10 Best Experimental Rock Songs Of All Time
2. Public Image Ltd - Poptones
Though he’ll be forever better known as the frontman of the Sex Pistols, John Lydon’s crowning work by far is Public Image Limited, and specifically their 1979 album Metal Box. The high point of the post-punk masterpiece is “Poptones”, a dubby, spacey track that showcases the musicianship PiL had to offer along with the versatility of Lydon as a technically limited but incredibly charismatic frontman.
Jah Wobble is the star of the show here, plucking out and transposing the distinctive, hypnotic bassline for the track’s full seven minute duration. He hangs on one chord, jumps to another, and then back down again. All the while Keith Levene provides an arpeggiated backing that loses and finds itself amid Wobble’s bassline. He drums, too, in an agreeably non-professional fashion, leading to the song sounding as though it’s about to collapse.
On top of all that, Lydon sneers his mysterious, gnomic lyrics, pulled from the pages of a newspaper story concerning a kidnapping. He sounds as though he has a story to tell but gets off on withholding information, disappearing for full minutes at a time. It’s a subtly disconcerting bit of music that feels far more revolutionary than anything the Pistols ever did.