Public Image Limited Part 3.

When guitarist, Keith Levene (I think) said that ‘Flowers Of Romance’ was “probably the least commercial album ever delivered to a record company” he was wrong. But ‘Flowers’ is difficult, even by PIL standards.

Apart from John Lydon’s lyrics and unique vocals the stand-out features of the first two PIL albums were Jah Wobble’s Dub-inspired heavy-as-lead bass and Keith Levene’s sharper-than-a-jagged-piece-of-metal guitar.

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If Public Image Limited’s first album (see ABON 0134) helped kick start the Post Punk phenomenon, then their second album, ‘Metal Box’, demonstrated at length and in depth how rich a territory Post Punk could be.

The first album had combined Dub Reggae bass and Can-like Krautrock guitar sensibilities and sounds to create a new music that was more creatively experimental than Punk. As wonderful and ground-breaking as that album was, particularly on stand-out tracks ‘Public Image’ and ‘Annalisa’, it was also a fairly one-dimensional - and short – affair. Almost as if PIL were too awed by what they’d discovered to be able to develop the sound further or laterally beyond that initial creative breakthrough.

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Johnny Rotten, aka John Lydon, is such a colourful, controversial and out-spoken character that it’s not surprising that so much has been written about him. But nine times out of ten what’s written about him completely ignores, or even seems to deny, the fact that, underneath all the media hype and silliness - admittedly often created by Lydon himself - there lays an underrated genuine musical genius. How else can you explain the fact that Lydon was a key character in four - count ‘em - of the most remarkable albums of the past 50 years?

Everyone of course, is aware of ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ by the Sex Pistols. But what is often over-looked is that after he left the Pistols, he produced with his new band, Public Image Limited (PIL), another three phenomenal and phenomenally influential albums, ‘Public Image’, ‘Metal Box’ and ‘Flowers Of Romance’ between 1978 and 1981.

PIL was quite a different outfit to the Pistols.

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Part 2 of don’t-turn-around-but-the-future-of-music-is-standing-right-behind-you. In Germany. As we meet Faust, the second of the Krautrock quartet (along with Neu, Can and Kraftwerk) who grabbed ‘Rock’ music by the lapels in the early 1970′s, gave it a good shoeing and invented the future without many of us even noticing at the time. (See ABON 0003 for Part 1).

‘Pain’ is actually the closest Faust ever got to a conventional song and, by their standards is pretty mainstream.  Half song. Half drone. Half exquisite meditation on the meaning of being. Half dentist drill. 100% genius.

Apparently it’s all about the self-loathing and self-doubt created by suddenly having serious money for the first time after Faust signed to the Virgin Label. But for me it’s much more universal than that. Touching on the need to remain self-critical and never take yourself too seriously if you are fortunate enough to become more successful in life. In that conext, guitar-as-dentist’s-drill self-applied to the ego on a regular basis is the perfect - and perfectly beautiful – metaphor.    

Released 1973.

Available on the album ‘Faust IV’: Amazon