Black Flag - Damaged
#635
by Julia Talbot
Damaged
Black Flag
December 5, 1981
Genre: Iconical Hard Core.
Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5
Julia’s Rating: 8 out 5
Highlights:
A pretty girl is like a melody.
Rise Above (duh)
TV Party
It is so much harder to write a review about an amazing album than one I don’t like so much. Screw the historical importance, political and musical significance back story, fun facts, band gossip and intrigue, let’s party, let’s rock, let’s get a six pack and have nothing to do.
I first encountered this album and Black Flag in high school where I did not deem myself cool or edgy enough to really engage with either my own anger and frustration with the universe or Black Flag. Of course, for those of us a certain age, TV Party is inexorably linked with (the cult classic) Repo Man, a movie that introduced me to the concept of extensional dystopia and exponentially increased my gratitude over not growing up in the suburbs…. Or southern California which seemed equally disconnected and/or random. Between Reganonomics, the end of the Cold War/threat of nuclear war, Crack and assorted other personal and political events, bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys and a few minutes later Rap and Hip Hop were exactly what the doctor ordered for a kid who had spent the prior five years listening to 60’s protest folk and classical music (which I used as my own sort of protest against the stylings of Air Supply and the like). I still dressed like I had escaped from a prep school where Edward Gorey was the headmaster, but my considerable adolescent anger found a niche in hard core. When I got to college and went to shows and discovered mosh pits, a part of me was completed. My personal connections aside, this album is just as important to the rest of universe. It has been recognized as a hugely influential album – being named on any number of “best of” lists. Rolling Stone has it as the 340th most influential album of all times and Pitchfork named it as the 25th of 100 top albums of the 80’s, which starts to feel like a backhanded compliment of sorts. Too many qualifiers.
All that being said, Damaged actual entry into the musical universe was fairly subdued. While the band had been around since 1976 this is their first studio album. Notably it features Black Flag’s new vocalist at the time, Henry Rollins. Prior to Damaged, the Black Flag had released a few EPs and had unsuccessfully tried at least twice to record a full-length album but to no avail.
Here are some fun facts about the album:
Drummer Robo was wearing bracelets on his left wrist that rattled when he played; the rattling, whenever he hit his snare drum, especially when he hit downbeats on it, became part of the sound.
The version of "Rise Above" on the album was recorded at an earlier session with Rollins and was intended purely for a single release. Another version was recorded during the album sessions but the band abandoned it and decided to include the single version instead.
A 1982 European release issued by Roadrunner Records' RoadRacer imprint substitutes the later single version of "T.V. Party" for the album version on side one, and adds the Dez Cadena-led single version of "Louie Louie" to the end of side two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dd87truWl8
The initial CD reissue of Damaged appended the Jealous Again EP. All subsequent versions contain the original album only.
The album was recorded at Unicorn Studios, on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood. The band was living and rehearsing in another part of the building that housed Unicorn Studios prior to the sessions.
So, all of this sentimentality and rhetoric aside, why is Damaged worth listening to? There are few reasons I can recommend it:
1. It has a great beat and is an excellent example/introduction into the hard core/ punk sound as a genre.
2. The lyrics are really strong. One of things that made me stay at the punk party was the fact that the songs (much like early rap and/or every rapper’s first songs) covered topics that were both germane and unusual to standard song lyric topics of the day. Coming off of a steady diet of Air Supply, Peter Frampton and even the New Romantic/New Wave bands, punk offered a place where dystopia, discontent, disenfranchisement and dysfunction could be and were discussed, never mind the more mundane topic of what was on tv. These lyrics were more interesting and more inclusive as they included songs about people who didn’t fit the standard molds including not having socially acceptable feelings…and playing Malcolm to folk/folk rock’s Martin, they connected the political with the personal with anger and discontent and outrage. It was a welcome change from songs about relationships. At least it was for me.
For comparison purposes,
“Gimmie, Gimmie Gimmie” by Black Flag v.” Gimme Gimme Gimme” by ABBA
I know the world's got problems
I've got problems of my own
Not the kind that can't be solved
With an atom bomb
So gimmie, gimmie, gimmie
Gimmie some more
Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away
Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Take me through the darkness to the break of the day
For the record, I love both songs and their lyrics but you gotta admit, Black Flag might have a more important or interesting message.
Their messaging is also pretty timeless as evidenced in Police Story
Fucking city is run by pigs
They take the rights away from all the kids
Understand that we're fighting a war we can't win
They hate us, we hate them
And when was the last time you heard a lyric use the word distort?
Jealous cowards try to control
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
They distort what we say
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
Try and stop what we do
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
When they can't do it themselves
Rise above! We're gonna rise above
You don’t have to love the genre but you have to admit they were on to something.
y Julia Talbot
Damaged
Black Flag
December 5, 1981
Genre: Iconical Hard Core.
