Public Image Ltd 1st album

Listening to the first Public Image Ltd album all the way through in honour of Keith Levene. I probably haven’t done this in 40 years. A few thoughts. The opening track (posted here) is actually one of the most oppressive pieces of music I’ve ever heard. It’s almost impossible to overstate how shocking it was in 1978. The length of it, the intensity of the sound, the absolute commitment to relentless misery. The bass was deeper than anything heard on a rock record before. Of course it’s easy to see that Wobble had adapted it from dub but most rock fans didn’t listen to dub in 1978. Similarly, the heavily flanged guitar. Now we know it’s a flanger pedal – since it became so overused by every guitar player who wanted to sound ‘modern’ in the wake of this – but then it sounded like some horrible alien was torturing the guitar. There were no real precedents for this. Lydon’s howling in pain remains archly English, underlined by his final pronouncement: “terminal boredom”. That anyone would want to make a record like this, and then put it out as track one, side one of your debut album. Surely there had been no more definite declaration of intent since “Black Sabbath” kicked off “Black Sabbath”, the first album by…Black Sabbath. But scary as that was, it was a cartoon scaryness. This is just grim: staring into the void until you get bored. Terminally. When the album came out, Lydon got a lot of flak for “Religion” – his unaccompanied poem attacking the Roman Catholic church. It wasn’t good poetry, it was unnecessarily offensive etc etc. At this distance it seems like a pretty valid commentary. Lydon hates the Catholic church and all that it stands for with extraordinary venom. He makes that abundantly clear and, as someone brought up in the Catholic church, he surely has every right to state his opinion. The music that lurches in to accompany the poem is angular and lopsided, almost Beefheartian, but where Beefheart lopes and glides, this stabs and slashes. It’s nasty music. The intensity is brought to a peak with “Annalisa” – the closest this album gets to straight rock music. The riff and driving drums might be off The Stooges “Fun House” but the bass is so deep it constantly threatens to upend the track. Lydon relates the horrifying tale of a 15 year old girl who was starved to death by her parents who were convinced she was possessed by a demon. Back then, my friends and I would revel in the ‘heaviness’ of this track, something we could relate to and enjoy, but now it just sounds frankly terrifying. It fills the room with an evil energy and it is really quite a relief when it’s over. Over on Side 2, the single “Public Image” has been overpraised lately by ageing critics grateful for something they can wholeheartedly enjoy and recommend. Don’t be fooled. It may have a pretty tune but it’s still “paranoia you can dance to” – to quote John Peel’s memorable phrase. “Low Life” and “Attack” slip past like a pair of half finished demos, and then there’s “Fodderstompf”. This presented quite a problem at the time, perhaps not unlike Elvis Presley singing “Old Shep”. Did him singing it make this maudlin old ballad rock’n’roll? Did Lydon and Wobble being risibly silly screeching “we only wanted to be loved” in a studio for seven minutes constitute “post-punk” (whatever that was)? Time has been remarkably kind to “Fodderstompf”. The actual track was way ahead of its time. A very catchy bass line endlessly repeated over a slightly phased disco beat. Apparently it became a camp hit at Studio 54 with drag queens singing along with it at the top of their voices. In itself, this might be the most relevant thing about this record. Looked at another way, it’s shameless padding: a bunch of drunken druggies armed with a major label budget run out of ideas. Never mind. This album changed the landscape of British music. It’s very much a matter of opinion whether it was a good or a bad thing. Myself, I doubt if I will ever feel the need to listen to it again. But I’m glad it’s there.