Monday, January 28, 2019

The 1984 Listening Post - Black Flag - My War

Black Flag - My War


#64
March
Black Flag
My War
.75 out of 5

Was this recorded in a closet? 
We’ve heard some great punk on this project. Well, I have, cuz I started this back in 78. 
Suicidal Tendencies. Minor Threat. Dead Kenndys. Circle Jerks. Hell, The Dickies. The Wipers. Fear, for god’s sake. (That album is terrific)
One thing I’ve never understood is, outside “TV Party”, which, for all intents and purposes, was a novelty song with all the tv show name checking that immediately dated the song. That’s fine. Punk is of the moment, I guess (although, let’s be honest, Plastic Surgery Disasters is timeless.), Black Flag never did much for me. I didn’t really love Damaged (Although my brother owned it so that might be the reason I didn’t care for it back in the day…why did you own that record, Jon???) 

This is nearly unlistenable trash. No one can really play their instruments, Henry can’t sing. My ears hate this. Every song sounds like it was rejected for the Repo Man soundtrack and then someone threw away the recordings and someone else retrieved them from the trash and then tried to rerecord everything but degraded the tape so much that it almost fell apart and then they gave up when they started to be able to see through it. 
Side two is nothing but sludge metal that has absolutely zero to offer and less going for it. If you listen to it, after this warning, I can’t help you. You’ve been warned. 

The (good?) news is that Black Flag released THREE albums in 1984 after settling a contract dispute that disallowed them from releasing music. This was how they decided to celebrate.


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