The album that was “retired” against John Lydon’s will
From his days as the sneering poster boy of punk rock revolution, to his more recent antics alongside Public Image Limited, John Lydon has always been something of a formidable figure. Yet, the music industry itself has never made much of an effort to stay in his good books.
Admittedly, Lydon has never really tried to court the validation of the music industry; virtually every aspect of his existence back in the mid-1970s heyday of the Sex Pistols was in direct and deliberate opposition to the mainstream. With his confrontational image, foul mouth, and politically-charged songwriting, Lydon was never going to appear standing next to Garry Davies on Top of the Pops, complete with cheesy grin and a willingness to sell his soul for a few more record sales.
At the same time, though, an artist can only go so far as a DIY cult hero. Particularly if, like Lydon, you are trying to reach mass audiences with your message of resistance, going back to the head honchos of the music industry, cap in hand, is something of an inevitability – particularly if you’ve got bills to pay. Luckily, Lydon’s post-Pistols exploits with Public Image Ltd were slightly less confrontational than his days at the epicentre of punk rock, but the band’s trailblazing post-punk sound remained something of a mystery to record company executives.
In time, PiL’s early material would go on to define the sensibilities of the post-punk age, taking the DIY experimentation of punk and imbuing that with a vast plethora of different influences from across the music spectrum. The only issue with being a trailblazer, however, is that it takes everyone else more time to catch up. By the time Lydon and the band released their subversive masterpiece Album in 1986, audiences were finally beginning to catch on to this new era for post-punk and alternative music, but the industry itself still needed some convincing.
On paper, Album had everything going for it: some of Lydon’s best songwriting, recorded at New York’s Electric Lady Studios, and even a hit single in the form of ‘Rise’. However, when it hit the airwaves in January 1986, its lack of instant success led the record company to immediately lose interest. “The record company pulled the strings from me,” Lydon told Songfacts. “In fact, they ‘retired’ me from their label after less than a week of issue, and pressed no more records.”
“It’s very difficult for that album to have climbed higher than it did,” the songwriter admitted, likely owing to the album’s experimental nature and deliberate lack of widespread appeal. “But in less than one week it got to #86, so that would have been quite some hit there.” So, not only did – what was arguably – PiL’s greatest work go unnoticed by the mainstream, but it set a dangerous precedent for the future of the post-punk pioneers.
Explaining the knock-on effect of that disappointing album release, Lydon shared, “Unfortunately, that deters their future projects, because you get that smear of being unwanted and being abandoned by the very industry that you think would support creativity.”
Ultimately, Lydon and PiL got around that pesky issue of label support by buying themselves out of their contracts and starting their own label; something that the Sex Pistols should probably have done back in 1976. Still, the perceived commercial failure of Album acts as a good metaphor for the love-hate relationship fostered by free-thinking bands and the rigid demands of the music industry.
