Public Image: First Issue

John Lydon is a magaT shill. Not giving him listens for royalties.

Blind album and artist. Never have I watched the clock tick down at the very end of the last track. Constantly hearing an awful vocal track that sounds like gibberish on repeat at the very end. This sucked

Schwierig anzuhören. Fällt nicht in meinen Geschmack! 2.5/10

That opening track was definitely something. I get that this was probably put on here because of its revolutionary views on religion etc (in fact it was apparently banned in Malta when it came out), but most songs were just ... noise? The screaming even sounded demonic at times. Yeah no. I listen to music to relax and have a good time. Genuinely curious to read other reviews now, like are there people out there who listen to this out of choice?

The juvenile anti-religion lyrics don't offend me, but the god awful music and vocals do. John Lydon should stick to flogging margarine and failing to qualify for Eurovision. Rating: 1/5 Playlist track: Public Image Date listened: 29/11/23

Ugh...

The opening song sounds like the soundtrack to a horror movie. My husband’s response was “make it stop!” I listened to the rest of it through headphones, which is a much more intimate experience and much harder to escape, though I desperately wanted to. Religion was interesting, as a vitriolic spoken piece. Religion II is the same thing with a drumbeat?? Come on. Public Image is a decent song, but it doesn’t save this mess of an album.

Wikipedia says the lead vocalist left the Sex Pistols to pursue a more "experimental sound." That's the nicest description I can think of for this noise. Boy was this a rough listen.

wow

I am a fan of some old punk music, and I'll be honest I didn't know who Public Image was until this review and yeah I can say, I'm a fan. This album was pretty sick but it wasn't the easiest listen.. As I've aged, my anxst and punk youth has moved on with it and I find it harder to listen/relate to punk music, that being said I tried to really listen to this album and of course, this thing focuses on government, religion, the chains of society and feeling lost in our world. I enjoyed this album for the barely living punk youth left in me, but I don't think I'd be listening to it frequently, and I'll be pretty shocked at myself if I find myself revisiting it. I just have to be honest here. My favorite track on this thing.. Eh I don't really have one.. Least favorite god.. I really didn't like the opening track, it drug on for way too long and the religion tracks after.. I needed to listen to this album when I was 16 lol I don't know.. Overall: 1.6/5

joo erittäin huono albumi. punk on jo valmiiksi mitä on ja tämä askel sen historiassa ei auta. tarvi saatana töllöttää Iso-Britannian kansalainen tollattiin.. tuonnäköiset juipit valloitti kolmasosan koko maailmasta, mitä vittua. jos suomen urhot olisi pistetty galeassin kyytiin ei tarvisi translaattoria käyttää olisi selvät sävelet arvostelut. suomea puhuisi maailma, save the language, dying language.... french is dying...... public image

Do not like his singing style, the band sounds ok

Absolutely not.

Not for me 1*

A bit rough around the edges.

Not a huge fan

Really not for me

Terrible except for first track

No, just no

- dude doesn’t like religion - we only wanted to be loved! - I really didn’t enjoy much of this at all, not one redeeming quality

I think I understand some of the ideas of the songs, but man, I really did not like listening to this. Fodderstompf made me want to claw my eyes out of my head.

Mostly insufferably boring.

This is honestly just bad. Just don’t get it. Essential Tracks: None Added to Playlist: Annalisa

Oh god I just had these guys like 5 albums ago and it was absolute garbage. This one's only 7 songs....maybe it's a bit better? Nope, still hate it.

Listening to an early maker of punk rock is neat on paper. But this album goes to show that just because you're early at something new doesn't automatically mean it's good. The only positive thing I can say about this album is that it's mercifully short overall, despite the dreadfully long song lengths. Otherwise this was an excruciating listen

I listened to album as much as I could.

Not to my taste

Ummmmm, hmmmmmm, was really open to liking this album....but....it's shit.

Never heard this album in full before, so an interesting listen considering it was made only months after sex pistols broke up. Probably wont listen to it agaon though. One for the music history books, not my ears. Had one good song though

C'est un 1 tranquille, on a vu pire mais je suis obligé de sévir

Angry white british music

Nope, fuck off.

This is the worst album we've had in quite some time, I think. Opening track is a 9 minute mess - seems like they've tried to marry punk and prog, and forgotten that the two didn't really get on. Then we have a spoken poem about religion that is about as subtle as being hit over the head by a brick, and track 3 is the same poem set to music and elongated to 3x the length. Track four would be a passable punky type song if it was half of its 6 minutes. Then 5/6/7 are all reasonable punk album tracks (the title track being the best of the bunch) before we get to a final track that has a simple hip hop style beat with some weird quiet half screaming set to it. For eight minutes. At least the album is over in 40. 1/5, title track almost gets it to a 2 but it is just unlistenable for the most part.

