Album

PIL’s best album. Dense and solid. Good melodies and great singing.

You can tell by how the segue is off. The drums sound completely different from the rest of the album. While not bad, it disrupts the flow started by FFF.

No, your ears do not deceive you. This version of Rise is not the original version. It is inferior in my humble yet correct opinion.

Is this version of "Rise" the original album version? Intro and mix sounds different...

Just sayin'

I purchased 'album' when it was released in 1987. I purchased 'cassette' the following year so I could enjoy this awesome energetic album. From FFF to Ease there is not a moment of boredom. The two leading drumbeats at the very beginning of FFF are startling! The album doesn't begin good and progress to great--it begins hotter than Hades and stays hot throughout. The riff at the end of "ease" is exactly the perfect ending of this awesome album. The best tracks are all 7 of them. "Home" is reflective of the brilliance of this album: it begins hot gets hotter and fades hot. "Round" backs off the pace a bit but is an excellent track and fits in perfectly. This album is one of my top ten. So worth it.

this version of rise is very different than the old vinyl version I have. The intro on the vinyl version is twice as long, theres no screaming at the end, and the mix is totally different and more drum heavy. Does anyone know where to get THAT version?

This would have been a truly killer album with a real singer. The songs are smart, the playing is tight, production is good. I loved it when it came out and it still works for me. The real hard part is Lydon. He is brilliant, no doubt, but I was never able to get into any group with the talk/sing/sneer/growl style. (Tom Verlaine also drove me nuts although he tried a bit more to sing but it still took away from some stellar music.) Anyhow, Lydon's ear for melody is pretty keen. It is a strong batch of songs and at times the vocals match the melody. Best example is the intro and chorus for Rise. As much as the Sex Pistols were derided and, by extension, so was PIL, Lydon deserved a lot more credit than he ever got. Could the one-star boneheads take their reviews down. It doesn't help anyone and diminishes the overall totals.

and turned into bad MTV pop.

This is one of those records you remember exactly when and where you were when you first heard it. 25 years later it STILL holds up. A classic. Btw, I'm slightly disappointed they didn't use 'Digital Download' or 'MP3', etc. for the download version's artwork, as they did for the respective vinyl ('Album'), 'Compact Disc' and 'Cassette' versions.