** Public Image Ltd., "That What Is...

By JONATHAN GOLD

May 31, 1992 12 AM PT

** Public Image Ltd., “That What Is Not,” Virgin. Wherein John Lydon and a motley crew of faceless modern-pop session musicians take on the whole of the New Wave, plundering the likes of Talking Heads and Devo--and the Sex Pistols--for songs and poses the way that Eric B & Rakim rip through old James Brown. Sure, this is as unlistenable as anything PiL has done since “Flowers of Romance,” but it’s unlistenable in a really interesting way.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).

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Jonathan Gold

Jonathan Gold was the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times. He won the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2007 and was a finalist again in 2011. A Los Angeles native, he began writing the Counter Intelligence column for the L.A. Weekly in 1986, wrote about death metal and gangsta rap for Rolling Stone and Spin among other places, and was delighted that he managed to forge a career out of the professional eating of tacos. Gold died July 21, 2018.

** Public Image Ltd., “That What Is...

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