Just as it is written,
“FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG;
WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.â€
I remember driving home from Giant one day in my Kindergarten years & listening to WHFS (everyone’s favorite Latin music station now – “El Zol!”) & hearing a song come on that I knew was beating around the bush in its lyrics & really wasn’t saying everything it was trying to say. Being so young, I had no idea what it really meant, though, & I was content to just picture the lead singer as giant puss-pore heaving himself towards the sun. Even now, I don’t think I know exactly what “Blister in the Sun” is about, but still it remains one of, if not THE most influential songs of my childhood.
Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes (1982)
Violent Femmes I still hold regularly in pretty high regard as one of my favorite albums of all times, & for an early-eighties doo-wop-punk creation I think it has got to be one of the greatest albums ever made. The magic of it isn’t even in its perfect formatting (there are so few albums that are sequenced completely perfectly from start to finish, but this is definitely one of them [except for the reissue with “Ugly” & “Gimme the Car” stuck onto the end – this album is supposed to end with “Good Feeling,” no exceptions!]), & the magic has nothing to do really with the spot-on mixing (there wasn’t much to mix, really, seeing as how there are three instruments & the drums are really just one snare & brushes). It isn’t the songwriting either, which gets equal parts flack for being immature & praise for being so epitomizing of teenage frustration (personally, I am a big fan of this songwriting). I guess what does it for me when it comes to this trio & this album is that it’s so completely brash about borrowing from a bizarre mixture of styles & perfecting the most simplistic versions of each & every one of them.
There’s the power-pop of songs like “Prove My Love” & “Blister in the Sun,” the weird Motown deconstruction of “Gone Daddy Gone,” & the reggae youthfulness of “Please Do Not Go”. It’s the idea of saying, “I want to write a song like this” & writing it. It doesn’t have to break new ground, it doesn’t need to be the best in the genre, it just needs to make do with what you have, & if you what you have is an electric guitar, an extra-large Mariachi bass, & one drum, then why not set up shop & lay down the tracks? It’s music you can do but would have never imagined you could do; I guess it’s one of those “Why didn’t I think of that!” moments – that’s what the whole album is like.
It’s truly an amazing feat that this album became as cherished in the indie/punk circuit as it did, but I think for once this is where they got it right. There is no hype big enough for Violent Femmes, its reputation precedes it for every good reason in the book. Feel good, sit down, crank it to 11. & when you’re done with this, pick up Hallowed Ground because that has got some amazing tunes as well – Jesus folk-punk, anyone? Anger & religion confounds!
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“Kiss Off,” 1983.
ALSO: they had one of the more bizarre sitcom cameos I’ve ever seen in an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch:
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