Still...."Poptones" and "Swanlake" are uproariously, gloriously ugly in the most intriguing way.
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 22:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ben Williams, Wednesday, 8 January 2003 22:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 22:59 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Alex in NYC is OTM. (snuff films and Killing Joke (same difference) aside)
The good thing about its rosetta-status is that people keep writing about it, and when one of the writings-up is good (as today) it prods me back into listening to it and enjoying the bits I do enjoy.
― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Killing Joke, however, I do tend to like quite a bit. But....you knew that.
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
This is funny then, because supposedly the original idea for Led Zeppelin IV was to release the 8 tracks as 4 ep's. (it's true - read all about it in "Hammer of the Gods"!)
Anyway, I don't have the box I only have Second Edition, and for me it's a stone classic. Best bass sound ever. In fact, I think I once blew out a woofer on a cheap Cerwin-Vega speaker cranking this thing up.
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:09 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Kris (aqueduct), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:17 (twenty-one years ago) link
(Yes, I have that American Bandstand performance on tape. No, I don't have time to dub it for anyone yet. Yes, I do plan on getting a video card and digitizing it someday. Yes, the possibility of, uh,... some HORRIBLE NET THIEF appropriating it for peer-to-peer sharing is possible as well.)
― donut bitch (donut), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dan (dan), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:36 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 8 January 2003 23:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
woah, salmon, how much time was there between your two posts?
― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 9 January 2003 00:08 (twenty-one years ago) link
― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 9 January 2003 00:09 (twenty-one years ago) link
I'm willing to be convinced but I basically agree with most of what Ben and Alex are saying. Aside from side 2, especially "Poptones" which is great, I find it a fairly tiring and not-particularly-rewarding listen these days. (I hadn't played it in a long time but I just put it on because of this thread. It made me want to put on New Order afterwards, whom I've also not listened to in a long time. I'm liking them though.) I never really got the vocals. Is the sound quality on Metal Box better than that on Second Edition? Otherwise, I don't even see what's good about the mastering.
― sundar subramanian (sundar), Thursday, 9 January 2003 00:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jeff K (jeff k), Thursday, 9 January 2003 01:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
Wait, they did this in order to *smell funny*?
― Sean (Sean), Thursday, 9 January 2003 01:22 (twenty-one years ago) link
― george gosset (gegoss), Thursday, 9 January 2003 01:27 (twenty-one years ago) link
― naked as sin (naked as sin), Thursday, 9 January 2003 01:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
I have long said that if Mark David Chapman had gotten the last names wrong and killed John Lydon in 1980, he would now be the most deified dead rock star EVER. Except for maybe Elvis.
Try the Wire's claim that Tortoise's Millions Now Living Will Never Die is Gen X's Metal Box.
EURGH. That's not damning with faint praise, that's abuse that makes all the hatred on this thread for Metal Box seem like warm cuddles.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 9 January 2003 01:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 9 January 2003 02:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nickn (nickn), Thursday, 9 January 2003 03:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 9 January 2003 03:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― daria g, Thursday, 9 January 2003 03:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 9 January 2003 06:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
Bloody fantastic album, of course, and I'd also be interested in knowing if the sound quality on Metal Box differs greatly from Second Edition.
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 9 January 2003 09:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
sure. most stuff that gets 'classic' status is.
''Albatross is turgid (people always go on about what a challenging intro to the album it is--yes, putting a tedious moan up front is challenging, I suppose).''
yes, but no one 'sings' like this. It can come off as tedious because he is repeating things over and over again but this is a good groove. repetition in this case is good.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 9 January 2003 10:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 9 January 2003 11:29 (twenty-one years ago) link
They really should have gone with the original design of using sandpaper on the outside jacket.
..And I loved it from day 1. .. Curious what you think of "Four Enclosed Walls" ...?
― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 9 January 2003 13:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
The News That Should Have Been, from 1980: EX-PISTOL ROTTEN'S BAND HIT WITH PLAGIARISM CHARGE BY OBSCURE AVANT-GARDE SECT: Bizarre Lawsuit Sure To Result In "Trial Of The Century" Say Legal Experts. "I'll fight this to the bitter end," vowed Mr Debord at a news conference before refusing to answer any more "cuntish questions" and firing a water pistol repeatedly into the crowd. (Settled out of court six months later after Debord is unable to provide any evidence that a 'Situationist International' ever existed...)
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 9 January 2003 14:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 9 January 2003 14:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 9 January 2003 14:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Thursday, 9 January 2003 14:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
― robertw, Thursday, 9 January 2003 15:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
It'd have to be. 3 12"s @ 45 RPM beats 2 12"s @ 33 RPM anyday, from a mastering point of view.
― hstencil, Thursday, 9 January 2003 15:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
Rubbish. I love many many records that have 'classic' status. In fact, when it comes to rock, I am an unreconstructed canonist.
