Public Image Ltd

Formation

Public Image Ltd was formed in June 1978 by John Lydon, who had left the Sex Pistols that January. He brought in Keith Levene on guitar, his school friend Jah Wobble on bass and Jim Walker, a Canadian student who had answered a Melody Maker advertisement, on drums. The name came from Muriel Spark's novel The Public Image, and the Ltd was added when the company was incorporated in July 1978. Simon Reynolds wrote that Lydon chose it to suggest both a rock group run as a corporation and egos kept on a tight leash.

The first single, Public Image, was cut in mid-July at Advision and reached number nine in the UK after its release on 13 October. Reynolds called it Lydon's post-Pistols mission statement.

First Issue and Metal Box

Public Image: First Issue came out on Virgin on 8 December 1978. The band had spent its budget before the record was finished, so the last three songs were made at Gooseberry Sound, a cheap reggae studio. It opens with the nine-minute Theme and closes with the dub-heavy Fodderstompf. Sounds gave it two stars, and Warner Bros. judged it too uncommercial for America, where it was not released until 2013. Stuart Berman later wrote in Pitchfork that its heavy stompers anticipated the Jesus Lizard and Slint.

Walker left in early 1979, and the next record was made in separate sessions with a succession of drummers: David Humphrey, Richard Dudanski, Martin Atkins and, on some tracks, Levene and Wobble themselves. Lydon said much of it was improvised, and that the band had to sneak into studios after other bands went home. Death Disco reached number 20 after its release in June 1979 and was retitled Swan Lake for Metal Box, released on 23 November 1979. It came as three 45 rpm 12-inch records in a metal film canister designed by Dennis Morris, with 60,000 pressed. A conventional double album, Second Edition, followed in February 1980. NME placed it second among the albums of 1979, and Reynolds called it a near-perfect record that reinvents and renews rock. Poptones is one of the tracks picked out in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Flowers of Romance and after

Wobble left in 1980. The Flowers of Romance (1981) was made by Lydon and Levene with Atkins on drums and Nick Launay co-producing. It leaned on percussion, tape loops and effects, and reached number 11 in the UK. Levene called it probably the least commercial record ever delivered to a record company. Kurt Cobain put it on a handwritten list of his fifty favorite albums.

By 1984 Levene, Wobble and Walker had all left, and Lydon was the only constant member. This Is Not a Love Song in 1983 gave the band its biggest hit, number five in the UK, and was re-recorded for This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get (1984). For Album (1986), Bill Laswell produced a cast of session players including Steve Vai, Tony Williams and Ginger Baker, and the single Rise reached number 11. The group made further albums until That What Is Not in 1992, then paused until Lydon reformed it in 2009 with Lu Edmonds, Bruce Smith and Scott Firth. This Is PiL (2012) was its first studio album in twenty years, and End of World appeared in 2023.

Legacy

NME wrote in 1999 that the band was arguably the first post-rock group. Liars, Nirvana, Massive Attack, U2 and the Melvins are among those who have cited it, and Aaron Hemphill of Liars called Flowers of Romance a forgotten classic in the Guardian. Both First Issue and Metal Box are in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Mojo's Andrew Perry wrote that the freeform early records left punk militants baffled but have come to define the experimentalist essence of post-punk.