Album (Public Image Ltd album)

Album/Cassette/Compact Disc
Studio album by Public Image Ltd
Released	27 January 1986 (1986-01-27)[1]
Recorded	1985, Electric Lady Studios, The Power Station, Quadrasonic Sound Studios, RPM Sound Studios, New York City
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	40:55
Label	Virgin/Elektra
Producer	John Lydon, Bill Laswell
Public Image Ltd chronology
This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get (1984) Album (1986) Happy? (1987)
Cover of CD issue

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]
Robert Christgau	B+[3]
Trouser Press	favourable[4]

Album (also known as Compact Disc or Cassette depending on the format) is the fifth studio album by English rock band Public Image Ltd, released on 3 February 1986. It features John Lydon backed by a group of musicians assembled by producer Bill Laswell, including Steve Vai, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tony Williams and Ginger Baker.

Composition credits

Most of the songs were written by Lydon with Mark Schulz and Jebin Bruni and registered in September and October 1985, such as "Round And Round (European Cars)",^[5] "Fairweather Friend",^[6] "Fishing (Pearls Before Swine"),^[6] "Black Rubber Bag"^[7] and "Things In Ease".^[7] "Fairweather Friend" featured originally music written by Schulz and Bruni. An unrecorded Lydon/Schulz composition "Animal"^[7] was registered too. Schulz and PIL tour bassist Bret Helm had previously registered a further (presumably non-PIL, therefore unused) composition called “Cat Rap”.^[8]
John Lydon: “Most of the songs on the 'Album', for instance, were written at home and put onto demonstration tapes. But I didn't think the [1984/85 touring] band were good enough or experienced enough really to, like, record the song properly. And that's why I use session people. [By using session musicians] the songs obviously changed - their shape, and not their direction.”^[9] “I had a live band before recording took place and a lot of material together before going into the studio. But the band was totally inexperienced, they would have put the budget up by an incredible amount. So we decided to use session people.”^[10] “I make records for myself. I want them to be completely precise. Accuracy is very important to me. Otherwise it's bad work and a waste of my time, and I really don't want to waste my time. There must be a conclusion to what you do, no vagueness. There must be a sense of completeness. Every song is an emotion and it has to succeed as that, otherwise you've failed. It's bad work. That annoys me. Bad work from anyone just annoys me. I just don't need it.”^[11]
Producer Bill Laswell: “When we did PiL he had put a band together in California of some kids. And I had sort of decided to make a heavy group, so I invited Tony Williams, Ginger Baker, Steve Vai, and all these people came. We fired John's band and there were many nights of really harsh arguing in bars. When the smoke cleared, we made sort of a classic record, an unusual record for the time.”^[12]

Artwork and packaging

The packaging concept is a pastiche of the generic brand products manufactured in the early 1980s; it is similar to those sold at the Ralphs supermarket chain (dark-blue lettering and light blue stripe over white ground) in the USA.

In pop culture this design was popularised by the cult punk film Repo Man.^[13]

Producer Bill Laswell: “We purposely didn't put the credits of the musicians on the record because nobody would have believed it and most of the critics probably would have only talked about the people on the record and not the music.”^[12]

In 1982, Flipper, a punk band from San Francisco, California, had released an album with the same concept and a near-identical name, Album - Generic Flipper, a pastiche of generic products manufactured for Lucky Stores supermarket chain (black lettering over yellow ground). Later in 1986, Flipper retaliated by releasing a live album entitled Public Flipper Limited Live 1980-1985.

The concept of the packaging also spread to other releases by the band from this period, the 7" single of "Rise" was called "Single" whilst the 12" single was called "12-inch Single", and the music video had the title card reading "video". A compilation of music videos by the band released in this period was titled Videos. All of them were like the LP, CD and cassette covers due to the white background, dark blue generic fonts also had the light blue stripe reading 'public image limited' beneath with the PiL logo to the right. The MP3 reissue of the album is titled MP3. Unusually, the 2012 CD remaster of the album is titled Album when it should correctly, if following the original scheme, read Compact Disc. A tribute album by the band is also homage to the album covers, titled Tribute.

