#379/1015
October 1 1985
Dead Kennedys
Frankenchrist
Genre: Punk
4.75 out of 5
Highlights:
Chicken Farm
Jock-O-Rama
MTV Get Off the Air
At My Job
I wrote about the PMRC in the Purple Rain review. (You can search it) So I won’t go over it again. But this was a record that was at the forefront.
Now, here’s the thing: My first Dead Kennedys record was In God We Trust, Inc. Which was PERFECT for me. Short, assertive, smart and anti-corporate religion. Boy was that in my wheelhouse.
My friend, Peter, bought Plastic Surgery Disasters during a record store trip and I borrowed it for months. (I got Adam Ant’s Prince Charming the same day and did the same thing).
I eventually owned that record myself.
It took me a couple decades to get Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables which I bought at a record store on melrose on an evening that I was heading down to Long Beach to visit my 10 year old daughter in a hospital stay. So…16 years ago. I was slow to that. Why? I mean, I was SUCH a DKs fan.
Because of Frankenchrist. I bought this almost immediately and it was a fucking challenge to like. (I did eventually get Bedtime for Democracy but I listened to it once and never tried it again).
It was Frankenchrist that put Jello and the guys in my rearview.
And I haven’t listened to it since 1985 in my dorm.
Until now.
And…?
You know what? It’s a pretty devilish album. It’s hauntingly angry. It’s pedantic and didactic and, sure. By this time Jello must have fallen more and more in love with his pontificating. By the this came out I was probably done with my angry-wannabe hardcore punk phase. I mean, how long could that last, really? You gotta outgrow that shit, son.
As an adult…I don’t gravitate to it, musically, although it’s still the most surf-punk melodic of all the punks this side of Dee Dee Ramone. “A Growing Boy Needs His Lunch” is what you get when The Cramps decide to go on an actual murder spree.
But, boy howdy do we need a Dead Kennedy’s type of musical insurrection at this time, no?
As we live in fear of AI taking over and Robots replacing all of us, I think it’s time we reflect on “Soup is Good Food”, which is a 34 year old song that sings about this exact problem.
At the time I thought “MTV Get Off the Air” was an attack at low hanging fruit, and also, I liked MTV. Now I realize, after listening to 1000+ albums from this era just how insidiously bad the influence of MTV was. The kind of middling MOR shit that they foisted up on us was deserving of this kind of attack. And DKs take on it is hilarious and spot on.
This is the most diverse collection from the guys so far and, in retrospected, it was one of their most dynamic.
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