I’ve had a right old weird experience with the new Public Image Ltd album: End of World.
The full album was released on 11th August 2023, and we knew it was coming. PiL (Public Image Ltd) pre-released three tracks from the album beforehand, Penge, Hawaii and Car Chase. Hawaii featured heavily in their (sadly) unsuccessful bid to be Ireland’s Eurovision entry for 2023. (Had they won, it would have been a spectacle, I’m sure.)
So I kind of knew what was coming on the album, I just didn’t expect it to knock me off my feet so hard!! And not in a good way, either. Well to start with…
The First Cut is Always the Deepest
I’d listened to Penge and to Hawaii before buying the album. I’d given Car Chase a miss, as I wanted to wait until the full album was out. Sometimes, that’s not totally crazy, as some artists do weave a thread through their tracks and I wanted to wait to see if any existed (spoiler alert: it doesn’t).
Penge I like very much. Almost on first listen I was drawn to that – so much so I actually did think Penge was by the sea. Of course it isn’t, it’s a suburb of London. I realised that on second listen and it made me laugh. Naughty John.
Hawaii isn’t bad either – dedicated to Lydon’s late wife Nora, it’s a lovely little forget-me-not.
August 11th arrived, I duly made my purchase. Then I listened to the whole album.
First impression: shite.
The Worst Album. Ever.
Shite was the first word that came out of my mouth. Along with: this is the worst album from PiL I’ve ever heard! I gave it the benefit of the doubt and listened to the whole thing once (to kind of give it a chance). Musically, it’s all over the place. Technically it’s excellent. Lydon’s voice is up to his usual standard, it’s well produced and the band plays flawlessly.
But I wasn’t keen.
Shite
The Rigor Mortist
Intermission
Off we go on a tangent:
I’ve been a PiL fan for many years, I’m familiar with their music and like it a lot. Technically speaking, the current line-up is my personal favourite; Bruce, Lu and Scott are at the top of their musical games.
Lydon’s a different kettle of fish. I’ve been a massive fan of his (for longer than I have PiL) for a good number of years. It’s clear to me that John Lydon was put on this Earth to have opinions, and opinions he has indeed. Despite the many years I’ve been a fan, although I still to this day do not know what to make of him.
Obviously I don’t know him personally, like most of the world I’m only aware of his public side, the side that he chooses to present to us mere mortals. Given that this side flaps around like a pair of wet pyjama bottoms on a washing line on a windy day, it’s actually quite difficult to get the measure of the man. I suspect that this is exactly what he wants and is his planned course through life. This is, of course, highly amusing and just makes me like and admire him all the more.
The problem I have with him is; I can’t make out whether he is a very smart man, or whether he’s actually an opinionated idiot.
None of which detracts from the fact that I love his style of singing and he is an excellent songwriter and lyricist. A fact that has been demonstrated many times over.
And We’re Back
Normally, if I’ve listened to an album, or listened to tracks that I’ve considered to be below my “high standards of musical excellence” I probably won’t listen to it again (or at least not for a long time, anyway).
But in this case – just because it’s PiL (and we have “history”) – I thought I’d give it another listen.
The Second Chance Hotel
More often than not I’ll give albums that don’t immediately click a second listen. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I was quite surprised that in the case of End of World, a second listen was just what it needed. I can’t explain it, but a few tracks that I didn’t think were that great the first time, suddenly became just that little bit better… and better… and better! I have no idea why, but that second pass seemed to make the music, the lyrics sound much better – and much more like a Public Image album.
Encouraged by that, every listen afterwards just served to improve my experience.
Oh!
The inspiration for this post came from pass number four. By the time I’d listened to the whole album four times, I was wondering why I’d disliked so much in the first place! There isn’t a single track on the album that I didn’t like (now), and having carefully listened to the lyrics, managed to pick up a few little nuances that I hadn’t previously noticed. One such nuance presented itself when I was cleaning my bathroom (I wear headphones and listen to music to make the onerous task go quicker). That actually was an “Oh” moment.
In a pleasing outcome, these nuances that I’d picked up on were confirmed by (or rather, hinted at) by Lydon himself in a very helpful podcast explaining each track on the album and the history of it.
In conclusion
This was for sure a lesson learnt. Especially for me when I’m still unsure of who John Lydon/Johnny Rotten is, 46 (ish) years after I’d become aware of him in the first place. What I should have done in hindsight (which is a wonderful thing, by the way), was to listen more carefully at the outset and reserve judgement until I’ve put the work in to fully listen to and fully comprehend the entire album. For me, PiL have not put out an album that I haven’t loved. I should take that knowledge and roll with it!
As far as I can recall, Sparks is the only band that I’ve ever had to do this for. Sparks lyrics are beautifully crafted works of art written by Ron Mael and need to be listened to fully – and several times over – until comprehension and understanding reveal themselves to me.
Beforehand, I hadn’t considered a Lydon lyric to be all that difficult to decipher. Now, realisation (or is it enlightenment) has dawned and in future, I’ll need to re-evaluate that opinion and place John Lydon up in the ranks of premium lyricists like Ron Mael.
The upshot is, it serves me right for underestimating Mr. Lydon (although I still have no clue who the man is), something that will not (knowingly) happen again.
P.S.
It took me quite a while to write this post. I started the first draft in August 2023. It’s now the middle of December and It’s finally ready for posting. It’s taken almost exactly four months of backwards and forwards, to-ing and fro-ing in my brain before I could properly articulate some words around the mysterious John Lydon and his latest offering to world music.
Why? No idea. It started off as an “I don’t like this album” post. Then it turned into a “hang on, there might be something here” post and finally ended up as an “I love this album” and having a new-found (after 46 years) respect for John Lydon.
Life’s strange.