#469 - Public Image Ltd. - Metal Box

This album is shit. Despite the fact that it showcases musicians who seem to be held in high regard, it sounds like a completely amateur attempt at avant-garde music. Aside from the bass lines (perhaps the only thing that sounds relatively competent), the sound just sounds garbled, random, and erratic. Maybe, this was the point. Whatever. It sounds awful. Every song seems like a carbon copy of the one that precedes it. “Oh hey, let’s get together and make random noises with our guitars, keyboards, etc. and put an annoying dance drum beat to it. That’ll sound great. People will love it.” Some people did. For me, I would rather listen to Smashmouth and that is saying a lot.

Honestly, it’s a testament to my high tolerance for pain that I was able to get all the way through this album and, like most albums thus far, I tried to give it another go, but I just couldn’t do it. This album is utterly unbearable. John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotton) and his ridiculous bellow made me want to stop listening to music. Again, the drums (aside from being something out of a poor man’s rave) seem haphazard and off-beat. None of the instruments and their respective players seem like they are on the same page. Ugh. I’m done. I can’t even pretend I want to write about this album. It sucks. If you’re one of those people, like the writers of some reviews I read, that praise this album, then you need to have your head examined.

The only redeeming thing about this album was its original packaging. Pretty inventive idea with the whole metal box thing. I also read how supposedly the band wanted to release it in a sandpaper casing, so that when placed next to other records, it would ruin them. Funny.

This is also humorous. Album is still shit though. Wow, just listen to the same riff over and over again.

-d.

Johnny Rotten may be responsible for some of the most overrated music in history. He made a career of being a poser, he never really had interest in the punk scene and only got involved because Malcolm McLaren convinced him he could meet girls and get paid. The idea that the Sex Pistols started punk is offensive. The Stooges and MC5 were playing punk rock in Detroit back in the late 60’s. So what does a guy who has been falsely labeled as a genius who created a genre do to follow up? In Mr. Lydon’s case the answer was to pack himself full of chemicals and wank out a waste of vinyl.

Let me start with the positive. Jah Wobble is a great bass player and influenced a generation of British post-punk groups to experiment with reggae and stylistic changes. That’s it. Everything else here is garbage. Wobble quit over how terrible this music was. Yet, just like the Pistols, the hipsters and posers bought into it and now Danny and I have to listen to it. Assholes.

There isn’t a single guitar part on the record. I don’t mean that there isn’t any guitar, just that instead of playing a riff of chord the guitarist spends the entirety of the album playing completely unconnected noise. The vocals….. Good lord. Off key hollering of senseless words. It’s like the Doors with even less restraint. At least the bass and drums are playing together, even though things are painfully sloppy. On “Bad Baby” the un-credited drummer misses the kick at least five times. As a bassist, I would stab any percussionist that did that. I mean, the whole thing is a sickening mess. My four year old daughter makes up more entertaining songs on the toilet.

“Albatross” may be the worst opener of all time. It honestly has no redeeming values whatsoever. “Socialist” has some moderately interesting computer sounds and benefits from a lack of vocals. There is nothing here I can point to and say “I see what they were trying to get at on this one!”. Reading some of the positive reviews of this album I found online they referred to its experimentation and how they didn’t stick to the standard conventions of pop music. The problem is, those are conventions for a reason. I appreciate not wanting to sound like every other record, but to go to the extreme of becoming Dadaist and essentially spitting in the face of quality is just a lazy attempt at being edgy. There are no boundaries being pushed when you don’t toe the line by at least using whatever talents you may have. I can’t help but imagine what this would have been like if a better group of musicians had taken a stab at it.

Ironically, Rotten was chosen for the Pistols in part because of his “I Hate Pink Floyd” shirt, yet he made a record more pompous and plodding than Roger Waters could have ever dreamed up. I just keep coming back to one word: lazy. This is a man who had chosen to disavow his legacy grasping at whatever he could find, but not wanting to put the effort into making it work. Once again, I find I’m actually angered by a performance on the list. Just a complete waste.

-tfm