Ho lee hell. This first song ("Theme") is one of the worst album openers I've ever had the pleasure of enduring. Was tempted to stop the review right there... ...and so while I truly appreciate the (any) anti-religious sentiments, there's more than a bit of me that harkens back to my Leonard Cohen reviews - "oh he's a poet" yeah ok great give me the book instead - can you put some thought into the gd music? I like a lot of late 70s British alt/post-punk but this is noise for the sake of ...what? sounding aggrieved? There's almost no structure or effort or point - it's just not good. Only/notable exception is the track "Public Image" which - vocals a major aside - sounds like it could almost have fit on the Pretenders' debut; I almost actually like it. Not enough to ever listen to this again tho. 2/10 1 star.

Fome.

I can't do it, John Lydon might be a ledge, but he's no singer or musician

Shouty wanky preachy bollocks!

I'm sure it was important to the genre but yuck

I really like New Wave music from this era but this was just terrible.

Not for me.

This was made to be bad, right?

I’ve always thought John Lydon was a bit of a chancer and so this record proves. Devoid of anything worth listening to, the smartest this gets is Lydon figuring out GOD spells DOG backwards. Nice one, John.

Grating yet somehow boring. Later albums are 2 stars

Like a 6th form band trying way too hard to be arty

Awful. Unlistenable.

First song was kind of interesting until singing starts. Then hard to listen to until the end of album.

No

Lydon can fuck right off with this

Let's be honest, it's Shit really.

guy has a great voice for metal but this album was not metal

I don't really get this genre; did not finish.

Not for me!

This album is a mess and feels like an experiment that doesn't work. It's probably not helpful that I think John Lydon can go pound sand. Zero interest in this all the way down.

Best Song: Annalisa. It almost resembled something poignant or grungy. Worst Song: Religion II. I thought Religion I was bad, and then for this song they decided to play different, equally shitty, songs to each ear. Overall: This is fucking awful. Musically this obviously sounds like shit, but maybe more embarrassing is how you can tell the artists really thought they were making something politically/socially/artistically meaningful, but they came up with this grade school garbage.

It’s possible to be both angry AND tuneful. Unfortunately Johnny forgets this for the most part, rendering the majority of the album unlistenable.

John Lydon kann original nix, ausser gehörig nerven. Die Welt braucht kein einziges Tonerzeugnis mit seiner Beteiligung. Diese Platte nicht gehört zu haben, ist ein Gewinn.

~~Reviewer Pete Silverton (Sounds) said that the single is the "Only wholly worthwhile track on the album." ~~~ Well, "Low Life" isn't bad. And the bassline in "Fodderstompf" is pretty decent. But yeah, what an unrewarding listen. I've ranked a couple albums pretty low that actually have something to say. I just don't think that's any substitute for musical cunning, or melody February 19 2023

Found it more annoying than anything else.

435 albums into this and this is easily one of my least favorites so far.

Not sure what drugs this man was on when he wrote this album but judging by the album cover it’s some sort of tranquiliser. My advice to him would be stop taking it because this music is utter shite

Punk is still the worst. The music absolutely blows, but I like the theme in this one; "I wish I could die." 1 And "fuck christianity." It just gets better.

This is described as post-punk. All I can think of is that all the good ideas in punk were already done and Public Image tried this. Then the punk community decided they needed to distance themselves from the album so everyone relabeled it as it post-punk. I had to check. Yes this is in the bottom 20 rated albums. I dread the days I have to hear the ones worse than this. Scale: 5 - My absolute favorites. 4 - Albums I like. 3 - I enjoyed listening to it but wouldn't seek it out. 2 - Didn't like. 1 - Absolute shit.

I couldn't stand John Lydon in The Sex Pistols - I thought that he was a talent free fraud and poser then. Lets see how he does here. It couldn't start any worse - a dirge like rhythm with discordant guitars and random screaming - for nearly ten minutes. Next you get awful poetry that tries to be provocative but just comes over as stupid. Can it go downhill from here? - I seriously doubt it, but one never knows. They managed it - by repeating the bad poetry partly screamed, over a flat and uninspired rhythm track. At his point I gave up - it is not possible to give negative stars but if I could I would.

Putrid.

Couldn't finish it

A pretty typical British punk album in that it’s annoying and tries to be edgy but comes off lame. Don’t plan on revisiting this one. The singer sounded pretty full of himself. I don’t know the pint of including an interview in the album either. A load of bullocks. 2.1/10

A bunch of experimental music that comes off as mostly annoying noise. The title track is a departure from this and is a decent pop song in the midst of a flaming garbage dump.

5th October 2022 Listened during the day while working from home. Chilled evening. John Lydon’s band following the pistols. Not got the swagger of the pistols I’m afraid.

