What the hell, a lot of people might not have heard these either, and PiL's Album is a vinyl rip from the 2009 Rhino reissue.
PiL's Album is quite the anomaly in their catalog as it features no members from any previous or then-future line-up apart from Lydon. This is all due to Bill Laswell's producing the album as he insisted upon using his own rotating cast of musicians. The album gave birth to Rise, one of Lydon and PiL's best known songs as well as six other tunes that featured Lydon, shockingly, singing! Hints of melody actually shined through his wonderful scrawl of a vocal, which understandably angered many fans who believed Lydon had sold out, although I've always seen it pretty damn punk to be brave enough to do the unexpected, even if the unexpected might be, dare I say it, kind of commercial.
PiL's Album, also known as Cassette for the cassette release and, get this, Compact Disc for the compact disc release, was also one of their more confusing releases as all the packaging listed were the names of the songs and their authors. For the longest time the back-up band remained unknown, but the rather amazing line-up surfaced a few years ago and it's a shocker. As listed below:
Steve Vai - Guitar
Nicky Skopelitis - Guitar
Bill Laswell - Bass
Malachi Favors - Bass
Jonas Hellborg - Bass
Ginger Baker - Drums
Tony Williams - Drums
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Keyboards
Bernie Worrell - Keyboards
Aiyb Dieng - Chatan
Lakshmiranrayna Shankar - Violin
Steve Turre - Didjeridu
Bernard Fowler - Additional Vocals
Hell of a line-up, eh? Laswell and Lydon produced a great album, but they butted heads regularly during the sessions. Laswell almost produced Album's follow-up, Happy?, but he insisted upon using his revolving cast of session musicians and Lydon just wasn't having that.
As for Jah Wobble's Betrayal (it's full name is The Legend Lives On... Jah Wobble In Betrayal), it was recorded around the same time as Metal Box/Second Edition and features Martin Atkins on percussion in places. It's also part of the reason Wobble left PiL, as he was accused by Lydon of having stolen bass lines intended for PiL, but years later it appears to have been just the opposite. Apparently Wobble had written a lot of the bass lines for his own recordings and shared them with PiL, so it was quite a shock when Lydon asked Wobble to leave the group. I suppose Lydon's argument was cemented in the appearance of Not Another on Wobble's album, as it's the same basic instrumental as Graveyard on Metal Box/Second Edition and Another which was a PiL b-side. The bass line on Wobble's cover of Blueberry Hill is also basically the same as that of PiL's The Suit, but it's a different recording.
The version of Betrayal I've posted here is simply the main album. The CD and digital versions all feature seven additional tracks from various Wobble EPs and singles of that era, but if you'd like to get those I suggest you purchase the album which is available at iTunes and Amazon. As for Album, it's the full, uh, album and as I said earlier, it's a vinyl rip from Rhino's 2009 180 gram reissue. You can purchase Album digitally also from the same places, but I'd suggest finding a copy of the vinyl reissue if you can. Enjoy!
UPDATE: Due to recent complaints I'm taking precautions and removing these links. Sorry. Regardless, if you like the music you can purchase both of these albums digitally. They're well worth it!
Public image Ltd. - Album
01 FFF
02 Rise
03 Fishing
04 Round
05 Bags
06 Home
07 Ease
Jah Wobble - The Legend Lives On... Jah Wobble In Betrayal
01 Betrayal
02 Beat The Drum For Me
03 Blueberry Hill
04 Not Another
05 Tales From Outer Space
06 Today Is The First Day Of The...?
07 Dan McArthur
08 Pineapple
PS - Quick note about Album, during it's recording sessions Lydon was shocked to find Miles Davis standing behind him. Miles apparently told Lydon that he loved his vocals as he felt his phrasing was similar to the way he played. Miles may have recorded something for the album but it wasn't used and nothing else is known about it.
