Word: maclaren
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Friggin" in the Riggin'," a nautical round of masturbation and sodomy on a British man o'war which is sure to replace "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" on top of the fifth grade charts, has no business on this record. Part of the problem is the manifest influence of Malcolm MacLaren, the Sex Pistols' manager, who apparently drove Rotten from the band and tried to fill the vacuum. MacLaren is the same imbecile who tried to dress up the New York Dolls in Communist regalia and helped to ensure their demise. He actually sings a track on this album. "You Need...
...public image" is the unifying concept for the album. Clearly uncomfortable with the sneering, puke-spitting persona created for him by Pistols manager Malcolm MacLaren (who gets singled out for abuse in "Lowlife"), Lydon wants to defy public expectations while still maintaining an audience, a limited public image. Unfortunately, it is Lydon's purposed demarche, his frankly experimental music, which fails most miserably...
...album succeeds fairly well, just some pretty good rock and roll without attempts at transcendence. "Annalisa," about a girl in Germany whose parents starved her to death to exorcise the devil, moves as forcefully as some of the lesser Bollocks numbers. "Lowlife," a slam at former manager MacLaren, and "Attack," another standard rocker, are at least not bad. And "Public Image," which Simon Frith of Melody Maker called "the best non-disco 45 of the year," might be just that, although there's always the Stones' "Shattered...