The album John Lydon said should never have been made: “Not going there”
As should be well clear to everybody for the last half-century, John Lydon is not a man too shy to spout his frank opinion on whatever topic is in front of him.
Sometimes insightful, often mischievously combative, and with ever more frequency in Lydon’s vintage years, downright buffonish in his MAGA-twerking contrarian act. Still, there’s never a dull moment to be had when the press sticks its mic to his big mouth, reliably able to bottle a magnanimous gesture or barbed potshot at politics, the state of music, or even his own former creative allies.
Such mudslinging was had when his thoughts were probed on old Public Image Ltd bassist John ‘Jah’ Wobble’s reimagining of one of the post-punk stalwarts’ most beloved LPs. Released in 2022, Metal Box – Rebuilt In Dub saw Wobble grapple with their canistered 1979 effort and brought it into the sonic orbit of Wobble’s recent ventures with The Modern Jazz Ensemble and Invaders of the Heart.
So what did the PiL frontman think of Wobble’s Metal Box revisit?
Not a great deal as it turned out. Speaking to UK Music Reviews at the time, Lydon let out a hearty guffaw and incredulously asked what the point of the whole project was. “Why did he need to do that?” he asked. “That is my plain and simple question to John. It’s like, ‘Haven’t you got anything of your own?’. John is my mate, and I love him and all of that, but why would you want to imitate yourself?”
The fact is, PiL was forged back in 1978 as a bold, unwavering pursuit of the new. While his former Sex Pistols were larking about making The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle doofus comedy, Lydon saw to it to avoid punk’s stylistic dead ends and tartan-slacked uniforme de rigueur like the plague, defying expectation by immersing himself in a new artistic hurtle toward dub reggae, avant-garde atonality, and dissonant experimentalism.
With the help of Wobble and initial Clash guitarist Keith Levene, First Edition and Metal Box would close the 1970s as some of the most arresting and thrilling gems of the whole post-punk era. Crucially, they were defined by a headfirst march into uncharted waters, a spirit arguably at odds with Wobble’s Metal Box – Rebuilt In Dub circle back to already uncovered territory. Besides, the dub bass grooves and delayed expanse were already perfected on the 1979 original by the bassist himself, perfectly enmeshed in Metal Box’s foaming, proto-industrial gel.
Still, Lydon shouldn’t laugh too much. After 1981’s The Flowers of Romance and Wobble’s departure, PiL wasn’t exactly captained to intrepid new realms, instead steered by an infintely more safe and orthodox alternative rock across the 1980s and beyond, albeit This Is What You Want… This Is What You Get and Album boasting solid, if tamer, PiL material.
Old college pals and all that. When UK Music Reviews pushed for a deeper statement on Metal Box – Rebuilt In Dub, Lydon responded amid a fit of giggles, “Don’t get me started as I’m most definitely not going there.”
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