Metal Box -- does anyone hate this as much as me?

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.

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.

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.

the later releases of the music(second edition) not only have poorer sound quality, they are flawed by losing this concept.

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.

Nope. Beyond that...it's brilliant.

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?

And sorry, but Bob Dylan doesn't use his voice in a fun way.

("WHAT FRIIIEEENDS ARE FO-O-O-O-O-O-R! O-O-O-O-O-O-O-OHHHH!")

Even if I liked the vocals on this record better, I think I'd still find this statement incredible.

Julio: Is Metal Box really part of the 'canon'?

Anthony: I agree that Delta 5 are better than PiL, but that's not much of a criticism because D5 are also better than 99.9999992% of everything in the known universe.

VINDICATION. Stuff him in the Wicker Man and watch him burn.

Great album but I'd love a remastered CD.

With a handful of exceptions, you've pretty much heard the good stuff.

yes. I have seen it a couple of times on classic albums pages in music mags. it gets voted as one of the best alb of that period and it gets connected with the whole 'wasn't 1979, like, the BEST YEAR EVAH FOR MUSIC!'

By all means enjoy him if that's the style of vocals you like, but calling him a singer is very much like calling Biz Markie a singer for the bellowing he does on "Just A Friend".

(And to completely confound expectations, Lydon trying to do Whitney's version of "I Will Always Love You" is probably the FUNNIEST THING EVER.)

Listened to Second Edition last night, gawd what a fucking great record, "vocalist" or not. Haterz are insane.

I AM NOT WRONG. The man has only sung FIVE NOTES in his entire career. He does so in a shrieky, histrionic way no matter what the song is. Jesus Christ, people!
His blood pressure is 260 over 100! Intensive care...Stat!

dan learned the def of singing at school. and we all know schools suck.