Track Listing

1. Theme
2. Religion I
3. Religion II
4. Annalisa
5. Public Image
6. Low Life
7. Attack
8. Fodderstompf

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22825 in Music
• Brand: PUBLIC IMAGE LTD.
• Released on: 1996-03-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .18 pounds

Album Description
U.S. only 180-gram pressing of the 1985 album from John Lydon and his PiL mates. Produced by Bill Laswell, this was as close to commercial as Lydon would ever get. Includes the hit 'Rise'.

Customer Reviews

Never Mind The Sex Pistols, Here's John Lydon's Real Legacy
Let it not be forgotten just how villified John Lydon was when Public Image Ltd emerged in the immediate post-punk era. Already despised by the press/public, Lydon (the face of Punk) was at this point also copping the derision of hardcore punks who labelled him a sell-out amid the messy break-up of the Sex Pistols. Which makes PiL's debut album all the more remarkable. While Steve Jones and Paul Cook were sticking with Malcolm McLaren as he bilked the Sex Pistols moniker beyond parody point, and Sid Vicious was inching ever closer to his ignoble and inevitable death, it was Lydon who managed to reinvent himself in the full glare of the public, with an album that sounds nothing like "Never Mind The Bollocks" but is equally powerful - due primarily to the expert musicianship that surrounded Lydon's lyrical/vocal broadsides, courtesy of ex-Clash guitarist Keith Levene, novice bassist Jah Wobble and drummer Jim Walker. The insidious sparsity of PiL's first album has an aural menace that contrasts with the guitar wall-of-sound that was the Pistols' trademark. Comprised mostly of short, punchy anti-pop numbers, Lydon is at his most cathartic, tearing into the media in the classic single "Public Image" ("You never listen to a word that I said/You only seen me for the clothes that I wear"), "Bourgeois Anarchist" Malcolm McLaren in "Low Life" ("Egomaniac traitor/You never did understand/You fell in love with your ego/It did not fit into plan") and Christian hypocrisy in the venomous "Religion II." But the album is bookended by longer, improvisional "songs" which anticipate "Metal Box" - the opening "Theme" is a lengthy, steady-paced torrent of doom, with bass and shrieking guitars and Lydon alternating between fiendish cackles and anguished screams ("I wish I could die"). But nothing compares to the jaw-droppingly-weird improvisational closer "Fodderstompf" - 8 minutes of Wobble's disco-dub beat with the band in Silly Voice mode, muttering away cynically and nonsensically (and intoning "We only wanted to be loved" over and over again in Gollumspeak). If the album as a whole is not quite as satisfying as most of its parts (the spoken-word "Religion I" is superfluous), it was to be expected for a debut effort. By and large, this is an above-average starting point for the adventurous and underrated PiL.

Great first album
According to Lydon most of the songs on this album were meant to be recorded by the Sex Pistols,but the other members,along with McClaren,thought the songs were too controversial. Ironic,eh?

My personal favorites are Public Image,Religion 1&2,and Annalisa. Religion 1&2 in particular are brilliant because of the stand that Lydon takes against the Catholic Church.Lydon grew up in a Catholic family and you can really feel his anger towards the church in the lyrics.

PiL were one of the best post punk bands in the 1980's and they have been sorely overlooked by people lately. I feel that they are just as important as Joy Division,in the sense that PiL influenced a ton of other bands. For me, they opened my eyes to a bunch of different styles of music from punk to funk.This is a great album by a great band.

And the Best Punk Album of the Year goes to...
This is the best PIL album, hands down. I go so far as to actuallybelieve it to be a better album than any of Lydon's efforts with theSex Pistols. It starts slow and steady with 'Theme', then goes into rant with 'Religion I and II'. The Religion songs, as legend goes, deals with an incident when Lydon's mother was living her last moments on earth. Her final request was to have a priest beside her when the moment finally came so Johnny, leaving his mother's side, goes out in search of a priest and when he finally finds one, the priest is getting smashed in a pub. The drunken priest returns with Johnny to his dying mother, but alas, she's already dead. Perhaps, this incident fuels a lot of the anger and cynicism on this album. In any case, I only relate the priest incident because people who do have problems with this album have them with the Religion songs. By that same token, people who really love this album, including moi, love it because of these same songs. Yet 'Religion' is only icing on the cake. 'Annalisa', 'Public Image', and 'Attack', all have Lydon's characteristic wailing which no doubt made them great, live, punk-rock performances once upon a time. And who can deny oneself the pleasure of 'LowLife'? Before there was 'Loser' there was 'LowLife', a much better song to sing, er, scream, along to. 'Fodderstompf' pays "homage" to the Beatles, paying homage as only punks can. When I first heard this album at my friend's place, the experience stayed with me. I kept hearing the music in my head (I still do) and I had to have the album. Unfortunately, I did not know it was an import and I scavenged every CD rack, always coming up empty, until I went to Amsterdam and found it in a CD shop. When I play this album, I play it at full volume (damn you neighbors!), deriving the same pleasure I get when I listen to music by the Velvet Underground or Sonic Youth. END