461: Public Image Ltd., "Metal Box"

Before: Nothing. A little intimidated by the album name.

After: I admit, I was going to begin this venture a couple weeks ago but chickened out because I was so intimidated. But not anymore! If I can withstand the Arctic Blast, than Public Image Ltd is no match, right? Right???

Ut oh. This sounds like R.E.M. falling into a metal pipe (there's a distant echo that's actually the lead singer). This first song, Albatross, is filled with such pitiful misery.
Really not feeling this...
I imagine a grey/blue/teal tornado made of lint on a very cold, dry day. Everyone who has a radio in their house hears it groaning and making fuzzy radio sounds. A couple convulse and crash to the ground. The angsty teenagers, for whom nothing makes sense anymore, hear this album and feel a zombielike urge to follow the music. They will find their equally confused and unhappy people at the end of this dystopian rainbow. The cute sea otters and blue jays flee to greener pastures. Worms and crows delight in their new atmosphere.

I admit that, 65% through the album now, I've surrendered to letting the music, which feels more like sounds, to just hit my ears so I'll be through with this soon. It's very unpleasant.

41 minutes in, I think I've reached the first song with a lead singer who's obeying a somewhat steady stream of vocalizations. He's loving the monotone and spitting out words with a nasaly drone reminiscent of when you'd sneer at your parents circa age 6.

HOLD ON: The last minute of the song, composed of synthesizer swells and an orchestra-like composition, is actually enjoyable! How considerate!

Research has enlightened me that this album was a huge, huge influence and groundbreaking piece of art that inspired groups like "Sonic Youth, Liars, Nirvana, Manic Street Preachers, Shellac, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Elastica… basically next to every act that’s mattered since punk’s phenomenal rise in the mid-70s" (BBC Review). Ok, so this is another album that's an important thing to have listened to and understood where it fits in the whole history of music, but isn't necessarily likeable. That's ok! It's over!!! :)