The one record that is always at the top of John Lydon’s pile: “Doesn’t collect dust”
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re a music lover, and if you’re a music lover, chances are you have a relatively extensive collection of records.
The record collection is the prized possession of music lovers around the world, as it not only provides hours of entertainment but is also a reflection of the person who has collected those records, and of course, choosing the music that makes up such a collection isn’t the only decision a music fan needs to make, they also need to work out how they can order it.
There are many different ways that people can do this: some people opt to prioritise their collection by genre, so if you want to listen to a specific style, it’s easy to find it, but equally, there are a lot of people who keep things simple and put it in alphabetical order, like in the book High Fidelity, the character Rob Fleming arranges them in order of when he bought them.
While these are all good suggestions, the truth is, we’re only human. Keeping your records in such a pristine order is tricky, and the fact remains that for most proud record collectors, their albums are in the order of least played to most played. Those that we don’t listen to very often tend to gather dust, meanwhile, the albums we adore are constantly being used and therefore look near enough brand new.
You can tell a lot about a person based on the records in their collection which they listen to the most. Not only can you work out the kind of music that they like, but you can also work out what they are looking for within music. For instance, if you were to peruse through the record collection of Sex Pistols’ John Lydon, you would likely find out that there is nothing he values more than authenticity.
Lydon initially made a name for himself preaching anarchy and playing punk music that was unlike anything which had previously hit the airwaves. Granted, a lot of the music he enjoys is an extension of this rebellious adoration; however, the main thing that Lydon has always looked for is authenticity within music. He wanted artists to stay true to themselves and wanted to have a genuine emotional reaction to music rather than just understanding what the topic of a song is.
A lot of people think that Lydon is a tough critic, but the bands he dislikes all have the same thing in common (according to Lydon): elements of fiction. It’s not that he doesn’t think music can also be fictional and escapist; however, he didn’t like it when musicians tried to pass off this storytelling as fact. For instance, he once said he liked the individual members of Kiss, but didn’t see anything in them creatively past the make-up. He hated Guns N’ Roses and The Clash for similar reasons, as he didn’t think their sound was real.
When it comes to getting a genuine emotional reaction from music, there are few places better to look than movie soundtracks. As previously mentioned, Lydon wasn’t annoyed by the idea of music conveying fiction, so long as it was clear that that’s what it was doing. As such, when he was talking about those records in his collection which are always on rotation, he mentioned one of his favourite film soundtracks of all time: Barry Lyndon.
“I’d bought this record years ago and had forgotten about it. But the movie came on TV in America, and I went, ‘Oh my god,’ and immediately had to hunt it down,” Lydon said. “I’d left it in London; I went to London just for the Barry Lyndon soundtrack. There’s a Mozart piece on there that is just stunning.”
Concluding, “It was different to the usual classical renderings, it just seemed to have more heart and soul and harpsichord. It’s still there now on the top of my pile, it’s one of those albums that doesn’t collect dust.”
