Comparing a one-hit wonder (in the US and Australia at least) with a post-punk behemoth may be seen as drawing a long bow, but I know what I hear and I’m pretty certain I can justify it, even if I have to resort to dialectics. You be the judge.
Thesis: Public Image Ltd – “Swan Lake” (1979)
Metal Box has to be one of the most abrasive, menacing, and plain nasty records ever released. John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon had been responsible for the worldwide breaking of punk back in ’77, but then the Sex Pistols disintegrated—and from the unearthly vocals he unleashes on PiL’s early work, so too did Johnny.
The nihilism of the Pistols is still present, but the three-chord riffs and memorable shout-along choruses are cast off in favour of skeletal approximations of dub and disco rhythms, riven with hellish guitar scrapes.
“Swan Lake” is one of the more accessible songs on the album—the beat sounds like the kind of thing James Murphy would lift and the vocals have a rare clarity (for Lydon at least). And yet it retains the sense of overhearing a band’s collective primal-scream therapy session.
Antithesis: The Smiths – “What Difference Does It Make?” (1983)
You couldn’t ask for a more striking contrast to PiL’s avant garde flailings than the fey pop classicism of The Smiths. Stephen Patrick Morrissey wasn’t at all interested in the tribal sounds of krautrock or even the mechanical danceability of disco. He called reggae “vile” and invited hanging of DJs. He liked “proper” music.
The Smiths were original, but only in the sense that they took very conventional song structures and gave them a totally idiosyncratic interpretation. Johnny Marr’s guitar jangle and Morrissey’s wry, observational lyrics have entranced many a youngster, but uncontrolled and menacing they were not.
Synthesis: James – “Hymn From a Village” (1985)
Somehow combining the classic pop of The Smiths with the erratic genius of PiL is a song from an unlikely source. James are best known outside of the UK for the title track from their 1993 album Laid, but while something of an indie anthem, it’s a far cry from their early work. Arriving out of Manchester with the vocal support of Morrissey it was inevitable that they would be tagged Smiths copycats. And yet the main distinction between their early work and their idols was how absurdly shambolic they were.
“Hymn From A Village,” off their second EP for Tony Wilson’s Factory Records, sounds a lot like the Smiths, except for the primal propulsion of the rhythm section (Gavan Whelan and Jim Glennie). Oh, and then there’s the manic breakdown when Tim Booth howls like a man possessed, if not by Satan, then at least by John Lydon.
It’s still a pop song in the truest sense, but it’s not detached like The Smiths. It has the urgency, the same being-chased-by-a-hound-hell desperation that drives some of the best New Wave. And I think it sounds more like PiL than a song by the band that sang “Laid” has any right to.