Cool-I had recently asked about the PiL box set and saw it was OOP, but no longer will that be a problem!

From Slicingupeyeballs.com:

Virgin Records will commemorate the reunion of John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd. this December by releasing a newly remastered edition of the postpunk band’s classic second album, Metal Box, on CD as well as by reissuing the act’s limited-edition four-disc Plastic Box compilation.

Like the original 1979 vinyl edition, the new Metal Box — which was issued on a single CD in 1990 and again in 1996 — will be inconveniently split across three separate discs and packaged, probably a bit too snugly like the original U.K. LPs, in a metal tin modeled after old film canisters. Although by trying to even out the number of tracks per disc, Virgin has broken the flow of the original vinyl split (see tracklist below).

Both Metal Box and Plastic Box — PiL’s long-out-of-print 1999 box set, which featured 64 tracks spanning the years 1978 to 1992, and now sells for hundreds of dollars — will be reissued on Dec. 14, the band announced Monday. (Metal Box, incidentally, was last reissued on vinyl in 2006, for those seeking a closer replica of the original edition.)

Lydon revealed in September that he will reactivate PiL this winter for its first concerts in 17 years to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Metal Box. So far, he’s booked seven U.K. shows this December — although the reconvened band doesn’t feature that classic lineup of Jah Wobble, Martin Atkins and Keith Levene, but, rather, is comprised of late-’80s members Lu Edmonds (a former Damned guitarist) and Bruce Smith (onetime drummer for The Slits and The Pop Group), plus new bassist Scott Firth.

The PiL reunion tour opens Dec. 15 in Birmingham.

See full ‘Metal Box’ and ‘Plastic Box’ tracklists after the jump…

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[bigred]Metal Box: Special Edition[/bigred]



Disc 1:
1. “Albatross”
2. “Memories”
3. “Swan Lake”
4. “Poptones”

Disc 2:
1. “Careering”
2. “No Birds”
3. “Graveyard”
4. “The Suit”

Disc 3:
1. “Bad Baby”
2. “Socialist”
3. “Chant”
4. “Radio 4″

Amazon USA:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002UUMTIY/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002UUMTIY/?tag=imwan-21

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[bigred]Plastic Box: Special Edition[/bigred]



Disc 1:
1. “Public Image”
2, “The Cowboy Song”
3, “Theme”
4. “Religion I”
5. “Religion II”
6. “Annalisa”
7. “Low Life”
8. “Attack”
9. “Poptones” (Radio 1, John Peel Session 17.12.79)
10. “Careering” (Radio 1, John Peel Session 17.12.79)
11. “Chant” (Radio 1, John Peel Session 17.12.79)
12. “Death Disco” (12″ Remix)
13. “Half Mix” (Meggamix)
14. “No Birds Do Sing”
15. “Memories”

Disc 2:
1. “Another”
2. “Albatross”
3. “Socialist”
4. “The Suit”
5. “Bad Baby”
6. “Radio 4″
7. “Pied Piper”
8. “Flowers of Romance” (12″)
9. “Four Enclosed Walls”
10. “Phenagen”
11. “Track 8″
12. “Hymies Him”
13. “Under The House”
14. “Banging The Door”
15. “Go Back”
16. “Francis Massacre”
17. “Home is Where the Heart Is”

Disc 3:
1. “This is Not a Love Song” (Unreleased LP Remix)
2. “Blue Water”
3. “Bad Life” (7″ edit)
4. “Question Mark”
5. “Solitaire”
6. “Tie Me to the Length of That”
7. “Where Are You?”
8. “The Pardon”
9. “1981″
10. “The Order of Death”
11. “FFF”
12. “Rise”
13. “Fishing”
14. “Round”
15. “Home”
16. “Ease”

Disc 4:
1. “Seattle”
2. “Angry”
3. “The Body” (US 12″ Mix)
4. “Selfish Rubbish”
5. “Disappointed”
6. “Happy”
7. “Warrior” (UK 12″ Remix)
8. “USLS 1″
9. “Don’t Ask Me”
10. “Criminal”
11. “Lucks Up”
12. “God”
13. “Cruel” (Radio 1, Mark Goodier Live Session 25.2.92)
14. “Acid Drops” (Radio 1, Mark Goodier Live Session 25.2.92)
15. “Love Hope” (Radio 1, Mark Goodier Live Session 25.2.92)
16. “Think Tank” (Radio 1, Mark Goodier Live Session 25.2.92)

Amazon USA:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002VVI53A/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002VVI53A/?tag=imwan-21

Well, there goes the collector's value of my box set. It's a bitch to get it out of the plastic sleeve, IIRC.

I always wanted the Plastic Box ,$24.00 on Amazon I'll finally get it .

My discs never stay fastened on their hubs. I read somewhere John Lydon purposely made it that way to piss people off.

Wow! $23.49 at Amazon.com? Glad I found the info on this-that is a most worthy price. Don't know if the box has been remastered, or just the Metal Box album. Doesn't matter-the Plastic Box was 1999 and I'm sure it sounds fine.

Does anyone know if Plastic Box will be reissued in the same format as the original edition or in a regular hard jewel case?

Wow. PiL continues to make the listening experience as inconvenient as possible. That was the point of the original packaging of Metal Box (the records were hard to get out and occasionally cracked... also, the original idea was a sardine can). Now, not only is it on three CDs, but they're split up differently, further pissing off the purists (though on my CD, "Swan Lake" segues so perfectly into "Poptones" that I couldn't believe the first record split was in between them). And what Kym said about Plastic Box just clinches it.

I'll consider Plastic, but unless the remastered Metal is spectacular, I'll keep the one I have. (Wonder if any of the LP reissues by 4 Men with Beards are still around...)

I don't know how the original Plastic Box was packaged, but this is a standard CD case that holds 4 discs. However, all the spindles that hold the discs in place cracked in shipment from Amazon.

The original package had the 4-disc case in a plastic outer sleeve with the booklet outside the CD case but inside the plastic case so the tracklisting printed on the back page of the booklet showed through (which also had the barcode). The reissue has the tracklisting printed on the back of the CD case insert, whereas the original had the PIL logo in silver printed on the back. The original booklet also had many more pages than the thin one in the reissue. But if you don't have the original, this reissue is perfectly fine.

Thanks for the additional details on the box set! Looks like I'll be sticking with my original, especially if the booklet has been edited down for the reissue.

I just got Metal Box. I never had the 1st CD pressing or any other version, as I always just them at the Second Edition album.

The tracklisting is a little different from the first post.....

Disc 1:
1. “Albatross”
2. “Memories”
3. “Swan Lake”

Disc 2:
1. “Poptones”
2. “Careering”
3. “No Birds”
4. “Graveyard”

Disc 3:
1. “The Suit”
2. “Bad Baby”
3. “Socialist”
4. “Chant”
5. “Radio 4″
(The slip that came with Metal Box listed Socialist, Chant, Radio 4 as one long track, but thankfully they did split it up.)

Is this the way the other editions were? Someone mentioned Swan Lake and Poptones on the same disc.

This does sound really good......can't say if there's a difference from previous versions of Metal Box, but it's a huge improvement over the Second Edition CD.

Charles: yeah, that's how the original release was set up. Good to know that it was preserved.

With the new PiL remasters coming out, I have a question.

It seems as though at the beginning of 2011, a remastered version of "Second Edition" appeared. The question: is it the same, sonically, as the 2009 Metal Box?