The 1986 Listening Post - Violent Femmes - The Blind Leading the Naked

Violent Femmes - The Blind Leading the Naked

#44/1211

February 12 1986

Violent Femmes

The Blind Leading the Naked

Genre: Indie

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Old Mother Reagan

No Killing

Faith

Breakin’ Hearts

I Held Her In My Arms

Cold Canyon

“I can't even remember if we were lovers, or if I just wanted to but I held her in my arms but it wasn't you”

I can’t express how excited I was to get this record. To this day I use the title as a reference instead of “blind leading the blind”. 

And I was crushingly disappointed. In 1986. And I haven’t listened since.

First off, it starts off with the most blazingly assertive Gano has ever sounded. Indie music as protest that…is over in 30 seconds…what?

Then comes “No Killing” and it’s obvious that this album is supposed to be a statement. The first was an adolescent’s primal scream of frustration and the second was the songwriter working out his classic religious upbringing. This album adds political awareness to the hodgepodge (“Old Mother Reagan”, “Children of the Revolution”). “Faith” could’ve fallen off Hallowed Ground or been a response to the darkness of that record. In any case, it’s a neat little gospel piece that pours the politics into the religiosity(Although I think Gordon would do better with the Mercy Seat later…and Jerry Harrison’s production is flat). And “I Held Her In My Arms” is romantic frustration but with…horns?

And then…

It happens in every band. There’s one primary songwriter…maybe two. And then, the bassist says, “I have a song.” and then the drummer. And then, before you know it, you’re Weezer’s Red Album. 

That happens here on 1 track. “Love and Me Make Three” is Richie and DeLorenzo’s contribution and then you learn why they don’t have any other contributions. It seems to have infected Gano, cuz, “Candlelight” is awful. Or maybe they shoved that song there cuz they figured you’re gonna skip the aforementioned, skipping two is not much of a leap. And then you get to flip the record over and get to better shit. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-blind-leading-the-naked/1454711525

The 1984 Listening Post - Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground

Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground

#111

May 14 1984

Violent Femmes

Hallowed Ground

5 out of 5

Highlights:

Country Death Song

I Hear the Rain

Never Tell

Jesus Walking on The Water

Hallowed Ground

Black Girls

It’s Gonna Rain

“Country Death Song” is an audacious way to open this record. It’s two notes on a bass and all dark mood. As the father pushes his daughter into the well the music gets softer, more sotto…until BANG the snare hit that is the death of the title. It fits right in with the biblical overtones of songs like “I Hear the Rain” and “Jesus Walking on the Water” and, even “Never Tell”, “Hallowed Ground” and others. 

It’s the sacrifice of the child…it’s Abraham. It’s biblical murder. 

Violent Femmes was the frustrations of adolescence. Hallowed Ground is something else entirely. It’s as if that kid was sent to bible school and drank in everything he was taught. 

The music is distinctly Femmes and dabbles in Americana, folk, Zombies-esque psychedelia, blues & gospel. And it all 

I’ve always been conflicted about a favorite track on the album, “Black Girls”. It traffics in some serious ethnic generalizations, there’s African sounds, rhythms as well as a jew’s harp, which gives the song an awfully bojanglesy feel, while also peppering in some Zoot Suit swing…it’s a helluva ride and maybe it’s racist, I don’t know. Is it? Dammit, I can’t tell anymore. I know the lead singer of The Mercy Seat, Gordon’s gospel punk record, Zena Von Heppinstall, was black. Would she approve? Is she the subject of the song? Is this more confessional music by Gano? I don’t know. I just know that it’s a lot of fun. 

I’m a pretty devout atheist but Hallowed Ground is one of my favorite records of all time. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hallowed-ground/204721705

The 1983 Listening Post - Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

The 1983 Listening Post - Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record.

April 13 1983
Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes
5 out of 5

Highlights:

Blister in the Sun
Kiss Off
Add It Up
Gone Daddy Gone
Gimme the Car
Promise

There is no doubt in my mind that the debut record from Violent Femmes was one of the most important releases in Indie Rock history. It’s my belief that this is the true launching pad for modern “Indie”. A bunch of buskers heard by The Pretenders and launched on Sire records, this record was finally certified gold…after 4 years. And platinum 4 years later.
Without ever charting!
One of the most important albums in any 80s kid’s college record collection.

Reflecting Pool: Violent Femmes - Freak Magnet

The last Violent Femmes record.



Violent Femmes - Freak Magnet - 2000 (Amazon) Not Available for digital download.

