Public Image Limited's 'First Issue' Gets Reissued via Light in the Attic

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Apr 2, 2013

Thirty-five years after John Lydon's Public Image Limited blasted onto the scene with their debut album First Issue, the band are set to deliver the iconic set's first-ever North American pressing. The album drops on LP and as an expanded double-CD on June 18 through Light In the Attic Records.

A press release confirms that extra tracks will be available on the secondary disc on the CD edition, including rare B-side "The Cowboy Song" and an unedited, almost hour-long interview with Lydon that the BBC conducted in 1978. The package also includes two stickers.

As for the 180-gram LP, it preserves the record's original tracklisting, though it comes with a download card for the extra material. It will feature a gatefold sleeve, and comes with a fold-out poster, replica newspaper adverts and a lyric sheet.

Deluxe editions of both sets will contain the above, and also come packaged with a PiL patch and a set of six buttons.

Allegedly too uncommercial for U.S. audiences at the time, First Issue was Lydon's jump-off from the caustic punk style he honed as the singer of the Sex Pistols. PiL's debut LP unfurled a number of influences, including dub, pop and folk, while sowing the seeds of darkened post-punk. You can sample the band's still untouchable, critics-decrying anthem "Public Image" down below.

In related news, PiL will issue "Public Image"/"Cowboy Song" on a limited 7-inch for Record Store Day this year.

First Issue:

CD 1:


1. Theme

2. Religion I

3. Religion II

4. Annalisa

5. Public Image

6. Low Life

7. Attack

8. Fodderstompf

CD 2:


1. The Cowboy Song

2. Interview With John Lydon – BBC Radio 1, Rock On, Oct. 28, 1978

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