Violent Femmes - ROCK!!!!! - 1995 (Amazon)
I have to thank my ol' pal, John for supplying me with this record.
Just about every review of every Violent Femmes album at some point declares that it's "nowhere near as their debut!" And this is undoubtably true. The first album is a Classic. One of the greatest debuts in music history. One of the most important rock albums of all time. And the second one ain't too shabby, either.
If we agree that those early recordings are Violent Femmes Concentrate, then everything later is diluted. This is fine. Weezer is like that. The first two albums are brilliant. Green and everything after are a shallow version of the original.
So, let's not compare ROCK!!!!! to those two early records. Let's look at how it fits in a post-Why Do Birds Sing? Femmes world.
Okay. This way it's much easier for me to listen. I'll be back in a bit.
Imagine there is a Violent Femmes cover band whose lead singer sounds EXACTLY like Gordon Gano. And one day they decide to write their own songs in the Femmes idiom. But the songs are nowhere near as good as Gano writes. But they sound just like them. And the tunes all sound like they COULD have been written by the band.
That, to me, is as close an approximation as to what ROCK!!!!! is to the Femmes catalog.
It really can't be easy to be Gordon Gano. All your classic CLASSIC, legendary songs were written when you were a teen. You play concerts for new stuff but all anyone wants to hear is "Blister in the Sun", "Add it Up", "Kiss Off". How can you live up to that?
Imagine you're the band on that fateful day when they were discovered outside the concert hall by James Honeyman Scott. Imagine they decide NOT to busk that day. Would the Femmes exist today? There's a really good chance that, no, they wouldn't.
And that would be sad because that first album altered the course of alternative/indie music for decades.
What a legacy.
And how hard to live up to it?
ROCK!!!!! reminds me of an afternoon I spent building a set in a theater. I had just gotten a two disc anthology of The Ramones. And we decided to listen to it while we were working. About 2/3s through it the stage manager turned to me and said, "I guess we know how much Ramones is too much Ramones."
He was right.
ROCK!!!!! is where too much Violent Femmes was too much Violent Femmes.
That said, the three songs that are on Viva Wisconsin, "Life is an Adventure", "Dahmer is Dead", & "Sweet Worlds of Angels" are just fine, thanks, however, they are better on the live album.
There is nothing on here as bad as Machine. But no one should ever have to sit through a blues played on the didgeridoo. Sorry.
Grade D
ASide: Life is an Adventure, I Danced
BlindSide: ---------
Downside: Thanksgiving, Didgeriblues, Death Drugs
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