Public Image Ltd жазбалары: Студиялар тарихы

The Manor in Shipton on Cherwell
Wessex, Gooseberry Sound, Townhouse and Advision in London
| genre = Post punk with engineer John Leckie and assistant engineer Kenneth Vaughan Thomas. For mixing and overdubs, the band then went into Wessex Studios with engineer Bill Price and assistant engineer Jeremy Green. John Leckie (engineer, 2003): "I [ ] came down Monday morning from The Manor after a few hours' sleep to Advision Studios, a studio I hadn't worked in before [ ] I engineered the session [ ] Keith Levene took the multi track tape home that night and came in the next day having forgotten it and accused me of stealing it! The track was pretty much a live take with Levene's guitar double tracked. John Lydon did his vocal through a Space Echo, dub style. I did a rough mix and went home. The next day the band never showed up and my rough mix was the record. I got no credit but Richard Branson did give me £250! It wasn't stressful, just a lot of fun!" Bill Price (engineer, 2008): "They'd recorded it and he wasn't quite happy, so he came to me to mix and do overdubs. Johnny was nominally in charge but he would look over his shoulder and ask Jah 'Is this the right direction?'" On Saturday, 22 July 1978, the music press reported that the band had been in the recording studio; the following week, Virgin Records announced that PiL's debut single would be released on 8 September 1978.

The entire first side of the record was recorded in the autumn of 1978 at Townhouse Studios and The Manor Studio with engineer Mick Glossop.

The last three songs on the second side were recorded at Gooseberry Sound Studios, a cheap reggae studio used because the band had run out of money, with engineer Mark Lusardi and assistant engineer Jon Caffery. Lydon knew the studio from the recording of Sex Pistols demos in January 1977. By late September 1978, the recording of the album was finished. The band had briefly considered including an alternative version of "Public Image" with different lyrics on the album, a plan that was finally rejected. In November or December 1978, Wobble and Levene returned to Gooseberry Sound Studios to record a 12 inch EP, Steel Leg V. the Electric Dread, with guest vocalists Vince Bracken and Don Letts.

For the final mix of the album tracks, the band returned to Townhouse Studios with Glossop, who remembers: "I do remember working on those other three [Gooseberry Studio] tracks, but I can't remember exactly what I did – probably mixing."

In August 1978, a promotional video for the upcoming single "Public Image" was shot by Peter Clifton's production company Notting Hill Studio Limited, which had just completed The Punk Rock Movie. Peter Clifton (video producer, 2006): "They formed Public Image and hired me and Don Letts to shoot their first video clip for Virgin. I hired a theatre in Fulham and dressed the band up on stage with garbage bags as a backdrop, and Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin, came down to witness the filming. There was a quiet lull in the middle of one of the takes, and Sid Vicious screamed at the top of his voice 'Peter Clifton, where's the 200 quid you owe me?'" Don Letts (video director, 2007): "Before the PiL promo, I was Don Letts, DJ at the Roxy, dread with a camera. All of a sudden I had a film crew and a 16 mm camera. The promo was shot at a studio in Olympia and I was making the shit up as I went along, having never been to film school. The video suited PiL's mood, being totally anti celebrity, it showed them playing in a dimly lit studio. Because it was John's band, I naively decided people just wanted to see him – due to my total inexperience I went for the safe option. It is just John's dynamics that give the video any substance whatsoever. It was a very intense and dark performance [ ] I have made near enough 400 promo videos in my time. My first was for PiL. They chose me as they did not want to use boring old farts, and we had a good relationship." John Lydon (1978): "The promotional film was made and paid for by ourselves out of our advance. Virgin weren't interested." The promo video was released on 15 September 1978 and shown on British TV twice in October 1978. In December 1986, it was released on VHS, and on DVD in October 2005.

On 9 February 1979, Warner Bros. Recording Studios in North Hollywood manufactured a test pressing of the album for PiL's American label, Warner Bros. Records. The album's sound was considered too non commercial for an American release, and PiL were asked to re record parts of it. Although the band recorded new versions of some tracks between March and May 1979, the album was never released in the USA. However, in 1980 Warner Bros. released the song "Public Image" on the compilation album Troublemakers, the only album track released in the USA until the 2013 release of the entire album. The re recorded version of "Fodderstompf" was released under the title "Megga Mix" as the B side of the "Death Disco" 12" single (29 June 1979). The track was later included on the PiL compilations Plastic Box (1999) and Metal Box: Super Deluxe Edition (2016); to date, it is the only track from the February 1979 First Issue re recording sessions to be officially released. On 18 June 2013, the album was finally officially released in the US via Light in the Attic Records.

In 1979, NME reported that a court in Malta had halted sales of the album because the lyrics of "Religion" offended public morals and decency. Upon its release, Public Image: First Issue received a 2 (out of 5) star review in Sounds. Reviewer Pete Silverton said that the single is the "Only wholly worthwhile track on the album." He dubbed the rest of the songs as "morbid directionless sounds with Rotten's poetry running just behind it." Nick Kent of NME was similarly negative, quipping that "unfortunately the 'image', public or otherwise, is a good deal less limited than many of the more practical factors involved in this venture." However, the album is now considered a groundbreaking post punk classic. AllMusic critic Uncle Dave Lewis stated that the record "helped set the pace" for the post punk genre, adding that it was "among a select few 1978 albums that had something lasting to say about the future of rock music."