"I will not be treated as property,"
John Lydon howled on "Public Image," the first single
Public Image Ltd. released in October 1978. While the group would take a dizzying number of creative twists and turns over the next four decades as they evolved from dub-obsessed experimentalists to a polished and pop-savvy alternative rock band, the one thing that remained constant was the voice of
Lydon -- angry, theatrical, dripping with venom, sometimes curiously witty, and always overflowing with passion, even if it was usually expressed in negative terms.
PiL was his vehicle, and while he may have had valued collaborators, there was never any mistaking that this was
Lydon's show and his message.
Lydon's two years as Johnny Rotten in
the Sex Pistols have burned deeper into the pop culture consciousness, yet
PiL has proven to be his definitive musical statement, and with 2018's
The Public Image Is Rotten: Songs from the Heart, he's offered a deep dive into the ongoing project's history. Timed to coincide with a similarly titled documentary about
PiL,
The Public Image Is Rotten is a massive five-CD box set that takes a different approach to the band's catalog than the 1999 collection Plastic Box. While Plastic Box offered a hefty summary of
PiL's recorded history,
The Public Image Is Rotten starts with a disc collecting the A-sides to 18 of their singles. Disc two offers nine B-sides, two rare tracks, and six numbers from radio sessions for the BBC (including three outstanding takes of material from Metal Box recorded in 1979). Disc three is devoted to extended mixes that appeared on 12" singles and dance-oriented releases, which presents some overlap with songs on disc one (though anyone likely to pony up for this set is likely to be interested in the minutiae). Disc four contains previous unreleased versions of 14 songs, the most curious being a faithful instrumental cover of
Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir." Finally, disc five documents a 1989 live show in New York City, as
PiL was touring in support of the album
9. As if this weren't enough, the package also includes two DVDs of television appearances, live footage, and music videos, as well as a full-color hardcover book filled with press clippings and details on the recordings. While devoted fans will appreciate the rich audio and the wealth of hard-to-find material on
The Public Image Is Rotten (as well as the fact it folds in recordings from
PiL's post-1999 editions), this is a less coherent listen than Plastic Box. That collection's chronological sequencing made it easy to follow the group's stylistic evolution, while the thematic nature of these five discs repeatedly takes us back and forth through their history. That said,
The Public Image Is Rotten presents a thorough and uncompromised portrait of
Lydon's work with
PiL, and anyone interested in the many contexts he's created for his unique vision will find plenty to take in. ~ Mark Deming