London, UK · post-punk

Public Image Ltd.

1 upcoming festival

John Lydon's second act — the band that invented post-punk's rulebook by burning the first one, still gleefully contrary.

Public Image Ltd. was formed in London in 1978 by John Lydon after the collapse of the Sex Pistols, initially alongside guitarist Keith Levene and bassist Jah Wobble. The group moved sharply away from punk orthodoxy, building on dub bass, scraping guitar textures and Lydon's keening, declamatory vocals, and drawing on disco, krautrock and free-form experimentation as readily as rock.

Records such as Metal Box helped set the template for post-punk, and later line-ups pushed further toward pop and dance production while retaining the band's confrontational streak. Lydon has remained the constant member across the group's various incarnations and periods of inactivity, and PiL's catalogue is generally treated as one of the more influential bodies of work to emerge from the British post-punk era.

post-punk