"yes, but no one 'sings' like this. It can come off as tedious because he is repeating things over and over again but this is a good groove. repetition in this case is good."
True, no one else sounds like a loon lowing across the marshland at 6am. This may or may not be a good thing. It's not the repetition of the vocals or the groove that bothers me, it's that the groove is so plodding. It's not funky, it's not disorienting/spaced-out/dubby, it's just there, stumbling wearily but implacably forward, and it bores me.
― Ben Williams, Thursday, 9 January 2003 15:24 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 9 January 2003 15:36 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ben Williams, Thursday, 9 January 2003 15:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
well I'm anti-canon. this is one of the few recs in the canon that gets the nod from me.
''It's not funky, it's not disorienting/spaced-out/dubby, it's just there, stumbling wearily but implacably forward, and it bores me.''
Lydon's keeps repeating the same words again and again in this bored manner and the music reflects that. its the music's function to have some bored element. Punk bands always talked abt being bored, this had the 'I'm bored' in the music. great!
and as far as its dubbiness goes its not dubbier than dub from that period but then again it isn't meant to be that. its a mashing dub and some kraut stuff too. so its funky but not that funky.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 9 January 2003 16:45 (twenty-one years ago) link
frankly, it's a bit too repetitive and overlong for me (I'm not the kin. Still better than anything they did later. But Death Disco is indeed wonderful, in THEORY. I liked it more when I was in my "I only want to hear music that's WRONG! Finger to the mainstream!" phase. Delta 5's "Mind Your Own Business" is kinda the direction I wish they'd gone more in.
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 9 January 2003 19:59 (twenty-one years ago) link
When people say 'dubby' they're usually referring to JW's bass, but there are other dub techniques in there too - like the way the rhythm will stay the same but the high hat or snare is suddenly filtered and uses another set of frequencies. King Tubby does this all the time.
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 9 January 2003 20:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
the later releases of the music(second edition) not only have poorer sound quality, they are flawed by losing this concept.
― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 9 January 2003 21:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Thursday, 9 January 2003 21:51 (twenty-one years ago) link
I changed my mind!* Metal Box is actually quite brilliant. For some reason it clicked for me this time. Lydon sounds like Gollum. Levene sounds like he's scratching your eyes out. Wobble is implacable (I like that word today). The electronics are genuinely strange, alienating in that way that electronics were back then--you know, they sound like they're wheezing from some big gray mainframe that takes up half a room. The drums are just like, heavy, man. It's a big granite slab of sound rolling over you.
I think my problem was that I bought the album after reading the usual rhetoric about it, and then I didn't hear what I expected to hear based on that rhetoric. I still don't, really... but I like what I hear instead now.
* Well actually, I still think the suburbia-is-conformist stuff is cliched (suppose it wasn't at the time tho) and just wrong, Albatross is a dirge, and it really doesn't have much to do with dub. Even the bass isn't dubby--it's just fat and high in the mix. I only hear about one moment where he plays anything like a dub bassline (midway through Graveyard I think), most of the time it's more rock. And OK, they phase the drums every now and then. But dub is a process more than anything else, and they don't apply that process anywhere--there's no abrupt mixing in and out of instruments, no space in the music (the opposite--it's claustrophobic), no echoing....they're still playing songs, not deconstructing them. Not that it matters, but "avant-garde dub" is one of those phrases that gets thrown around a lot in relation to this album.
― Ben Williams, Thursday, 9 January 2003 22:01 (twenty-one years ago) link
― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 9 January 2003 22:12 (twenty-one years ago) link
Nope. Beyond that...it's brilliant.
― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Thursday, 9 January 2003 22:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
Statements like these drive me up the wall. HE IS NOT A FANTASTIC SINGER. HE CANNOT SING. FACT.I say that someone could have a terrible voice and still be a good singer.Its like comparing Bob Dylan to Michael Bolton. Bob Dylans voice is horrible, but uses (what little he has) in a fun and interesting way. Bolton has a fine set of lungs but is excruciatingly annoying. Lydon is more toward the Dylan end of the spectrum. Sure, he's shrill and squeaky, but he's a blast to listen to.
Agree/Disagree?
― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Thursday, 9 January 2003 22:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― gaz (gaz), Thursday, 9 January 2003 22:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
Despair and anger. Very big in 1979 - see also Joy Division.
and Fear of Music...and...
― dan selzer, Saturday, 16 May 2009 16:01 (fourteen years ago) link
WTF I can't believe you haters
― akm, Saturday, 16 May 2009 16:23 (fourteen years ago) link
That clip is making me rethink life in a good way.
― Pete Scholtes, Saturday, 16 May 2009 16:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Boy, Dick Clark sure yanked down that American Bandstand clip in a hurry. Bummer.
