Chant. chant. chant. chant. chant. The Public Image Ltd. album-by-album thread.

I'll give you that. Plus it must have sold well, Virgin gave it a good "push", and the band even appeared on TOTP to promote it!

Correct me if I'm wrong, Virgin also dumped PIL after this fiasco. I just hate it, sorry. John and Atkins deserve kudos for coming up with an album, but what with Wobble leaving, Levene into Heroin big-time and contributing very little of anything <where's the guitar!!!??> this album was a washout.

Lyrics? Just fine. John just didn't have the band he needed here. I can imagine drummers or percussion fans might love this album, though.

At any rate, John will make a huge comeback very soon after this. Plus HUGE coverage on the cable channels that were starting up, such as MTV and USA's "Night Flight". I still have vhs tapes of all those appearances. I need to compile all of them someday onto dvd-r.

 

Virgin never dumped PiL. Warners did, though.

 

Shows what I know! Thanks for the correction. Like I said, though, better things were to come. Hey, this stuff is over 20 years old!

 

Yeah, if I remember correctly, WB dropped them after "Flowers", Elektra dropped them after "Album" and then the last three were released here by Virgin.

 

I originally bought the US vinyl of Flowers, and was disappointed in the poor quality, both the cover and the vinyl were cheap. Then I bought the UK vinyl - very nice - heavier vinyl, better cover material, better sound quality. Anyway, I never did really get into this album, but I tried. It was an interesting experiment, and some of it is worth a listen, but I almost never listen to it.

Doug

 

Oh, I forgot to mention: the 12" single version of Flowers has even better SQ than the album version.

Doug

 

Mine needs a polish

It also has a lyric sheet - actually a full page ad from NME that contained the lyrics.

Tim

 

I always felt Flowers Of Romance was a natural continuation of Metal Box except they dropped the guitars. I don't think it is as good but then what is? Four Enclosed Walls is amazing, and the drumming throughout is wonderful. They even had a good pop single in Flowers Of Romance. It's probably the last complete PIL album I liked, after this it was just the occasional single and album track.

If anyone is wondering what Jeanette Lee is doing these days, she's working at Rough Trade records; I think she is part owner with Geoff Travis, not sure though. Anyway she popped up in the recent, excellent BBC docu The Rough Trade Story.

 

Public Image Ltd

hi folks ime new on hear, so i would just like to say hello

I am the owner of the acetate which was on ebay i have not yet played it i think this is in the history making, yes it is wb first issue, i am very excited to hear it has got some different mixes on it, cant wait to play it, i think this will show some interest unfortunaly i don't have a record player at the moment so i can't play it. so watch this space will be sorted for the new year
all the best
pilcollector
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Wow PIL collector, astounding ! This thread is getting better and better ! This is an acetate, so I suggest first time you play it you rip it on the computer -- It will not stand several plays and get worse as it goes with each replay. If you live in the UK, I know of several professional places where they could transfert it for you for a reasonable price, with top equipment.

Upon watching the timing on those, it looks like it's just the regular album thought --

Regarding this era of PIL, I know John a bit, and about a decade ago, he told me how he has tons of video footage from that era -- at the time, PIL was trying to go multi-media, and videoed pretty much everything -- I think it's at least 8 hours of footage, which he was trying then to issue on a DVD box set, but this didn't pan out because of the money we needed for both the transfert, and the edition.

I'll try to get hold of him early next year to see if he would fancy putting it together now on Blu-Ray -- to transfert old tapes have gone much cheaper with the improvement in computer software.

 

Here are pictures of the very rare Japanese Box set 1 covering the first PIL era -- A bit hard to find -- there's also a Box 2 which covers the rest of the albums, stopping at Happy - ?

5 CD set issued by Nippon Columbia, including:

Public Image [First Issue] COCY-9325
Metal Box [Second Edition] COCY-9326
Flowers of Romance COCY-9327
Paris in the Spring COCY-9328
Public Image [CD single] TCD-6

Also includes a 47 page booklet with liner notes in Japanese, lyrics in Japanese and English, a Sex Pistols/Public Image Ltd. family tree, and photographs from PiL's 1983 visit to Japan.

Details for box 2

5 CD set issued by Nippon Columbia, including:

This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get COCY-9338
Compact Disc COCY-9339
Happy? COCY-9340
Live in Tokyo COCY-9341
This Is Not A Love Song [3-track CD single] TCD-8

Also includes a 55 page booklet with liner notes in Japanese, lyrics in Japanese and English, a Sex Pistols/Public Image Ltd. family tree, and photographs from PiL's 1983 visit to Japan.

 

It's always been somewhat amusing to me that Lydon is an audiophile (but I'm sure the amusement comes from the Pistols angle). Needless to say, there are some incredible sounding PiL records.

 

more rare stuff

here is a nice set
note the tin can which contains a mug,badge.keyring and a biro
a very hard item to find,keyring not on show, also this can is unopened

 

Cool ! I have the japanese 12" LPs too, didn't bother with the rest (I'm not that much a completist, I only want the best sounding version) -- so I guess we're jumping to post Live in Tokyo era right away ? It still needs to be covered thought.

 

I'll post it a bit later today.

 

I would love myself if the MB reissue had the unedited Death Disco in place of the snipped one (it was only snipped in the first place because of the limitations of the 12" format) -- wouldn't mind if the 12" version of Memories was thrown in there also in place of the other mix (which is like the single mix), that would really make it a definitive trip, perhaps next reissue ?

 

It's my understanding that the unedited "Death Disco" will be on Plastic Box although not on Metal Box. The master is supposedly lost so it's a needledrop. I also wish the 12" version of "Memories" was in print, although again the master is said to be lost so it would also have to be needledropped if it can't be located.

 

At this point, I doubt that the record company will do anything but repackage some old stuff.

 

Well. That would be a start, if it were repackaged correctly. But I'm not so sure they will even do that, or anything at all beyond the new releases.

 

Deathdisco 7" different mix

this is a 7" version of deathdisco from ozz note different from uk
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Never seen that single before, never even knew it existed. Sweet!

 

Wow

Some really nice stuff have appeared on this thread lately !

Seventeen: have you noticed that the spine on the second edition says "metal box" on that boxset....

Pilcollector how much stuff have you overall got ?

 

Tryng to add something to the interesting discussion:

I have Death Disco (Megga Mix) on a CD - New Wave Club Class-X - Volume 6.

The linernotes state: "PIL's groundbreaking Death Disco was backed on the 12-inch with a Megga Mix - Instrumental version of the same track. Now, for the first time, it is available of CD. It was this version that served as the starting point for Arbeid Adelli's rendition of Death Disc. (See New Wave Class-X-Volume 1)".

The disc was put out by Antler Subway Records - Belgium. It's a great track and sounds, to me, like a needle drop.

 

It's wrong, it's not an instrumental version of the same track, it's a re-recorded instrumental version of the track Fodderstompf off First Issue.

 

That's interesting. Thought I had something special. It's still a cool track.