Public Image Ltd. - That What Is Not (1992)

 

I came across an online review of 2012's This is PIL claiming it to be the best thing since 1984's This Is What You Want… This Is What You Get thankfully preventing the possibility of the PIL legacy concluding with one of those crappy nineties records. This irritated me because, aside from the possibility of Album actually being their finest moment, I happen to like those crappy nineties records despite their failure to deliver another Metal Box. That said, I wasn't actually sure about That What Is Not because I'd somehow forgotten its existence. So I dug it out, stuck it on the turn table, and there it stayed for the next couple of weeks.

It's still very much stadium PIL, perhaps even more so than the previous three with the occasional guitar solo which could have been lifted from REO Speedwagon, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and it's probably more Pearl Jam than any of the seventies hairies. Above all, the strangest element is that it's almost an uptempo happy record, and Lydon is smiling on the back cover - not necessarily unusual but it's a genuinely cheery, unconditional smile rather than the one we're used to which suggests he's just seen Strummer go flying after stepping on a banana skin. It communicates the possibility that he was probably very much enjoying living in a significantly sunnier part of the world, which is something I understand very well, and - excepting the customarily caustic commentary - that's what That What Is Not sounds like.

I wonder if it would help if we thought of this as a John McGeoch album, because it's that too. I assume we haven't yet found a reason to sneer at McGeoch, although if we have I'm not really interested. That What Is Not has a massive, punchy sound, thanks in no small part to the horn section, harmonica and soulful backing vocals floating around in the mix just like on an eighties Rolling Stones record, and the bile is seasoned with a surprising quota of joie de vivre, or possibly just glee; and it would almost be a slightly more jagged Pearl Jam but for one of Lydon's greatest ever performances, at least technically. I know he mostly does just the one thing, but it's arguably at its greatest and most expressive here in voicing what may even be amongst his finest lyrics. Unfairground and Good Things are in particular face-punchingly wonderful and deserving of inclusion on whatever the next greatest hits package happens to be; and it's a shitload better than This is PIL while we're here.

So there.

Pearl Jam - Ten (1991)

Pearl Jam probably mark the point at which I lost touch with the kids on the street and what was going down, having given up on mainstream music papers, radio, and bothering to go to gigs unless forced to do so. My girlfriend's younger sister had just moved in with us in hope of finding work in that London, and being younger she was still very much in touch with the kids on the street and what was going down, and she had this album by Pearl Jam who were massive even though I'd never heard of them. Each day as I sat waiting for Countdown to come on the telly whilst filling in my pension forms and having a nice cup of tea with some custard creams, Ten would be playing somewhere in the background, over and over until I began to appreciate it. So I bought this just because I remember Even Flow and Alive being pretty darned great.

Twenty-five years later, the record initially sounds so unfamiliar as to come as a bit of a shock, particularly having since picked up admittedly spurious associations with other, much heavier bands of Seattle heritage. In fact on first listen it sounds like Simple Minds, and not the good Simple Minds - the good Simple Minds meaning everything prior to but not necessarily including Live in the City of Light. It sounds like REO Speedwagon in a checked shirt with a bit more stubble than usual - big, fat stadium rock fronted by a man singing through a mouth full of Sugar Puffs.

Anyway, I persisted because Even Flow and Alive still sounded as good as I recalled, just about, and it once took me fifteen years to fully appreciate a Soundgarden album due to the fact that I played it once and then didn't bother after that. Thankfully, persistence paid off, and Ten began to work after three or four spins, even losing some of the stadium rock sheen.

I think the problem is that Pearl Jam are actually a sort of wholefood biker band - grizzled, leathery and existing on a diet of chicken and grits just like Steppenwolf and all of those guys, but thankfully minus all the back door woman, you set my soul on faaah crap. The songs are mostly folksy introspection for truckers - or at least people who don't necessarily have anything against truckers - sort of like how Nirvana might have sounded had they held back from writing songs about how they only want cool people listening to their music. Accordingly Ten really needed a bluesier producer, Albini or Jack Endino or one of those guys, just someone with an approach other than how much more reverb would you like? These songs don't really need to sound like the drummer is located at two miles distance from the guitarist because the scale is inherent to the material, which is surprisingly understated for having one of those gruff ol' teddy bear of rock guys on the microphone.

Very good, and better than I remember despite that initial bout of hiccups.