Public Image Ltd.

Public Image Ltd was John Lydon's escape hatch. Having quit the Sex Pistols in January 1978, the man once known as Johnny Rotten wanted an experimental, anti-rock project, and by June he had one: Keith Levene, a founding member of the Clash, on guitar, Jah Wobble on bass and Jim Walker on drums.

First Issue, released the same year, was abrasive and bass-heavy, with Wobble's low end rumbling like an underground train and Levene's guitar scraping at the ceiling. Dub, disco, prog and pure noise all fed into it, and the title track, "Public Image", seethed. Metal Box followed in 1979 and went further out, a sprawling, avant-garde record with "Careering" as a jagged centerpiece, and "Death Disco" came from the same year. It's widely regarded as one of the most important records of the post-punk era, and critics count The Flowers of Romance, the album after it, among the genre's landmarks too.

The band was a revolving door. Martin Atkins drummed from 1979 to 1985, and Levene, Wobble and Walker were all gone by 1984. By then PiL was essentially Lydon's solo vehicle, and he steered it toward a more accessible sound with This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get in 1984, home to the sneering, sardonic "This Is Not a Love Song". Album followed, with "Rise", its catchy, defiant chorus lifting PiL onto the radio. Happy? arrived in 1987 with "Seattle", "The Body" and "Rules and Regulations", and 9 came along in 1989 with "Disappointed", "Happy" and "Warrior". That What Is Not followed in 1992, before the band went quiet in the late '90s.

Lydon brought PiL back in 2009, and new albums followed, including What the World Needs Now... in 2015. Through all the lineup changes, he has been the one constant, and his voice, that sneering, keening wail, remains the band's calling card.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.