keith Levine calmly picks his guitar notes while the drums crash back and forth, and Jah’s bass is still bumping great sounds, its like he has an endless bag of good bass riffs or something. In truth I could try to describe to you the sound of the mind fuck that is Metal Box but I’d probably fail at it. Metal Box is one of those rare gems and a shit studded world. It’s more likely that Jesus will come back before something this great in experimentalism is made agian. Which for a band making an album this great is an superb accomplishment you have an album that will last the test of time and so forth but there is also one major draw back, you will never be able to make something of equal measure. And PiL never did which is why I never really bothered listening to anything after Metal Box, you can only go so high up before you have to go back down.