Could not ge through it, to screamy and talky for me.

REALLY not my thing

Not a fan, Metal Box was better.

Self indulgent shite. And I say that as a fan of JR.

Awful

Rotten

The previous album was also a post-punk that I rated 3 stars and there have also been post-punk albums I've rated 4-5 stars. Turns out, the simple rule of thumb is, the closer to punk rock a post-punk album sounds, the less I like it. This one is very close to punk rock, and I hate it.

Empty repetitive jams. Boring. "No future" for John Lydon after the Pistols.

No le doy second chance ever

Words fail me.

Q. Shit, what am I listening to? A. Nothing good. Scream or pontificate all you want, John Lydon, it won't make the album impactful or decent in any way.

Well sex pistols is decent so I hope this is too… The album opens with theme a 9 minute long sludgy epic, I mean it’s alright but I just don’t like long overblown songs at the start of albums especially with the wired screaming too. It’s just way too long if it were like 2 minutes I think I would enjoy this as an opener. Religion I is just a spoken piece it’s alright but a bit wired for the sake of it, it’s similar to the intro to you took the words right out of my mouth on meatloaf’s bat out of hell. Religion II starts cool but then turns out it’s just religion I with instrumental work and some Johnny rotten screaming, I mean at least he’s trying to be experimental in this album. Annalisa is the first “ normal song” on here it’s essentially just a 6 minute long worse version ( vocally and lyrically) of any track on never mind the bullocks, but the instrumentation is fine. Next is the sonic public image now this isn’t as good as the most of never mind the bullocks but it’s still much better than the rest of this album. I think it’s because this album kinda lacks the fun and the odd one liners of the sex pistols album. But low life kinda does have that and it’s just still not clicking as much to be fair. But “ bourgeois anarchist” is a good line. Attack starts with these wired spitting like noises but then forms into this odd little mix of the more heavy sex pistols stuff with the weirdness of the first tracks on this album but it does it in all of the ways I don’t like about these projects. The album ends on fodderstompf a dreadful experimentation into electronica. Just no. It’s not even like so bad it’s good. This album is just a mix of what sounds like sex pistols left overs lazily put alongside Johnny rottens weird experiments.

This was borderline unlistenable. Some music with just screaming or talking over random instrument playing. 2/10.

Cover art 3/5. He looks respectable

pas écouté

This one is a turd of that just won't flush. The first track is almost unbearable. It's 8 minutes of a slightly changing bass line the guy made up about 10 minutes before recording while what I assume is a 1 handed guitar player switching between strumming and slapping. While all this is taking place john lydon is screaming lines he's reading off the wall in a middle school bathroom. Track 2 is a spoken word poem so angsty he had to put it to music in track 3. From then on its hit or miss until fodderstompf. This is weapons grade terrible. Only track I've ever skipped while doing this whole project. Sounds like a couple of stoned friends dicking around on someone else's gear.

I don’t like the album

I don’t get it

Hated this. Just not for me.

Not a fan

Didn’t like it. Experimental 70’s punk with interesting lyrics, but nothing to captivate me. Vocals are awful, dissonant chords hard to listen to.

Poor man's Sex Pistols

Панк, который надоел.

chunia że ja pierdole

Wow. This was beyond dreadful.

Did not enjoy.... lots of noise and illegible vocals, but in a horrible way.

Too weird for me

Mostly noise and yelling

Чувствуется, что для своего времени это действительно прорыв. Эксперименты со звуком, композиционным построением, вокальными партиями... Всё это, по сути, нам подарило целый новый глубокий жанр - пост-панк. И этот альбом до сих пор является его достойным представителем. Да нет, конечно, рофлю, это - кал неслушабельный, с одной нормальной песней "Public Image", которая, впрочем, не вытягивает альбом даже на двойку. Мусор.

параша. берешь какофонию неслушабельную и кричишь сто раз название трека вот тебе и альбом

Awful

Saved Prior: None Off Rip: Religion I Cutting Edge: Public Image Overall Notes: I don't get post punk. This sounds horrible. It's telling that the one song I saved is a spoken word version of another song on the album. I wanted to like this because I like "Rise" from one of their later albums (after they had already "sold out"), but this was a miserable listening experience. Musically important and the music matches with the rage and anger they're expressing, but this is still miserable. Upon relistenings there were redeeming qualities to the song "Public Image". Still a 1.

Very bad music.

Dreadful. 0/5 if I could

Jesus christ Jon Lydon is a fucking weapon. 1/5

Punk oscuro y malo

Hard pass

noise!

I feel like a grandmother saying this but it's just a whole lot of noise. No melody. No THANKS couldn't even get through the first song. Maybe some other time.

meh