Public Image Limited (PIL). Happy?
2 disclaimers:
i) This is HD's album, not mine
ii) The thing on the left-hand side of the album is my thumb and shadow. The background is actually all white.
The PIL frontman/singer/songwriter is none other than John Lydon - Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols.
There is an unmistakable scathing social critique in many of Lydon's song lyrics. This album cover is no different.
Featureless, high-rise apartments clustered claustrophobically close together like people leaning in for a photo. There is no breathing room between the buildings. The allocated living quarters of the poor, the powerless, the feeble, the addicts, the 'social problems'... Slums. In the US, the catch-all term is "the projects".
The bright, childishly-happy colours are in contrast to the grim, bleak reality of such living spaces.
It makes the title 'Happy?' with its multiple meanings all the more poignant.
Would you be happy to live here?
Do the people who live here have a right to be anything but happy?
Are you happy now with the 'solution' you've provided?
The 3 'clouds' going from an orange centre to a black one could symbolise a few things:
From light to darkness the longer you live there.
From equanimity to despair.
From health to ill-health.
Definitely a cover with a message.
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