Metal Box

This is garbage. Zero stars is not available, so I must give it one star.

PIL was much better in the 80’s/90’s. I think that I could pick up an electric, strum a few chords and sound as good as the guitar on this album. 70’s London post-punk is just not that great.

It sounds like giving a baby a microphone while having a tantrum. I like long songs but these were not good because it was the whole album

Ok there is a reason nobody likes experimental type music except for the "enlightened" music critics. It's because it sucks and is painful on the ears. Music shouldn't be a slog to have to get through or something you must force yourself to endure. That is exactly what this album (I feel like even calling it that is hurtful to other albums out there) was, a painful, slow, agonizing experience. John Lydon's voice is worse than Bob Dylan's (wow I know I can't believe it either). The songwriting was terrible as well. If you could understand the lyrics (which is a big if) they made zero sense for many of the songs. The guitar is screechy and shrill the whole time and entirely too bright and tinny. The drums are completely forgettable. The bass is the only non agonizing piece to this album but it's also quite boring (but at least not bad). This was the musical equivalent of Birdemic (if you know you know).

all I hear are disjointed sounds and instruments. nope, nope, nope

Shit box

Boxed my ears

Skipped half of the first track, gave up quickly on the second. Too weird for me today.

Listened to about half. But I do love Rise from another album

Horrific

Utter dross. Would have got more pleasure bangging my head against a wall for a hour. I probably would have lost less brain cells that way as well. If you are reading this before listening please dont. Save your self a hour and do something constructive Also who starts a album with a 10 minute song!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dull dull dull dull dull. Nothing for me here of any interest.

The bass work on this album is the only positive I got out of it but that really doesn’t save it when everything else is so fucking terrible. Might be good background music at the most sleazy biker bar ever but that’s it.

Some PiL albums are good. This is not one of them.

So. FUCKING. Bad.

Fuck me. The first song on this album 'Albatros' is 10.54 minutes, which is 10.54 minutes too long. From now on, I'll never be able to see an albatros without projectile vomiting.

I’m done listening to PIL. I can’t take anymore of Johnny Rotten.

Never listened to them, he's not a good front man or singer - or songwriter it seems. And it seems I was right, this is proper shite

Avant garde postpunk, for irreterende vokal, og få svingende i kvalitetet

Music, quite by definition, decorates time (much how art decorates space). This album is the music equivalent of sprawling mass of mud and rocks heaving slowly down a long mountainside. Even though it technically decorates the landscape, most people could only watch it with boredom or discomfort, and it would be a stretch to call it art. The instruments, individually, are played well, but when put together as a band, they feel incongruent and without passion. The vocal is consistently, uncomfortably out of tune, which might be a staple of the genre but isn't working for this album. Albatross is a slog to get through, with even the bass (which seems to be touted as the crowning sonic achievement of the album) hardly deviating from repeated tonics in an eighth-note rhythm. There's very little material to hook the listener's interest after around three minutes. The unhinged falsetto at the end is probably the best part of the song. The tracks following Albatross are slightly better on account of simply being shorter (and having some good interplay between drums, guitar, and bass, e.g. in Poptones). The songs Poptones and Socialist are highlights because of the guitar/basswork, but the former is much too long. The Suit is very strange, almost like a Syd Barrett or Chats track with a dark bass undertone. Bad Baby is as bad as the baby. Chant is also bad, because it takes repetition to the extreme in an album already overloaded with it. The final track, Radio 4, is far and away the best track on the album, and yet it's merely a semi-good synthy instrumental. Another reviewer stated it best: "Fair play for abandoning the Sex Pistols' sound and exploring new and interesting sonic textures, but this seems like a case of PiL crawling in a slow, ungainly manner so other post-punks could run."

The metal box has more value as scrap.

Sounds like they started curating random albums here

drone

"Metal Box" by Public Image Ltd. is lauded as being a hallmark classic of the post-punk genre. Formed with lead vocalist John Lydon (previously known as the lead vocalist of Sex Pistols) and guitarist Keith Levene (of The Clash), Public Image Ltd pushed their sound into the avant-garde. This is not a good sound.

