John Lydon
Psycho's Path

John Lydon is elsewhere, somewhere.
With his psychotic eyes, his spiky hair, his antennas always alert, he often picks up on new trends before others. Often, however, when it comes to the final blow, he falls. "Psycho's Path", from 1997, is the best proof of that.
A questionable pop art cover, a splendid title, an excellent musical work.
Result: an absolute flop.

Twenty years after the big bang of the Sex Pistols, Johnny sheds his many masks, the various identities with which he has always hidden his name, and plays it, for the first time, with his first and last name. The message is clear: this time I’m putting my face on it.
The antennas are up, as we said, and once again he proves it.
He composes a handful of tracks with trendy sounds but at the same time perfect for his neurotic and very uncommercial litanies, then he brings on board three rising stars: Leftfield (already well-known), Moby, and the Chemical Brothers.

Attention, it’s not as obvious as it seems. The last two names mentioned are not yet on everyone's lips: the great world of hit parades does not yet know them. As for the Chemical Brothers, they had already distinguished themselves previously, but 1997 is the year when the masses discover them thanks to "Dig your own hole": Lydon comes first. Involving Moby is even more forward-thinking, considering that global success would only come in 1999 and that in 1997 the future star was still struggling in the musical undergrowth.

He entrusts these three sonic terrorists with the remixes, while he writes and plays the rest of the album all by himself, abandoning everything he had accustomed his audience to for twenty years.
The new toy is in fact a hysterical hybrid of disco music and drum'n'bass tinged with accordions and dulcimer. A hypnotic and inspired bass as had not been heard since the days of Jah Wobble and no trace of electric guitar.
In a few words, yet another kick in the balls of the punk populace.

Surely Mr. Rotten pins his hopes on the disco-folk rhythm of "Sun", the alarming dirge that bears the same title as the album, the compelling anti-clerical "Dog", the technological collaboration with the Chemical Brothers in the psychotic "Open up". Unfortunately, he will not obtain any satisfaction.

The commercial failure of "Psycho's Path" deserves an analysis, even if only for the fact that, during the same period, another great elder, David Bowie, was riding the jungle tiger with "Earthling" and managed to do magnificently, almost coming across as an innovator to the ears of the less attentive listeners.

Now, for me, David Bowie is a sort of God on earth, but in this and other occasions, he proves to be much more of a crafty one than Johnny. Everything is forgiven for the Duke, but not for the Rotten.
Come to think of it, their very nicknames suggest it: the people have always loved Dukes more than Rotten ones...

Whether Lydon experiments or not, he is still a sellout for his target audience, that of the Sex Pistols. Bowie, on the other hand, magically manages, every time, to convince everyone that he is just "someone who updates himself". The ridiculous thing is that between the two, the one less concerned with profit is definitely Lydon, even if the audience insists otherwise and spends its time trying to shoot him down with accusations of low consistency compared to a style, that of 1977, from which the English artist has been desperately trying to free himself his entire life.

Another cause of the catastrophe is Virgin. Poor them (so to speak...), let's put ourselves in their shoes: it is the twentieth anniversary of punk, the Sex Pistols have recently reunited, and just John, the best icon at their disposal, comes out with a dance album.
So, they promote this absurd item full of samples and accordions as little as possible and focus on the upcoming punk revival. Johnny will not forgive them, especially since presumably he had embarked on the "Filthy Lucre tour" with his old companions precisely to finance this work. After all, it was clear from the tour name that he was doing it just for the money...

The last and most unpleasant reason for the flop is, however, paradoxically, the fault of Lydon himself: eager to disconcert the listener every time, convinced that he is still at the center of the scene, he does not realize a sad but inevitable reality: his artistic path now interests few.
His character is in a phase of advanced iconization, and when it comes to icons, there is a tendency to demand from them that they be stable, like wax statues, standing "in defense of their celebration".
A monument is expected to be a monument, not to keep stirring.
Too bad that John Lydon, more than many of his esteemed colleagues, believes himself to be a person rather than a monument, and moreover, he is a notorious, inveterate pain in the ass.

Like the unhappy end of a beautiful fairy tale, "Psycho's Path" thus remained gathering dust on the shelves, without any real fault. A work relegated to the rank of an aborted hypothesis, a little gem never brought on tour, the last not perfect but high-level proof of an artist always in step with the times and, at the same time, absolutely original.