Album · Public Image Ltd.
This Is What You Want… This Is What You Get by Public Image Ltd.
This Is What You Want… This Is What You Get is an album by Public Image Ltd., released in 1984. 1 song from it has charted on rock radio countdowns, with 28 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “This is Not a Love Song”, on 28 lists with a best position of #12.
This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get, the fourth Public Image Ltd album, came out on Virgin in July 1984, and by then PiL was John Lydon's show and nobody else's. Keith Levene, Jah Wobble and Jim Walker had all gone, and the record had a messy birth: Levene put out his own early version of the sessions as Commercial Zone, and the album was then recorded again from scratch without a note from Levene or bassist Pete Jones.
What came out the other end trades the abrasive, dub-heavy murk of the early PiL records for something sleeker and more danceable, new wave with the sneer still attached. The single "Bad Life" leads the way, and "This Is Not a Love Song", already a top-5 UK hit as a single in 1983, turns up here in a fresh recording, Lydon's sardonic yelp riding a groove you could almost call friendly.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from This Is What You Want… This Is What You Get on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | This is Not a Love Song | 28 | #12 | – | 1983–2021 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.