I thought I could give this a 2, but I just can’t. It felt like ages before this finished.

So tedious I gave up after skipping through a handful of tracks.

I'm disappointed at how awful this is. I like PIL, but not this album.

Drugs are a heck of a thing. I'm not sure what went in to this "creative" process, but what a miserable pile of garbage. Literally the only redeeming thing was the bass player. He was killing it. Fav tracks: N/A

His later experiments are listenable, but not this one - i'd prefer to listen to Bollocks 17 times in a row, than ever hear this again

How many more 70's era proto/post-punk band recommendations must we suffer through?

This is a no from me dog

No wonder I've never heard of these lads. Truly awful stuff

It was like Joy Division, but replace everything good about Joy Division with something much, much worse.

Hurts my ears

The type of lame shoegaze I can’t get into, because it never goes anywhere

Suuuuucked

That was awful. Jonny Rotten should get beaten by the cops and see if that rejuvenates his musical spirit.

Not for me

I thought I was a post punk fan, I suppose I still am, but I'm not a fan of this record. Some of the bass lines are interesting, but get monotonous very quickly. I could not get into this record and it goes on for a really long time.

I actually have some of the songs on this album liked on spotify but was simply not in the mood that day. DNF

I just don't like this

This was definitely not my thing.

What a terrible album. Didn’t have high expectations, and it still didn’t manage to live up to those. I have no interest in ever revisiting this artist, especially if this is supposed to be their most revolutionary album. So many songs are too long, and many of them are just not fun to listen to. Some were less terrible but they didn’t make up for the rest of it. 1/10 Top 1: 1. Memories

A classic punk album. Droning and talentless. Made me feel like I was way too harsh to Paul Simon

Terrible 1* Vocals and music are all terrible, I don’t get why they do punk songs that are genuinely just whack

I genuinely believe I could write this. Moaning voice, repetitive music, pretty minimal creativity. Didn't enjoy the album

I just cannot get behind this drivel from John Lydon. What a blowhard. I know this stuff is supposed to be ground breaking or whatever, but it just seems so trite and overly self-indulgent.

The Super Deluxe edition was almost four hours... maybe I could have dealt with it for 20 minutes...

I feel this is specifically trying to be challenging, however that doesn't make a good listen. Actually bored me rather than challenged me, first song is 10 mins of dirge. Each song starts out ok but then the same dreary vocals come in. by the third time this exact pattern with the exact same vocals came in had to ditch it so can only give it a 1

I think I finally understand how to listen to post punk. its going to be grating and atonal, don't expect it to come out and entrance you. You have to let it go on its own way and sometimes its nice and other times its not. I still think thats a pretty pretentious way to approach music but whatever. The Suit is where I sort of hit a wall. God the lyrics and the singing are just so bad. Fuck this sucks.

Awful

Songs are too long. Very creepy vibes

I’m sorry but I’m not listening to a full hour of this shit

Too Avant Garde for me

Fuck me that was not fun

Awful, could not listen to this

Horrible

Brani Preferiti: - Nessuna preferenza Note: Genericamente parlando potrei sopportare questo album se fosse solo strumentale... ma ogni volta che il cantante apre bocca e inizio a sentire quella voce ovattata, mi inizia ad infastidire.

Had my fill by track 8 (The Suit). Bass lines were fun to listen to, but I had to turn up the volume to hear them which unfortunately made the vocals much less bearable. Credit to the album for being an influential step in post-punk, but the songs are not to my taste. Will not be revisiting this album.

Not sure how this is labelled as "ground breaking post punk". Sounds like Johnny Rotten to do a Yoko Ono cover band.

If anxiety was an album this would be it. I found this album stressful and under threat. Nope for me!

WTF? Why is this on the list... ? I don't mind the music but the vocals are asinine. This is what happens when you're so bloated and full of yourself. You think you're some kind of brilliant artist due to some previous success. The original reviewers of this album should have their pens taken away. On the whole, this is completely devoid of anything real or personal and I found it completely uninspired.

