Album dossier / 1981

The Flowers of Romance

Public Image Ltd. · Post-Punk

Recorded in 1980-81 after bassist Jah Wobble's abrupt departure left PiL without their signature dub low end, The Flowers of Romance is built almost entirely around Martin Atkins' massive, reverb-drenched drums, John Lydon's wailing, semi-improvised vocals, and Keith Levene's sparse synth textures rather than conventional guitar or bass parts. Atkins, who later reunited with surviving PiL members to recreate the album live for its 45th anniversary, has described the sessions as chaotic and internally fractious -- singer John Lydon and guitarist Keith Levene were reportedly barely speaking, working separately and assembling parts almost by remote control -- while Levene spent much of the studio time absorbed in early video games between takes. Virgin Records was reportedly unnerved by how radical and commercially unviable the stripped-down, percussion-led results sounded, but the record is now regarded as one of post-punk's most uncompromising experiments and a key transitional link to the industrial and world-music-inflected sounds Atkins and Levene pursued afterward.