The fourth album by Public Image Ltd., This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get, came out in the Year of Orwell – 1984. The world was in the middle of the Cold War and people were wondering which side was going to first heat it up. It was the “me decade” here in the U.S. for Wall Street tycoons who were grabbing all the wealth they could while the rest of us were waiting on Trickle Down Economics to make our lives easier. Spoiler alert: We’re still waiting.
John Lydon and guitarist Keith Levene were working on the album and had an early mix, entitled Commercial Zone, completed. Levene took it to Virgin Records, but Lydon abandoned the project and re-recorded all of it to create This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get.
It starts with the buzzy “Bad Life,” which was the first single off the record. It mixes funky bass with cool horn blasts as Lydon sings, “This machine is on the move. Looking out for number one.” It’s a nice shove at 1980’s yuppies stepping on others to get what they want. The title of the album is repeated over electric drum beats toward the end of the track (and throughout the album).
“This Is Not a Love Song” was Lydon’s poke at people who kept asking him, “Why don’t you write a love song?” He write a brassy jam that mostly repeats the title and ended up being one of his biggest hits. “Happy to have and not to have not. Big business is very wise. I’m crossing over into the enterprise,” he sings, telling all of us that he could take the money and run if he wanted.
Louis Bernardi‘s bass on “Solitaire” is downright nasty. You could easily slap it onto a funk record and it wouldn’t sound out of place. “Tie Me to the Length of That” is a reference to Lydon’s birth, even referencing the doctor who slapped him when he was born. It crawls around the room like a creepy goblin. The horn section echoes from the background like some sort of distant warning.
“The Pardon” has Lydon calling people out for being resistant to change. The beat is a weird tribal jam that is hard to describe but one that sinks into your head. “Where Are You?” is barely controlled chaos as Lydon searches for…someone. I’m still not sure whom.
“1981” is a post-punk classic with Lydon ranting about everything he could see was going to go wrong in the decade and how he figured it might be best to leave England for a while. The drums are sharp, the baritone sax angry, the cymbals sizzling, and the lyrics biting: “I could be desperate. I could be brave…I want everything in 1981.”
The album’s title is repeated again at the beginning of the last track – “The Order of Death” – killer drum beats back dark piano chords. The guitar chords are like something out of a Ridley Scott film score. It’s a cool ending to a cool record, and somewhat of a forgotten post-punk classic.
Keep your mind open.
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