Public Image Ltd. Ready New LP ‘What the World Needs Now…’
John Lydon and his Public Image Ltd. will reassemble in 2015 to release their new album What the World Needs Now… and embark on a lengthy tour of Europe and North America. What the World Needs Now…, Public Image Ltd.‘s 10th studio album and first since 2012’s comeback LP This Is PiL, will arrive September 4th. The 11-song album’s first single “Double Trouble” will premiere August 21st.
Lydon, still a little Johnny Rotten after all these years, said of his new album in a statement, “Buy now while stocks last.” What the World Needs Now…, which was self-funded and will be released via the band’s own PiL Official, was recorded at Steve Winwood’s Wincraft studio in England. Public Image Ltd. will head off on an extensive European tour on September 18th through October 18th, after which they’ll travel stateside. The band has yet to reveal details of their U.S. tour.
For the first time in Public Image Ltd.’s nearly 40-year, revolving door history, the same personnel will appear on consecutive albums as Lydon will once again be joined by guitarist Lu Edmonds, drummer Bruce Smith and bassist Scott Firth. Both Edmonds (formerly of the Damned) and Smith (ex-The Pop Group) started collaborating with Lydon for 1987’s Happy?, but neither appeared on PiL’s 1992 album That What Is Not.
On top of the new album, Lydon also recently published his lengthy, 500-page memoir Anger Is an Energy: My Life Uncensored. The intimate autobiography, which plucks its title from Public Image Ltd.’s “Rise,” covers Lydon’s life from his youth to his Johnny Rotten and Sex Pistols days to the PiL era.
What the World Needs Now… Track List
1. “Double Trouble”
2. “Know Now”
3. “Bettie Page”
4. “C’est La Vie”
5. “Spice of Choice”
6. “The One”
7. “Big Blue Sky”
8. “Whole Life Time”
9. “I’m Not Satisfied”
10. “Corporate”
11. “Shoom”