How much of the Lydon bio deals with the PIL era? Because the idea of reading yet another history of the Pistols or about anything after Flowers of Romance hardly seems worth the effort.
Speaking of, Metal Box is kinda screaming for the 33 1/3 treatement, no?
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Saturday, 16 May 2009 21:11 (fourteen years ago) link
― Pete Scholtes, Saturday, 16 May 2009 17:51 (4 hours ago) Bookmark
I agree, but I can't believe it's not butter
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Saturday, 16 May 2009 21:22 (fourteen years ago) link
i read lydon's book a long time ago and IIRC he doesn't discuss the PIL era at all.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 16 May 2009 21:26 (fourteen years ago) link
Typical. There's a book about PIL but it's not available in the states. Maybe one of these days I'll splurge and buy it at the import price.
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Saturday, 16 May 2009 21:37 (fourteen years ago) link
NO BLACKS, NO IRISH, NO DOGS does not cover the PIL era.
I shouldn't still get wound up about people hating the Pistols, because the records were meant to be hated, but face it, no Pistols, no PIL. No Punk, no post-punk. I've recently been bingeing on the various Mark E. Smith bios, and one of them describes him listening to "Holidays in the Sun" obsessively. But Mark is just another "Tuneless, rhythmless wanker who clearly makes no effort to sing anything that even remotely relates to what the musicians are doing".
Yes. I need to hear that sometimes.
― Soukesian, Saturday, 16 May 2009 21:56 (fourteen years ago) link
OK, this thread then.
I was running through the PIL album pages on Wikip, and noticed that when recording one track for Metal Box, the thought went round "yeah, it sounds like The Doors, dunnit?" to general approval.
So, officially, "Albatross" is their sort-of take on "Riders on the Storm"
― Mark G, Thursday, 3 March 2011 09:38 (thirteen years ago) link
Metal Box is hard to love, but then PiL never really wanted anyone to send flowers. Can't agree with this general slagging of Levene, however. The guitar on the first changed something fundamental about how guitars sounded, distorted but also shiny and clean. It was something genuinely new and exciting. Loads of people ripped it off, or went trad in opposition to the trend. You could make similar arguments for Poptones.
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Thursday, 3 March 2011 17:09 (thirteen years ago) link
should read "guitar on the first single changed somehthing etc.."
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Thursday, 3 March 2011 17:10 (thirteen years ago) link
Nobody is slagging Levene on the basis of his Guitar playing.
― Mark G, Thursday, 3 March 2011 17:25 (thirteen years ago) link
Still, now I have to sing it:
Riders on the stormriders on the stormgetting riid of the al-ba-trossssss
― Mark G, Thursday, 3 March 2011 17:29 (thirteen years ago) link
The OP most certainly was!
― rendezvous then i'm through with HOOS (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 3 March 2011 17:35 (thirteen years ago) link
I didn't mean you Mark. I had been reading early threads.
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Thursday, 3 March 2011 21:44 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean posts. Brain barely functioning tonight
― akm, Saturday, May 16, 2009 4:23 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark
― ☠-post (latebloomer), Thursday, 3 March 2011 21:48 (thirteen years ago) link
this album is perfect.
also, for how "difficult" it's supposed to be i remember thinking it was poppier than i expected when i first heard it.
it's basically a ramones record compared to flowers of romance.
― gr8080 sings the blues (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 3 March 2011 22:12 (thirteen years ago) link
seriously
― ☠-post (latebloomer), Thursday, 3 March 2011 22:13 (thirteen years ago) link
Kind of a downer, though.I have to be in the mood for it.
― Trip Maker, Thursday, 3 March 2011 22:14 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, not really getting this thread. i've never thought it was that super difficult of a record. loved it the first time i heard it as a teenager and still do.
― circa1916, Thursday, 3 March 2011 23:19 (thirteen years ago) link
let the take flood down!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmfzuAd_u2E
― mark s, Sunday, 21 November 2021 12:07 (two years ago) link
s/b takes ffs never mind
A take is raining, across the border.
― feed me with your clicks (Noel Emits), Sunday, 21 November 2021 13:26 (two years ago) link
thought this had been revived for this
As I’ve commented before -j can’t stand some of the trivial puerile shit that you see on Twitter . I mean I co wrote metal box-that’s heavy shit, but whatever , I often ponder -what’s better ? Munchies or Rollo ? The crunchy biscuit base of the former or the classic chewy latter pic.twitter.com/a6r6exdCn5— Jah Wobble (@realjahwobble) November 20, 2021
― nashwan, Sunday, 21 November 2021 16:38 (two years ago) link
ive got a mind to buy the best, before the rest
(maltesers)
― mark s, Sunday, 21 November 2021 17:28 (two years ago) link
pil stinks.
― ian, Sunday, 21 November 2021 18:33 (two years ago) link