John Lydon: Psycho's Path

Straight off the absolutely inessential Sex Pistols reunion, John Lydon launches his solo career with this misguided stab at electronic music, presumably inspired by "Open Up," his hit collaboration with Leftfield. That song used Lydon's voice effectively as an ominous part of the mix, but he's front and center here, designing the album's art in addition to writing and performing all the songs. Psycho's Path is the very definition of a vanity project gone hideously awry: Always an acquired taste—but often a powerful force—Lydon's voice sounds horribly out of place amid all the blipping noise and dance-floor rhythms. Hearing his familiar nasal sing-song tremolo disastrously misapplied to the childish lyrics of songs like "Dog" ("You ever seen a snow job in the snow / No, oh no!") has got to be the punk equivalent of hearing Aretha Franklin sing the praises of Wheel Of Fortune—or Lydon himself hawking Mountain Dew. Worse still are tracks like "Stump," which are little more than spoken-word rants with beats. The curious are better off skipping the album tracks and heading straight for the remixes by Moby, Leftfield and others; they at least bury the crap under layers of distracting noise. Also included is a remixed version of "Open Up," which hints that things might have turned out better had someone had the good sense to tell Lydon he was making a fool of himself.