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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Tricky’s becoming one of those Great British musical anomalies/geniuses. After rapping with Massive Attack on their first album in 1991 he could easily have become a bit-part player in their success. Instead he’s released a string of albums and singles that are characterised by dense, layered music and his unique whispering-style singing and an almost pathological desire to take risks. Continually pushing the boat out into unchartered waters that most successful musicians wouldn’t dream off. It doesn’t always work but when it does he produces breathtakingly powerful pieces that sound like no one else. And he now looks like one of the most significant artists to emerge from the Massive Attack/Portishead/’Bristol Sound’ phenomenon.

The original ‘C’Mon Baby’ is from ‘Knowle West Boy’ which is another album that was inexplicably (unless I’m missing something?) left off the 2010 Mercury Prize short-list.

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Everyone is at least vaguely aware that Rock’n'Roll in the ’50′s was about rebellion. But it wasn’t just about that. R’n'R was also a liberating force. The advent of R’n'R seemed to inspire a horde of people to believe that they could make music and even release a single or two. People who in a previous generation would not have felt confident or skilled enough to take the plunge. So, whilst the ’50′s R’n'R boom created many of the most famous names ever in rock music, it also spawned a whole generation of recording artists who recorded one or two brilliant singles and then disappeared.

Now Punk in 1976 and 1977 was also about rebellion. But to my mind Punk wasn’t just about rebellion either. Early Punk, the early spirit of Punk, was all about refusing to accept the idea that you needed to be musically expert or well trained or well produced in order to create great music. Punk, before mohicans and tartan took over and turned it into a fashion, made creating your own record a legitimate aspiration for anyone who could hold a guitar or a microphone and (ideally) had an idea. And as a result a horde of young people began to put out a single or two – often a brilliant single or two – and then disappear without trace.

So I’d argue that R’n'R and Punk had far more in common with each other than either had with anything that happened in the intervening 20 years. They had very similar values. They were both brilliant cleansing and empowering agents. And I’d even go so far as to say that musically they were quite similar as well.

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