Public Image Limited
That What Is Not

To me, it's a genuine mystery. I've searched everywhere for an exception, among the most obscure reviews from both shady Italian and international magazines. No luck, there's none. Yet, I've been listening to music for many, too many years, I can't have been so gravely mistaken.

Most of the albums I love have good reviews, for heaven's sake! I don't love them for that reason, mind you, but realizing that others share this love pleases me, makes me feel "at home"...

I loved the Smiths' “The Queen is Dead” and the Cure's “Pornography”, Alice in Chains' “Dirt” and Captain Beefheart's “Trout Mask Replica”. All stuff worthy of at least four stars, for goodness' sake. Now, I'm not infallible, but I believe I can at least distinguish real trash from diamonds. For instance, if I listen to Nick Cave, I prefer “Tender Prey” over “Nocturama”. It had never occurred to me that an album I adore would be so harshly criticized by everyone, absolutely everyone. A consensus, a heap of muck that has been dumped on this particular object. “That What Is Not” by the PIL seems to bring all the reviewers into agreement: it's considered a disastrous piece of crap. Even the New Kids On the Block have never been treated worse. I also notice that the muck is almost never justified: they talk about a sad ending, a swan song, a trivial work. Quickly, with disdain... as if it wasn't even worth discussing.

So, since I am evidently the only one who thinks differently, I decided to write this review myself: the last studio album by John Lydon, released in 1992 and featuring a fantastic and disturbing cover, in my opinion, is a marvel. The rot has never sung better, he sounds like a muezzin shouting from the highest tower of a burning nuclear power plant. In his voice lies hate, sarcasm, hysteria, delirium. There's less experimentation compared to two absolute pinnacles like “Flowers of Romance” and “Second Edition/Metal Box” and the quirky “This is What You Want…This Is What You Get” but everything is absolutely not trivial. The guitars sound acidic, the horns of the Tower of Power strangely fit well with the wailing of the madman on the tower.

“Love Hope”, “Good Things” and “God” are harsh and powerful, screeching like nails on the blade of a pencil sharpener, “Unfairground” and “Emperor” open melodic glimpses that are as cordial and pleasant as oil slicks. “Acid Drops” and “Think Tank” offer a powerful, bulldozing carpet to the schizoid digressions of the psychotic Londoner. All of it with a compositional solidity that Johnny had found alternately on “Album” and “Happy” and seemed to have completely lost in the insipid “9”.

In short, in 1992 it sounded to me like a great and welcome return. It's a pity the whole world didn't share the same opinion, that the album was a flop, that the PIL deflated on the disastrous sales result of the same, and that the prodigious adventure sank until recently. I keep asking myself: a spectacular collective blunder or my temporary loss of sanity? Logic makes me lean towards the second hypothesis, but I've been listening to it since 1992, 18 years have passed, and I still don't find it tiresome... I can only implore, recommend, invite everyone to give it another chance.

On this occasion, I want to remember one of the greatest guitarists of all time: John McGeoch, who passed away in 2004 at just 49 years old after having played in Magazine, Visage, the PIL, and Siouxsie's Banshees, recording with her gothic masterpieces such as “Juju” and “Kaleidoscope”: “That What Is Not” is the last album in which he played.