Julia’s Rating: 8 out 5
Allan’s Rating:
Highlights: A pretty girl is like a melody.
Rise Above (duh)
TV Party
It is so much harder to write a review about an amazing album than one I don’t like so much. Screw the historical importance, political and musical significance back story, fun facts, band gossip and intrigue, let’s party, let’s rock, let’s get a six pack and have nothing to do.
I first encountered this album and Black Flag in high school where I did not deem myself cool or edgy enough to really engage with either my own anger and frustration with the universe or Black Flag. Of course, for those of us a certain age, TV Party is inexorably linked with (the cult classic) Repo Man, a movie that introduced me to the concept of extensional dystopia and exponentially increased my gratitude over not growing up in the suburbs…. Or southern California which seemed equally disconnected and/or random. Between Reganonomics, the end of the Cold War/threat of nuclear war, Crack and assorted other personal and political events, bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys and a few minutes later Rap and Hip Hop were exactly what the doctor ordered for a kid who had spent the prior five years listening to 60’s protest folk and classical music (which I used as my own sort of protest against the stylings of Air Supply and the like). I still dressed like I had escaped from a prep school where Edward Gorey was the headmaster, but my considerable adolescent anger found a niche in hard core. When I got to college and went to shows and discovered mosh pits, a part of me was completed. My personal connections aside, this album is just as important to the rest of universe. It has been recognized as a hugely influential album – being named on any number of “best of” lists. Rolling Stone has it as the 340th most influential album of all times and Pitchfork named it as the 25th of 100 top albums of the 80’s, which starts to feel like a backhanded compliment of sorts. Too many qualifiers.
All that being said, Damaged actual entry into the musical universe was fairly subdued. While the band had been around since 1976 this is their first studio album. Notably it features Black Flag’s new vocalist at the time, Henry Rollins. Prior to Damaged, the Black Flag had released a few EPs and had unsuccessfully tried at least twice to record a full-length album but to no avail.
Here are some fun facts about the album:
Drummer Robo was wearing bracelets on his left wrist that rattled when he played; the rattling, whenever he hit his snare drum, especially when he hit downbeats on it, became part of the sound.
The version of "Rise Above" on the album was recorded at an earlier session with Rollins and was intended purely for a single release. Another version was recorded during the album sessions but the band abandoned it and decided to include the single version instead.
A 1982 European release issued by Roadrunner Records' RoadRacer imprint substitutes the later single version of "T.V. Party" for the album version on side one, and adds the Dez Cadena-led single version of "Louie Louie" to the end of side two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dd87truWl8
The initial CD reissue of Damaged appended the Jealous Again EP. All subsequent versions contain the original album only.
The album was recorded at Unicorn Studios, on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood. The band was living and rehearsing in another part of the building that housed Unicorn Studios prior to the sessions.
So, all of this sentimentality and rhetoric aside, why is Damaged worth listening to? There are few reasons I can recommend it:
1. It has a great beat and is an excellent example/introduction into the hard core/ punk sound as a genre.
2. The lyrics are really strong. One of things that made me stay at the punk party was the fact that the songs (much like early rap and/or every rapper’s first songs) covered topics that were both germane and unusual to standard song lyric topics of the day. Coming off of a steady diet of Air Supply, Peter Frampton and even the New Romantic/New Wave bands, punk offered a place where dystopia, discontent, disenfranchisement and dysfunction could be and were discussed, never mind the more mundane topic of what was on tv. These lyrics were more interesting and more inclusive as they included songs about people who didn’t fit the standard molds including not having socially acceptable feelings…and playing Malcolm to folk/folk rock’s Martin, they connected the political with the personal with anger and discontent and outrage. It was a welcome change from songs about relationships. At least it was for me.
For comparison purposes,
“Gimmie, Gimmie Gimmie” by Black Flag v.” Gimme Gimme Gimme” by ABBA
I know the world's got problems
I've got problems of my own
Not the kind that can't be solved
With an atom bomb
So gimmie, gimmie, gimmie
Gimmie some more
Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away
Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Take me through the darkness to the break of the day
For the record, I love both songs and their lyrics but you gotta admit, Black Flag might have a more important or interesting message.
Their messaging is also pretty timeless as evidenced in Police Story
Fucking city is run by pigs
They take the rights away from all the kids
Understand that we're fighting a war we can't win
They hate us, we hate them
And when was the last time you heard a lyric use the word distort?
Jealous cowards try to control
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
They distort what we say
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
Try and stop what we do
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
When they can't do it themselves
Rise above! We're gonna rise above
You don’t have to love the genre but you have to admit they were on to something.
y Julia Talbot
Damaged
Black Flag
December 5, 1981
Genre: Iconical Hard Core.
