Story of the song: Open Up by Leftfield

From The Independent archive: Robert Webb on ‘Open Up’ by Leftfield (featuring John Lydon)

John Lydon once called dance music ‘Seventies disco recycled’ (Shutterstock)

Leftfield, the percussionists Neil Barnes and Paul Daley, peeled house music apart and mashed in a little dub, techno, reggae and hip-hop to create what was later termed “progressive house”. Their debut album, Leftism, was hailed on its release in 1995 as a Dark Side of the Moon for the dance generation: a record that sounded as good in the drawing room as it did on the dancefloor. “Open Up”, the 1993 single and a pivotal track on Leftism, is now also on the recent retrospective, A Final Cut. It’s the heartbeat of mid-1990s British dance music: a wobbleboard of rhythm, in which throb echoes of 1980s electro and post-punk experimentation.

John Lydon once remarked, with his characteristic disdain, that dance music was “regurgitation”, “Seventies disco recycled”, and “musical McDonald’s”. But Leftfield and Lydon had a mutual friend in John Gray, a Public Image Ltd backroom boy. With Lydon’s comments in mind, via Gray the duo invited the former Sex Pistol to wail a troubled vocal line over their hectic rhythm. “I love taking people with nothing to do with dance music and putting them in a different environment,” Barnes said at the time.

Lydon’s vocals were recorded in May 1993, at Leftfield’s Rollover Studios in London. “Open up/Make room for me,” Lydon brays, demanding a centre-stage role. Once there, he directs a withering diatribe at Tinseltown. As “Open Up” entered the charts, with its unremitting chorusline, “Burn, Hollywood, burn!”, forest fires raged in southern California. MTV dropped the video like a hot potato. “Who are they to be purveyors of good taste?” was Lydon’s riposte.