Forty-five musicians appear on my John Lydon map. Thirty-two of them stand at exactly one station and are never seen again.
That is not sloppy research. That is what the career looks like when you draw it. One man, one continuous line, and a band that empties out and refills around him for forty-six years.
The short version. My John Lydon map plots 17 releases from 1977 to 2023, covering the Sex Pistols, Public Image Ltd and one solo album. The research holds 45 musicians. Lydon is on all 17. Martin Atkins reaches 6, Keith Levene 5, Bruce Smith 5. Thirty-two people appear once only. One record, Album in 1986, brings in Ginger Baker, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Steve Vai and Tony Williams at a single station. Available as a Giclée art print in A2 and A1, unframed or framed, from £42.00.
This Gift for John Lydon Fans Covers Two Bands That Sound Nothing Alike
Most Lydon merchandise picks a side. It is either the Sex Pistols, all safety pins and 1977, or it is nothing at all, because PiL is harder to put on a T-shirt.
The map takes both. One Sex Pistols album, fifteen PiL releases and one solo record, drawn as a single network so you can see the turn from one into the other happening in real time across 1977 and 1978.
For somebody who owns the Pistols album and has never gone further, the right-hand two thirds of this print is a reading list.
John Lydon Discography Map
Seventeen releases across 46 years, the Sex Pistols and PiL drawn as one network.
Explore This Art PrintThe Same Album Has Two Stations, Because Two People Released It
This is the research decision the map turned on, and it is unlike any other print in my range.
Commercial Zone and This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get are, underneath, the same record. PiL recorded it in New York across 1982 and 1983. Then Keith Levene left, took the unfinished tapes to America and put out his own mix. Lydon abandoned those tapes entirely and re-recorded the whole thing from scratch with session players, releasing it in 1984 under the longer title. Virgin moved to shut Levene's version down.
So: one set of sessions, two records, two line-ups, both real, both bought by fans. I gave it two stations rather than one, and the map shows exactly why.
| On Commercial Zone (1983) | On This Is What You Want (1984) |
|---|---|
| John Lydon | John Lydon |
| Martin Atkins | Martin Atkins |
| Keith Levene | Colin Woore |
| Pete Jones | Richard Cottle |
| Robert E. Miller | Gary Barnacle |
| Louis Bernardi |
Two people carry across. Everybody else is swapped out. Levene's line stops dead at the first of the two, which is the last thing he did with the band, and the replacement guitarist appears at the second and never again.
Drawn as one station, all of that vanishes. Drawn as two, the argument is visible without a word of explanation, which is the whole reason I make these as maps rather than as lists.
Live in Tokyo Earns a Station and Most Live Albums Do Not
The same question comes up three more times. Filthy Lucre Live, Paris au Printemps and Live in Tokyo are all live records, and on most of my maps a live album gets left off.
These three stay because of who is standing on them. Live in Tokyo in 1983 is the only place on the entire print where Joseph Guida and Tommy Zvoncheck appear. Leave it off and two musicians vanish from Lydon's history altogether.
Filthy Lucre Live in 1996 does something rarer still. It is the only station where all four surviving Sex Pistols stand together after 1977, since Glen Matlock is on it alongside Steve Jones and Paul Cook. The 1977 station and the 1996 station are nineteen years apart and hold almost the same people.
Album in 1986 Has Fourteen People and My Notes Said One
Album is the widest station on the print and it is not close. Bill Laswell produced it and brought in a cast that has no business being on a post-punk record.
- Ginger Baker on drums, from Cream
- Tony Williams on drums, who played with Miles Davis
- Ryuichi Sakamoto on Fairlight CMI
- Steve Vai on guitar
- Bernie Worrell on organ, from Parliament-Funkadelic
- Shankar on electric violin
- Malachi Favors on acoustic bass, from the Art Ensemble of Chicago
- Steve Turre on didgeridoo
Plus Jonas Hellborg, Nicky Skopelitis, Bernard Fowler, Aïyb Dieng and Laswell himself. Fourteen at one station, on a record made nine years after a band that could barely play.
Thirteen of those fourteen never appear on this map again.
Martin Atkins Has the Longest Line After Lydon and It Is Only Six
On most maps in my range the second longest line belongs to somebody who stayed twenty years. Here it is Martin Atkins, and he reaches six.
His run is unbroken though, from Metal Box in 1979 through to This Is What You Want in 1984, which covers the most turbulent stretch of the whole story. He is on both versions of the contested album and on two of the three live records.
Keith Levene reaches five and Jah Wobble only three, which surprises people, because those two are what most listeners mean when they say PiL. The original trio holds together for three records and then breaks.
Bruce Smith is the quiet answer. He appears in 1987, disappears for twenty-five years, and comes back for the last three records, giving him five stations spread across thirty-six years. Lu Edmonds does much the same with four.
At A2 the Turnover Reads, at A1 the Names Do
The A2 at 420 x 594mm (18 x 24 in) shows the shape well: one long line, a cluster of short ones, and the two dense points. It starts at £42.00.
The A1 at 594 x 841mm (24 x 36 in) matters here because of those thirty-two one-station names. At the smaller size they read as texture. At the larger one you can stand and pick out Ryuichi Sakamoto next to Ginger Baker, which is the moment this print tends to earn its place.
Both come unframed if they would rather choose a frame themselves, or framed and ready to hang. Every print is a Giclée on 230gsm premium fine art paper, textured matte, archival and acid-free, with the full detail on the print and frame specification page.
Four Answers About Scope, the Pistols and the Solo Record
Does it cover the Sex Pistols as well as PiL?
Both. Never Mind the Bollocks is the first station and Filthy Lucre Live from the 1996 reunion is on there too, alongside the full PiL run to End of World in 2023.
Is the solo album on it?
Yes. Psycho's Path from 1997 has its own station, and it is nearly a solo record in the literal sense, with Lydon credited on production, vocals, keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, percussion and programming.
Why does one album appear twice?
Because two different versions were released by two different people from the same sessions, with different line-ups. Drawing them as one station would hide the split that caused them.
Does it show who played what on each track?
No. Each line tells you which releases that musician appears on. Track-level roles appear only on my Rolling Stones Goats Head Soup album map.
Ginger Baker and Steve Vai Both Lead Somewhere Unexpected
Album turns out to be the most connected station in my whole range, which is not something I predicted when I started drawing it.
Ginger Baker appears in my research for the Paul McCartney and Wings map and the Hawkwind map. Steve Vai turns up on the Joe Jackson map, on two records thirteen years apart. A Cream drummer and a virtuoso guitarist, both on a PiL album, both leading off this print in directions nobody would guess.
For neighbours rather than credits, the Stranglers map covers the same 1977 shelf, while the Joy Division and New Order map and the Fall map are the two prints in my range that share this one's real subject, which is a band that keeps changing everybody except the singer.
The full range sits in the music art print collection. If you came here for the gift rather than the research, the John Lydon discography map is the print itself, in A2 or A1, unframed or framed, from £42.00.