Recording sessions

The album was recorded in late 1985 in New York. Ginger Baker's and Tony Williams' drums were recorded at The Power Station by engineer Jason Corsaro. Steve Vai's lead guitar parts were recorded at Electric Lady Studios and the rest of the album at RPM Studios and Quad Recording Studios, all engineered by Robert Musso. The recording took three weeks, followed by one week of mixing the album at The Power Station.^[14]
In the liner notes of PiL's Plastic Box compilation (1999), Lydon remarked that Album was "almost like a solo album" since he was working on his own with several musicians. He said that Miles Davis came into the studio while the album was being recorded and commented that Lydon sang like Davis played the trumpet. Lydon said it was "still the best thing anyone's ever said to me."^[15]
Lead guitarist Steve Vai: “Bill Laswell, the producer, called and I flew in and out of New York from Alcatrazz shows to cut the parts. I did basically all the guitar parts in two days. Bill Laswell took a very interesting approach to the production of this disc. Some of the material I'd never heard and just went in and started playing on it. At the end, Johnny Lydon came in and liked it [...] There was the consideration of putting a band together - him, myself, Bill Laswell on bass and Ginger Baker on drums. Would have been quite a band.”^[16] “I went in in a day and did everything, then I flew back out on tour. And then I went in for another half-day, and Lydon came in on the second day. He's just like ultracool and it's the first time he's heard any of my parts and he goes 'This is fucking great, man, how did you fucking know I wanted it like that?' [...] We were thinking about turning it into a band - me, him, Bill Laswell and Ginger Baker, but well, I was doing some other things, you know? It would have been cool. To this day that's one of the projects I'm most proud of.”^[17] “John Lydon came in when I was done, they were playing a track back, and he made a grimace and said 'Fookin' great man!' in that way of his. So that was funny. I'd obviously done okay.”^[18]
Drummer Ginger Baker: “People simply call me up, like Bill Laswell did on behalf of PIL. He just called me and persuaded me to do it.”^[19] “I never met or even spoke to John Lydon, it was all arranged for us to go into the studio and just put the tracks down. Tony Williams and I did half each, but as they released the record without the personnel on it, all the reviews and write-ups could never tell who was who. We had a big laugh about it!”^[20]
Producer Bill Laswell: “The whole thing with [Ginger Baker] came out of John Lydon suggesting playfully that he wanted Ginger to be the drummer in PIL, and I thought that was a great idea. So I was stupid enough to go to the north of Italy and find Ginger. I kind of brought him out of retirement and brought him back to New York and we did these tracks with Lydon.”^[21]
Roger Trilling (Bill Laswell's manager): “I wasn't there, but apparently Ginger played for Bill in his barn. Just solo with the horses there, apparently the trees swayed and the flowers cried. The drum god would return. One small step for Ginger, one giant leap for John Lydon. The rest of the cast was quickly assembled - Tony Williams, Steve Vai, Bernie, Nicky, Aïyb. First we recorded the drums, with Jason Corsaro in the Power Station and its huge concrete resounding garage. Then we moved over to Quad for bass, keyboards and rhythm guitar. I would give John bulletins as we drank beer in bars - 'Today Steve Turre blew into conch shells, tomorrow a didgeridoo. Oh, Sakamoto did great today!' John grew wary, restive, even aggravated. Howard Thompson, in charge for Elektra, was even more importunate, I remember at one point physically barring him from getting into the elevator. We recorded a few days of Vai at Electric Lady, and then moved over to RPM for three days of vocals. John, I think, got a cassette the evening before. The idea was to get him on the initial take, and if it didn't work, keep the tapes, which was Bill's music anyway. Well, John's declamations were eloquent ones and no less aggressive or irritating than the music. Everyone was pleased, and though I remember John's presence in the anteroom during the mix, what I mostly remember is an all-night Korean restaurant, where we would start drinking at three, four, or five in the morning.”^[22]

Track listing

Listed on the album cover as "Ingredients"

1. "F.F.F." (John Lydon, Bill Laswell) – 5:32
2. "Rise" (Lydon, Laswell) – 6:04
3. "Fishing" (Lydon, Jebin Bruni, Mark Schulz) – 5:20
4. "Round" (Lydon, Schulz) – 4:24
5. "Bags" (Lydon, Bruni, Schulz) – 5:28
6. "Home" (Lydon, Laswell) – 5:49
7. "Ease" (Lydon, Bruni) – 8:09

Personnel

• John Lydon – vocals
• Tony Williams – drums on 1 2 6
• Ginger Baker – drums on 3 4 5 7
• Bernard Fowler – backing vocals
• Ryuichi Sakamoto – Fairlight CMI on 2 3 5 7
• Nicky Skopelitis – guitar on 1 2 3 4 6
• Steve Vai – guitar
• Jonas Hellborg – bass

Additional personnel

• Shankar – electric violin on 2 4
• Bernie Worrell – organ on 1 4 6, Yamaha DX7 on 3
• Malachi Favors – acoustic bass on 3 5
• Steve Turre – didjeridu on 7
• Aïyb Dieng – chatan pot drums on 4

Charts

UK

• “Album” entered the UK Album Charts, where it stayed for 6 weeks and reached #14 on 15 February 1986.^[23]
• The single “Rise” entered the UK Top 75, where it stayed for 8 weeks and reached #11 on 1 February 1986.^[23]
• The single “Home” briefly entered the UK Top 75, where it stayed for 1 week at #75 on 3 May 1986.^[23]
• The single “World Destruction” by Time Zone entered the UK Top 75, where it stayed for 9 weeks and reached #44 on 19 January 1985.^[23]

USA

• “Album” entered the Billboard 200 album charts, where it stayed for 16 weeks and reached #115 on 12 April 1986.^[24]
• The single “Rise” did not chart.

Other countries

• In Canada, “Album” entered the Canadian Albums Chart, where it stayed for 5 weeks and reached #95 on 5 April 1986.^[25]
• In New Zealand, “Album” entered the Top 50 Albums Chart, where it stayed for 2 weeks and reached #34 on 27 April 1986. The single “Rise” entered the Top 50, where it stayed for 4 weeks and reached #29 on 30 March 1986. The single “World Destruction” by Time Zone entered the Top 50, where it stayed for 5 weeks and reached #12 on 21 April 1985.^[26]

References