Public Image Ltd. “This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get” 1984. I’m spinning PiL’s fourth album for John Lydon’s birthday today, January 31st. (b. 1956). Most of PiL’s recording career has been fairly fraught with strife and controversy and this album was no different: original PiL guitarist Keith Levene helped write many of the tracks and helped record the first version of the record, but in ‘83 Levene left PiL (so did bassist Pete Jones), took the tapes, mixed them and released the album as Commercial Zone on Virgin Records without Lydon’s input. So Lydon recruited a group of studio musicians, along with Martin Atkins who had previously drummed for PiL and shares writing credits on all of the songs, to re-record the tracks for This Is What You Want... though did give Levene writing credits on several of the tracks. It includes a new version of the previously released single (’83, #5 UK) “This Is Not a Love Song” and another single, “Bad Life” (#71 UK), which had the original title “Mad Max” on Commercial. Those are the two best, and most accessible, tracks on the album, though I also really like the grooves on “Where Are You” and “1981″ (which was originally slated to be included on PiL’s ‘81 release The Flowers of Romance). The rest of the LP leans heavily toward the experimental side of post-punk and gets a bit droney/boring at times (ie “Tie Me To the Length of That” (Atkins says about that song: “Things like ‘Tie Me to The Length of That’, we just jammed. John played this thing that was like a cross between a mellotron and an electric organ, and we got some great sounds out of it. He played this walking, ever changing bassline and I drummed to it, and I felt that we were just totally connected at that point – every time he changed I was there with him, I’d change and he’d be there.“) and goes electrical freak-out at others (ie “The Pardon”).