They leaned into the sound from the wrong parts of the debut album. Not an upward trajectory.

'Not a lovesong' vind ik nog wel een goed te pruimen hitje, maar met deze bagger weet ik me geen raad!

Dit trok ik welgeteld twee halve nummers

Dit is horror.

+1 for that humpin’ bass riff on The Suit.

Wow, what a wretched album.

Not good lol

Sorrýmemmig en þetta er alveg drepleiðinlegt.

The only reason I continued to listen to this album is because I needed to know if it was a 1 or a 2. This is just weird music for the sake of being weird, and that doesn’t make it good. I would love to hear out why others think this is groundbreaking, or revolutionary. I’d rather listen to them than this crap.

Really don’t think this many punk albums are worth listening to. This one included. Not too sure the major appeal to this one other than it led the post-punk genre. Whoopee. This was some tough stuff to listen to. The only good thing about it was the instrumentals on a few tracks. Other than that it was pretty boring to me. 2.7/10

Not bad but not for me.

Jotain avant garde rockia. Oli muutama miellyttävä hetki mutta muuten aika kuraa

songs go nowhere. upside, the bass is great.

This is up there (down there?) with the worst things I've ever heard. The only redeeming features are the bass, and the useful tin that the original release was packaged in. It would make a useful place to store any flat and circular objects that might be lying around (i.e. discs for an angle grinder or a set of lace table mats). Rating: 1/5 Playlist track: Suit Date listened: 24/08/23

I genuinely couldn't do this one. I'm even a huge post rock guy and I couldn't even listen to this. It was just mind numbing

Vocals make you wish you were Helen Keller. Quite horrid, and the repetitive, yet decent instrumentals don't help here either

Straight up fuck this album. Public Image was my first 1 star and this was worse.

Really disturbing. Yoko Ono on steroids.

Un naufrage d'une heure qui aura commencé par ce qui restera sans doute considéré comme le pire morceau d'introduction du générateur.

Si vous connaissez quelqu'un qui connait quelqu'un qui apprecierait écouter cet album, à savoir que cet album lui procurerait du plaisir, qu'il le trouverait agréable ou lui trouve tout autre adjectif mélioratif, transmettez moi ses coordonées car mon camarade d'écoute robpissotière et moi même souhaiterions le rencontrer (pour le passer à tabac).

Yeah, that was a tough listen.

I don’t see who would find this good regardless of the decade it released in, oof.

these guys are so fucking weird. Actually liked "Memories" wth otherwise; really fucking bad 2 1

Yup, Sean hit it on the nose. Not a big fan, don't really see the point.

Well, it's unique... I guess that can make it influential. I made it through half of the first song before I just skipped around through the rest, looking for anything redeeming about the album. Biggest standouts for what make this album bad: vocals and bass lines that are way too simple and way too repetitive. Impressive to think you're ready for the studio when your first song repeats ba da da da ba da doo doo for 10 minutes

Well that was torture. He really did fancy himself as a true creative hey. Fuck he was wrong lol. I guess lucky for him he's such a sociopath he'd never listen to criticism anyway. 1/5.

Missed "Bad Baby" and "Chant" because they weren't available on Spotify, but I think I'm better human being without them.

D Albatross - 1 Memories - 2 Swan Lake - 1 Poptones - 2 Careering - 2 Socialist - 1 Graveyard - 2 The Suit - 2 Bad Baby - 1 No Birds - 1 Chant - 1 Radio 4 - 3 I'm constantly stumped by the albums included on this list, and this one is no exception. The singing is potentially the worst in the entire generator. The music sounds intentionally bad. There is nothing positive about this album, except for the last track which features no singing. It is surprisingly good. All in all though, this is one of my least favorite in the entire generator.

Note: Not available in Apple Music... had to YouTube... Just like the record after this, not in the mood. It's obviously one of PIL's first records because of the production. It's not a very good record. It does not stand the test of time, in my mind. Next!