PUBLIC IMAGE - FIRST ISSUE @ 45

 

Released on December 8th, 1978, the debut LP from Public Image Ltd, First Issue, turns 45 years old today. After the spectacular implosion of the Sex Pistols at the beginning of the year, and encouraged by the band's debut eponymous single two months prior, punk fans were eager to see what Johnny Rotten had in store for an encore. Chances are they weren't expecting to get hit over the head with an album that kicks off with a 9 minute art-rock dirge, pleading for a death that never comes, and ends with a 7 minute disco piss-take whinging about how they "only wanted to be loved". And while it may have been dismissed by many at the time as a petulant private joke, the reality of the album was that the band were digging in their heels in order to utterly upturn the apple-cart of what punk (and pop music itself) was and could be.

PiL came into being thanks to a casual conversation between John Lydon and Keith Levene back in 1976, when they both realized that the day would soon come when they'd be on the outs with their respective bands (Sex Pistols & The Clash) and looking for new opportunities. They promised each other they'd put their heads together when that time came, and sure enough, PiL were born a couple of months after the Pistols fell to bits in January of 1978. With close friend, Jah Wobble, quickly recruited for bass, and drummer, Jim Walker, sourced via a music paper ad, the band set about inventing their music the way they imagined it should sound, as if the Pistols has actually succeeded in destroying rock 'n' roll instead of reanimating its fetid corpse.

Beginning recording in July at Virgin Records' Manor studio, the first track to emerge was the single, Public Image. I've gone into great detail on that song's single release already, so I won't repeat myself too much here. You can look it up if you want to. Suffice it to say that the song set the bar high for the rest of the album, perhaps too high. Following its completion, the next set of songs, Theme, Religion and Annalisa, were laid down at Virgin's Townhouse studio.

Theme kicks off the album with a 9 minute excruciating wall of thunderous bass, whip-cracking drums and Keith's guitar sounding like you're in a continuous auto accident with a flurry of shattered glass smashing into your face. Lydon tops it all off with his insistent wailing of "I wish I could die", though the song is not anywhere near suicidal. Ironically, there's something actually quite obstinate and life affirming about the agony being expressed and the clear indication that nothing is capable of convincing the songs protagonist to genuinely give up the ghost. Lydon has described it thus, "Didn't you ever have that feeling when you get up with a hangover, and you look at the world and think 'Count me out, I'd rather die!'?"

Religion started off as lyrics written while Lydon was on tour in the US with the Pistols. He tried showing them to the rest of the band, but they weren't interested. The idea of splitting the song into a spoken recitation followed by the full mix was another example of the LP balking at convention, refusing to pander to expectations. The song was divisive among the band members. Wobble, particularly in later years, felt the disparagement of religious belief was unfair, and he wasn't happy with the contrivances of the mix, with its radical panning of instruments and voices sounding forced. Keith always loved the track and came up with the idea of the two versions. Annalisa follows with its harrowing true life story of a young German girl starved to death by her superstitious parents, who believed she was "possessed". That wraps up the first side of the LP, while the single kicks off the second, leaving the remainder of the album to struggle towards completion.

After the first four songs were recorded, Virgin's advance dried up and the band were forced to resort to recording at Gooseberry Sound Studios, a cheap reggae studio used because Lydon knew it from the recording of some Sex Pistols demos. Lowlife, Attach and Fodderstompf were all recorded there, sounding less produced and immediate in their impact than the first half of the album. Fodderstompf, in particular, was another divisive track due to its absurdity and expedience. Jim Walker hated it, considering it a rip-off for anyone who bought the album. Keith didn't have anything to do with it. It's really all Wobble and Lydon. Built on a tape-looped drum beat & some kind of electronic squelching sound, musically it's all about Wobble's bass, which bubbles and percolates incessantly. Atop this minimalism, Lydon and Wobble exchange quips in annoying Monty Python style falsetto voices, wittering on about how they "only wanted to be loved" and how "love makes the world go 'round". At one point, Wobble lets slip the true motivation of the track, "We only wanted to finish the album with a minimum amount of effort, which we are now doing very SUCCESSFULLY!" As puerile as the humour is, if you love it, you LOVE IT! I'm in that camp, personally, and consider it the clearest harbinger of where the band would go on their landmark sophomore release, Metal Box. The formula, "slap a beat down and do weird shit on top", is sturdy and flexible and one I've utilized COUNTLESS times in the creation of my own music. The song even became an underground disco hit at NYC's infamous Studio 54, where its sentiment had an ironic appeal for the club's decadent celebrity clientele.

For the packaging of the LP, the parodying of the press begun with the tabloid newspaper style wrapping of the single was taken to another level. The record was packaged in gorgeous glossy photos of the band members, each emulating a different popular magazine cover. Lydon graces the front, with his hair a natural colour, combed and contained, all pimples covered in picture perfect foundation makeup and sporting a vacant stare that exactly captured the hollow essence of a vapid celebrity. The same is true for the rest of the band images. On the bottom of the back cover, the final indignity is printed as "Public Image Ltd would like to thank absolutely nobody. Thank you." Up yours!

With all its contrarian cantankerousness, the press had a field day ravaging the album. Sounds reviewer Pete Silverton said that the single is the "Only wholly worthwhile track on the album." He dubbed the rest of the songs as "morbid directionless sounds with Rotten's poetry running just behind it." CREEM's import reviewer dismissed the album as art-rock nonsense, comparing Lydon's singing to a rabid Yoko Ono. Yet that initial disparagement has given way to retrospective praise as the album's daring and uncompromising nature became an inspiration for future generations to push their own limits and take their own chances. It was the beginning of a process that would come to full fruition on albums like Metal Box and Flowers of Romance, albeit the latter represents something of a dead end for the intrepid musical traveller when it comes to PiL's forays into the unknown.

The album wasn't released in the US until a remastered reissue in 2013. Warner Brothers, the band's US label, felt it was unsellable and demanded the group re-record parts of it. They went back in the studio in February of 1979, but their efforts were for naught and only an alternate version of Fodderstompf emerged, used as a B-side on the Death Disco 12" single, released later that year. No other alternate recordings seem to exist, save a different mix of Annalisa, which was included on the 2018 retrospective box set, The Public Image Is Rotten. There are rumours of another song, You Stupid Person, being recorded after the single and subsequently abandoned, but only Jim Walker seems to recall it, claiming to have a cassette copy of a rough mix, but the other band members are more vague about it, and Lydon has no recollection of it at all.

As far as debut LPs go, First Issue is certainly one of the most audacious to have come from the original "punk" movement, offering numerous clear signposts for escaping out of the "Death Valley" of punk's restrictive three chord thrashing. It's a bratty bastard of an album, but it has proven to have staying power and influence well beyond the practical joke it was initially accused of embodying.