Commercial Zone is an album of studio recordings by Public Image Ltd, recorded in 1982 and 1983, and released in 1984 by PiL founding guitarist Keith Levene. Commercial Zone includes five songs that were later re-recorded for PiL's fourth official studio album, This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get (1984) – for this reason, Commercial Zone is often considered to be an earlier/alternative version of that album.

Background

In May 1981 PiL moved from London to New York City, but in October 1981 their American record contract with Warner Brothers expired and was not renewed. In January 1982 the British music press reported that PiL had tried to record a new album in New York with producers Adam Kidron and Ken Lockie, but split instead – this was promptly denied by the band in a press release the following week. In May 1982 Metal Box and The Flowers of Romance period drummer Martin Atkins rejoined the band and PiL started recording their new studio album for Virgin Records at Park South Studios in Manhattan, with sound engineer Bob Miller co-producing. On 29 August 1982 new bassist Pete Jones (also of Department S and Brian Brain) joined the band in the studio, the new line-up played its debut concert four weeks later (28 September 1982 in New York City). During the second half of 1982 the band planned to form their own record label (Public Enterprise Productions) and license its releases to Stiff Records USA for the American market, but these plans never materialised. In early November 1982 PiL announced the imminent release of a new single "Blue Water" and a six-track mini album You Are Now Entering a Commercial Zone on their new label. This did not happen, with the band instead continuing to record a full-length album at Park South Studios. By March 1983 a new track "This Is Not a Love Song" was earmarked as a new single by the band, but PiL broke up when first Pete Jones and then Keith Levene left the band. The single "This Is Not a Love Song" (with "Blue Water" as a 12" single B-side, both from the Park South sessions) was released in Japan by Nippon Columbia in June 1983. Virgin Records released it in the UK in September 1983, where it went to No. 5 in the UK single charts. The remaining members, John Lydon and drummer Martin Atkins hired session musicians to fulfill touring commitments and carried on under the PiL name. In mid-1983, in PiL's absence, Keith Levene took the unfinished album tapes and did his own mix. He then flew over to London and presented them to Richard Branson as the finished new PiL album for Virgin Records, but John Lydon decided to completely abandon the tapes and re-record the whole album from scratch with session musicians. This new version of Commercial Zone became This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get in 1984.

Release

Levene decided to release the album himself on the American market and on 30 January 1984 registered the label PIL Records Inc. for this one-off release. The first limited pressing of 10,000 copies for which Levene paid $8,500 out of his own pocket was self-distributed to record shops around New York City and heavily imported to the UK and European market. A second pressing (with the track listing changed around and a shorter mix of "Bad Night") followed in August 1984 in an edition of 30,000 copies, to compete directly with the official re-recorded album This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get. Virgin Records promptly took legal actions and stopped the distribution and any further re-pressings of Commercial Zone. In 2014 Levene announced plans to revisit Commercial Zone and finally finish it. The 2014 release is called Commercial Zone 2014. In the spring of 2014, Levene went to Prague to record Commercial Zone 2014, which was backed via a crowdsourcing campaign website at Indiegogo. Tim Peacock of the Record Collector Magazine said of Levene's Commercial Zone 2014 "It's primarily instrumental in design, veering from the chilled, scene-stealing Behind the Law to the synth-heavy Kraftwerk-ian noir of They Came to dance..." https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/commercial-zone-2014

Track by track commentary by the band

"Love Song"/"This Is Not a Love Song": "Mad Max"/"Bad Life": "Solitaire": "The Slab"/"The Order of Death": "Lou Reed Part 1 & 2"/"Where Are You?": "Blue Water": "Miller High Life"/"Miller Hi-Life":

Related tracks

"This Is Not a Love Song" (single remix): "The Slab" (full band version) / "Bad Night" (remixed long version) / "Bad Night" (early alternative version) / (untitled acoustic instrumental):

Critical reception

Track listing

On the second pressing "Solitaire" was re-titled as "Young Brits". The track sequence on the first side was changed to: The version of "Love Song" that appears on Commercial Zone appeared on the 12" version of the single listed as "remix". "Blue Water" also appeared as the b-side to the 1983 single "This Is Not a Love Song." The second pressing of Commercial Zone includes a shorter version of "Bad Night" than that on the first pressing. "The Slab" (renamed "The Order of Death" when re-recorded for This is What You Want...), appears on Commercial Zone as stripped-down acoustic version. For ''This Is What You Want... This Is What You Get'' the following songs were re-recorded:

Personnel

Ken Lockie was a member of PiL during the initial recording sessions, playing keyboards, but was dropped from the line-up in September 1982. His contributions, if any, were erased or not used.

Charts

United States

United Kingdom

Rest of the world