Julia’s Rating: 8 out 5
Allan’s Rating:
Highlights: A pretty girl is like a melody.
Rise Above (duh)
TV Party
It is so much harder to write a review about an amazing album than one I don’t like so much. Screw the historical importance, political and musical significance back story, fun facts, band gossip and intrigue, let’s party, let’s rock, let’s get a six pack and have nothing to do.
I first encountered this album and Black Flag in high school where I did not deem myself cool or edgy enough to really engage with either my own anger and frustration with the universe or Black Flag. Of course, for those of us a certain age, TV Party is inexorably linked with (the cult classic) Repo Man, a movie that introduced me to the concept of extensional dystopia and exponentially increased my gratitude over not growing up in the suburbs…. Or southern California which seemed equally disconnected and/or random. Between Reganonomics, the end of the Cold War/threat of nuclear war, Crack and assorted other personal and political events, bands like Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys and a few minutes later Rap and Hip Hop were exactly what the doctor ordered for a kid who had spent the prior five years listening to 60’s protest folk and classical music (which I used as my own sort of protest against the stylings of Air Supply and the like). I still dressed like I had escaped from a prep school where Edward Gorey was the headmaster, but my considerable adolescent anger found a niche in hard core. When I got to college and went to shows and discovered mosh pits, a part of me was completed. My personal connections aside, this album is just as important to the rest of universe. It has been recognized as a hugely influential album – being named on any number of “best of” lists. Rolling Stone has it as the 340th most influential album of all times and Pitchfork named it as the 25th of 100 top albums of the 80’s, which starts to feel like a backhanded compliment of sorts. Too many qualifiers.
All that being said, Damaged actual entry into the musical universe was fairly subdued. While the band had been around since 1976 this is their first studio album. Notably it features Black Flag’s new vocalist at the time, Henry Rollins. Prior to Damaged, the Black Flag had released a few EPs and had unsuccessfully tried at least twice to record a full-length album but to no avail.
Here are some fun facts about the album:
Drummer Robo was wearing bracelets on his left wrist that rattled when he played; the rattling, whenever he hit his snare drum, especially when he hit downbeats on it, became part of the sound.
The version of "Rise Above" on the album was recorded at an earlier session with Rollins and was intended purely for a single release. Another version was recorded during the album sessions but the band abandoned it and decided to include the single version instead.
A 1982 European release issued by Roadrunner Records' RoadRacer imprint substitutes the later single version of "T.V. Party" for the album version on side one, and adds the Dez Cadena-led single version of "Louie Louie" to the end of side two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dd87truWl8
The initial CD reissue of Damaged appended the Jealous Again EP. All subsequent versions contain the original album only.
The album was recorded at Unicorn Studios, on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood. The band was living and rehearsing in another part of the building that housed Unicorn Studios prior to the sessions.
So, all of this sentimentality and rhetoric aside, why is Damaged worth listening to? There are few reasons I can recommend it:
1. It has a great beat and is an excellent example/introduction into the hard core/ punk sound as a genre.
2. The lyrics are really strong. One of things that made me stay at the punk party was the fact that the songs (much like early rap and/or every rapper’s first songs) covered topics that were both germane and unusual to standard song lyric topics of the day. Coming off of a steady diet of Air Supply, Peter Frampton and even the New Romantic/New Wave bands, punk offered a place where dystopia, discontent, disenfranchisement and dysfunction could be and were discussed, never mind the more mundane topic of what was on tv. These lyrics were more interesting and more inclusive as they included songs about people who didn’t fit the standard molds including not having socially acceptable feelings…and playing Malcolm to folk/folk rock’s Martin, they connected the political with the personal with anger and discontent and outrage. It was a welcome change from songs about relationships. At least it was for me.
For comparison purposes,
“Gimmie, Gimmie Gimmie” by Black Flag v.” Gimme Gimme Gimme” by ABBA
I know the world's got problems
I've got problems of my own
Not the kind that can't be solved
With an atom bomb
So gimmie, gimmie, gimmie
Gimmie some more
Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Won't somebody help me chase the shadows away
Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight
Take me through the darkness to the break of the day
For the record, I love both songs and their lyrics but you gotta admit, Black Flag might have a more important or interesting message.
Their messaging is also pretty timeless as evidenced in Police Story
Fucking city is run by pigs
They take the rights away from all the kids
Understand that we're fighting a war we can't win
They hate us, we hate them
And when was the last time you heard a lyric use the word distort?
Jealous cowards try to control
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
They distort what we say
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
Try and stop what we do
Rise above! We're gonna rise above!
When they can't do it themselves
Rise above! We're gonna rise above
You don’t have to love the genre but you have to admit they were on to something.
https://open.spotify.com/album/34aFnrFRBlErcbU6moRZR3?si=Mvowy3yqTZSuR-4oibhF7A
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