 John
once said that he saw the packaging on his records as an extra track,
well, it’s certainly the case with ‘Plastic Box’, I absolutely
love it!** Part of the reason I like it so much is that it doesn’t
really look like a box set... The four discs are held in an old style
double CD case, and the case along with the 36 page booklet are housed
in a clear PVC slip-case. The CD case is dark grey with silver lettering
and a small PiL logo on the front, and a large PiL logo on the back.
Simple but effective. The 4 CD’s aren’t numbered, instead
they all feature a different coloured PiL logo, which matches up with
the track listing. The original plan was for the box to released be
in metal not plastic, but due to the fact Virgin USA pulled out of releasing
it (they’ve apparently since changed their minds!) the budget had
to be changed. That was also part of the delay in releasing the box
set, as you may remember it was originally going to be January...
The one thing
that surprised me about the booklet was how short the Lydon interview
is, John did over six hours of interviews for the box, but you
can read the whole thing in about 10 minutes. I thought it was going
to be a track by track break down but instead they’ve only picked
a few tracks from each disc (Virgin say that was the way they recieved
it, apparently it was the journalist who conducted the interview who
edited it). Depending on your knowledge of PiL the sleevenotes probably
won’t tell you much you don’t already know, there’s the
odd explanation or funny story etc, but the most impressive thing about
them is that despite some bad blood, John has made a point of praising
the likes of Keith Levene and Martin Atkins, you know yourself that
when JL talks about the Pistols it tends to come over as “It was
all me”!, well the opposite is true here... Probably the most important
quote in the sleevenotes is; “And by the way, this collection
represents a comma not a full stop, I fully intend to carry on with
PiL, and there will be more in the future.”
As well as John’s
sleevenotes the booklet also features various PiL sleeves along with
various pieces of PiL memorabilia. I thought the plan was to use all
the sleeves but instead only a selection has been used, same goes for
the memorabilia, myself along with Satellite author Paul Burgess
gave Virgin a tonne of stuff to pick from. They used the obvious stuff
like the PiL ‘Can’, the ‘9’ jigsaw and the PiL lollipop,
but they decided not to use things like the imitation ‘Happy? pills’
and the original promo poster for ‘Public Image’, however,
they did use a couple of run of the mill patches and postcards that
I picked up for next to nothing! I asked them about it and they said
that John was changing stuff all the time and they just decided to use
what he wanted! One of the original ideas was to possibly include a
discography, and a PiL family tree but it never got past the planning
stages, which again is a pity because it would have helped fill up the
booklet...
Incidentally
for whatever reason John decided to remove all the credits in the sleevenotes,
including his manager Eric Gardner, so to give credit where it‘s
due; the box was compiled by Hik Sasaki, designed by Ian Kaye, and myself
and Paul Burgess provided the stuff in the booklet (fame at last, eh
guys!). Of course you could argue that we should have been credited,
but to be quite honest I was just glad to be involved at all...
The box has been selling for around £25-30 and to be quite honest
that’s an absolute bargain, you’re getting 64 tracks on four
CD’s, along with well smart packaging, I don’t think anyone
could argue with that price. Ok, it might not be full of nice extras
like the new Can box set, or have as many unreleased tracks or outtakes
as the recent Joy Division set, but that’s why it’s the price
it is... Obviously I think the box set will attract the hardcore collectors,
however, I think it’s ideal for the more casual fan too (especially
at that price), people who have some of the LP’s but not all of
them and want to fill some gaps in their collection... A lot of the
bigger fans have been put off by the lack of unreleased material, but
as you can see from the review it’s got plenty of stuff that’s
not been available on CD before, and that along with the improved sound
quality and the unreleased sessions etc will probably twist most people’s
arms...
UNUSED ARTWORK
By the way,
I have to say I was surprised by some of the letters I received regarding
the track listing. As far back as F&F7 I said the box would be a
compilation of singles, 12” mixes, B-sides and album tracks, but
I still got letters from people moaning about the final listing, I did
warn you! My biggest criticism of the box is that everything was crammed
onto four discs, it should have been at least five, however, I know
the budget for the project wasn’t exactly massive (this is PiL
after all!) and all things considered I think Hik’s done a great
job squeezing on the amount she has...
As I say in
the intro there IS unreleased stuff kicking about, but the chances of
ever seeing it released have to be pretty remote, however, there are
plenty of remixes etc still looking to get a CD release, the extended
US mixes of ‘Happy’ and ‘Warrior’ or the re-recorded
‘Renovations’ versions of ‘Religion’ and ‘The
Suit’ for instance. And although they decided not to use any material
from PiL’s two live albums Virgin also have the whole of the FM
broadcast of the Ritz gig from 1989 that’s featured on the ‘Cruel’
singles, so you never know there could be still be stuff to come...
There’s an old quote of John’s that goes; “I was very
shocked by the reviews of the last album [Metal Box], of course I don’t
believe any of them”, I think that’s the case with ‘Plastic
Box’ some of the reviews were unbelievably good. I mean Melody
Maker gave it ‘5 stars out of 5’, and even the NME
and Q bummed it up, in fact I don’t think I read a completely
bad review! As I expected most of the reviews praised the earlier stuff
more than the later stuff, but even then, only a couple of them really
put the boot in. What’s happening (that old music paper headline
springs to mind “PiL in good review shocker”!) has it took
the break up of the band for them to any get respect. Typical hypocritical
music journalism if you ask me...
That said, I
suppose it’s nice to see the band getting some well deserved respect.
It’s a pity more of todays bands wouldn’t acknowledge their
influence, the only people who ever seem to say it are Massive Attack,
Goldie and Primal Scream. It goes without saying that ‘Metal Box’
and Keith’s guitar have influenced many of todays ‘dance’
and ‘indie’ bands, but I can hear PiL in a lot of other stuff
too, U2’s ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’/‘Banging the Door’
rip off is well documented, and I mentioned Placebo’s recent attempt
in F&F7, but you only have to listen to stuff as diverse as the
polished pop of Garbage or the rock funk of the Chilli Peppers to hear
their influence... “Public Image - often imitated but never surpassed...”
I know John’s got his hands full just now and I reckon he saw this
as a low key release (despite all the press it got he only did one new
interview for it , and in The Times of all places), but hopefully
this compilation will renew interest in the band and persuade him to
get a new line up together, lets hope so, because in John’s words...
“We’ve got a world of masturbators out there, and then
there’s PiL...” |