Lydon why so big?

[pigeon]

Just did a wikipedia search on Public Image LTD. Since leaveing The Sex pistols P.I.L have had 2 top ten hits

Public Image No 9 in 1978 &
This is not a love song no5 in 1983 so including The Sex pistols thats 6 top ten singles with singles on averege going below the top 40. Rise hit n011 with a few places at n020. Apart from Never mind the Bollocks all failed to reach the top 10.

The Stranglers themselves had 7 top ten hits baring one cover, and a lot of singles making the top 20,first 5 albums all went top 10 MIB last top ten album n08. So therefore over the years Lydon has got the accolades for The Sex pistols, but interms of commercial succsess by the charts

Peahces
No More Heroes
Something better Change
Golden Brown
Strange little girl
All Day and all of the night

Five Minutes
Duchess
Nice n Sleazy
Walk on buy
Skin deep
96 tears


even Always the sun and pushing it Midnight Summer Dream & 96 tears averaged better in the charts than lydons efforts. So that makes The Stranglers more commercially viable than The Sex Pistols and P.I.l put together?.

[MULLY]

By that criteria Take That are better than The Stranglers

[dead ringer]

Lydon is a very shrewd man isn't he, not made that many records yet is famous both sides of the Atlantic and is a multi-millionaire!

[theraven1979]

PiL are so much better than the Pistols IMO - some really good stuff (although the new one doesn't move me too much) but then Lydon had his pick of muscians didn't he? -You can't fail when you have McGeogh, Wobble et al in your team line up.

Jim

[Jake]

By that criteria Take That are better than The Stranglers

A very shrewd observation there. Personally I don't see what all the fuss about hit singles really is, U2 and Coldplay sell millions of records and they will always be incredibly shit imho. Some of the best stranglers singles faired poorly in the charts, Nuclear Device, Bear Cage, WWTW, MNSD and Always the sun to name but a few. The charts are one big steaming irrelevance when all is said and done, if a tune is good its good, it¨s often the case that the million sellers are utter shite when you think about it.

[pigeon]

By that criteria Take That are better than The Stranglers

A very shrewd observation there. Personally I don't see what all the fuss about hit singles really is, U2 and Coldplay sell millions of records and they will always be incredibly shit imho. Some of the best stranglers singles faired poorly in the charts, Nuclear Device, Bear Cage, WWTW, MNSD and Always the sun to name but a few. The charts are one big steaming irrelevance when all is said and done, if a tune is good its good, it¨s often the case that the million sellers are utter shite when you think about it.

Hit singles is what it's all about, if an artist says they don't want to be n01 there lying. The point to my post is that if the charts are what resembols the nations record collection,then on average the general public by sales alone think more of The Stranglers than Public Image LTD?.

I can see why p.I.L sounds like a one man band for most of the time messing around with different musical instruments. If it had anything to do with Lydon would we really listen to it? i wouldn't. Radiohead do that type of music far better.

[Burn e 77]

"Coldplay sell millions of records and they will always be shit" Quote: Jake.

Funnily enough there is a certain feathered person (with a xenophobic hatred of all things Northern) who's always championing metal bands on this Forum... who loves... fuckin Coldplay I think this proves that most metallised yoof have naff ears
cheers
Mr Pantera

[paulinblack]

This is a very simple one - Its all due to his 'public image'.

Its not about musical content, its about what he wore/wears, what he says, how he says it and how he acts. Stateside it is about him being an eccentric Englishman. Its then a case of cashing in on 1977 and all that.

This is PIL isn't an astounding people of musical brilliance - Its OK in parts at best. Most of Lydon's stuff is the same imho. The only really brilliant bits he's done are Public Image and Don't Ask Me. Rise, Home & Seattle are listenable but after that I'm scratching around to think of anything else I like.

[adriana]

Pigeon, since when has commercial success/viability been in any way an indicator of quality.... Stock, Aitken and Waterman were planning a 'Hit Factory' gig in Hyde Park last month... they sold lots and lots of records to pre-teenage girls! But it's not good.

PiL need to be considered in context. 1978, Johnny Rotten was a washed up, fucked up victim of the punk wars. 1979, John Lydon and his PiL cohorts produce Metal Box and unleash a collection of songs that were completely unexpected and different. Like the Pistols before them, PiL took the UK music scene in the next direction (so called post-punk).

Is it not time that we as Stranglers fans stop looking for excuses as to why the band are not lauded in the way that we believe they should be (Jon Savage, BBC.... unfair blah blah blah).

At the end of the day The Stranglers at the time when it mattered most were a beligerant bunch and those institutions whose patronage is so vital to a band attaining maximum commercial success were on the receiving end of the band's venom. That is the underlying reason for the band's commercial success (or rather lack of).

BTW, the new album 'This Is PiL' is anything but commercial.... it is however, very good.

[Ribery]

Public image only released one good song, the first single. The rest was self indulgent crap.

[Alexinblack]

There is only a few of the old PIL stuff that I like, but I've heard quite a few songs of there new album and they sound pretty good.

[Jake]

I won't rush out and buy the new PIL album, I don¨t much rate Lydon these days, think he is a bit of a knob, his appearance on question time recently did nothing to alter that opinion. PIL did some OK stuff, especially the first two albums and the odd single here and there, I like the collobaration with Leftfield though, top tune