The two bands John Lydon loved in the 1990s: “Annoyingly so”
John Lydon is famous for a number of reasons. Firstly, for his contributions to music and the punk movement. As the lead singer of both Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd, he did a great deal for music and the way in which people could convey a message within what they were saying. However, people are also a big fan of his unrelenting honesty.
Lydon managed to develop a reputation as someone who was always willing to give his opinion on various points of music. It became a trend that music magazines would ask him for his view on artists who were becoming successful to see what he thought of them, and most of the time, he didn’t have much positive to say.
For instance, he didn’t hold back when giving his opinion on Ozzy Osbourne, an artist that many people might think is quite similar to him in style and substance. “The rumours of biting heads really, really haven’t impressed me,” he said. “Ozzy, now acting like a senile delinquent, is equally unimpressive. The sly innuendo of promoting drug abuse and catatonic stupidity offends me.”
He also wasn’t a fan of the supposed inauthenticity of Joe Strummer from The Clash. “Talk about class war, Joe Strummer was living in a mansion. No. Fuck that,” he said, “It’s nothing personal, I liked Joe. But you can’t be a champagne socialist; you’ve got to be more honest with us than that.”
However, Lydon didn’t always have negative things to say about his fellow musicians; there were a lot of bands he was a fan of. One that particularly stood out for him was KLF. “Well, I don’t think you can knock KLF, can ya? Their singles are really special, annoyingly so. They have fun with it.”
Another band he loved were no stranger to the praise of their contemporaries, Nirvana. “There’s a few things that I like. I love Nirvana too,” he went on in pure Lydon style to continue praising the group while also sneaking in a backhand, “I think they’re number one now in the States. Wow! It’s amazing ‘cos it’s not a very good album. I like the single most. The lyrics are particularly excellent. I think – ‘Entertain me’… that absolutely sums up lazy audiences.”
Even though Lydon was a tough man to please, it didn’t mean that he was made of steel; he had a fondness for music and authenticity within music and held artists to a very high standard when it came to expressing that authenticity. If there was ever a part of a musician that he thought was ingenuine, he was always quick to call it out. It turns out that KLF and Nirvana are both bands that he was more than happy to be on the side of, regardless of how annoying he found it that he liked their music.