Right off the bat, with "Hollywood is High" and it's screechy electric guitars, I got the sense that the Femmes were BACK in 2000. I hadn't been this excited by a Femmes track since "American Music", in fact, it's without a doubt their catchiest opener since that record. The wordplay is terrific and clever. (Hollywood is high, Sunset's low--true, Hollywood Blvd is north of Sunset and the double meaning isn't lost)
The 60s groove of Freak Magnet should get you up off your feet, shake your go go boots and hit replay so you can sing, "Seems like a, Seem like a, I'm a freak magnet!". B52s WISH they could still write this well.
So, what happened? First off, this isn't 1991. The world had moved on. When Freak Magnet came out, Britney & the boy bands were ruling the day. The legacy of the Femmes hadn't yet taken hold, there were no bloggers to hawk true indie folk punk. The vegas schmaltz of Michael Jackson acolytes was ruling the airwaves. There was no room in our hearts or minds for new Femmes.
I was guilty of it, too. I BOUGHT the freaking album, listened to the first two tracks, forgot about it in a haze of...something, (who can even remember 2000?)
I should have listened.
I don't think I can recall screechy, retro, roots rock electric guitars on a femmes record before. It might have been a new direction or an attempt to freshen up the sound but, whatever the case, it works. When this record rocks, it rocks hard. (I have a soft spot for the Esquivel-esque "In The Dark". I know it goes on forever but I dig it.)
This album mines just about every musical territory the Femmes have traveled to in the past but somehow, unlike ROCK!!!!! never sounds like retread. Just like a band writing a new record. There are misfires, (Mosh Pit) but many more winners.
I'm glad "I Danced" was resurrected from ROCK!!!!! for this record because it's not that bad. But I have no idea what to make of the closer, "A Story" except that it reminds me of that spoken word track that we all loved by J. Geils Band, "No Anchovies, Please". But it's not as much fun, and it's sounds like it Gano and Richie were listening to too many Residents records.

Like most albums of the CD era, it's heavy with filler to pad out the available disc space and, I guess, give consumers enough songs to warrant the sticker price.
Too bad. If you chop out about 12 minutes from this thing (4 songs, maybe) it would be a pretty tight Violent Femmes record.
The real tragedy is that, because of the poor sales the Femmes never put out another Official album. Richie continued to release niche recordings and there was a special rarities record for eMusic. Gordon Gano released a collection of songs in support of an Indie film that the husband of one of the ex-backup singers in my band directed called "Hitting the Ground". But I haven't heard it. He has a new project called Gordon Gano & The Ryan Brothers
Make of it what you will.

Grade B+
A Side: Hollywood is High, Freak Magnet, I Danced
BlindSide: Sleepwalkin', All I Want, In the Dark
DownSide: Mosh Pit, When You Died

Reflecting Pool: Violent Femmes - ROCK!!!!!

Considered their worst album!! Only released in Australia!!! It's the lost Violent Femmes album!!!!!




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

Reflecting Pool: Violent Femmes - Viva Wisconsin

I don't normally review live albums in the Reflecting Pool, but since the next album in the Femmes' oeuvre, Rock!!!! was originally only released in Australia (!!) and is supposed to be horrible, I will pass on it until someone can send me a free copy. Because of that omission, I'm giving the band a live album pass. That, and I happen to think they are better live than recorded.




Violent Femmes - Viva Wisconsin! - 1999 (iTunes - Amazon)


When Violent Femmes' debut was released it sort of snuck up on everyone. Every dorm room had a copy at NYU. At least, it seemed like it. We were all touched by the Femmes. We knew every word of every song on that album. Some of us quoted them to girls in malls.
It was a no brainer that we would see them when they came around for the Hallowed Ground Tour.
A bunch of us went to see them at Irving Plaza. I remember sitting in the back, talking, smoking and watching the Horns of Dilemma kill it more than once in the set.

I've forgotten just how tight and tense a live show the Femmes were. After all, they were street performers plucked from obscurity and sent on their career almost in spite of themselves.

I'm grateful for Viva Wisconsin! because it reminds me of the collected love of many of the tracks. There is something comforting in hearing the audience get roused and shout when they hear that familiar bassline of Country Death Song. 17 years into their profession and they couldn't be sounding better.

Every track is fueled with energy and tragic frustration, none more emphatically than the 7 minute version of "Confessions". Also the nasal syllable twisting on the frenetic "Add It Up", sublime.

I'm also pleased by "Life is an Adventure" & "Sweet Worlds of Angels" from the much maligned "Rock!!!" album. I wonder just why they sucked so much there and are such a fine crowd pleasers here.

One song really seems to shine in the live format: Good Feelings, the closer from the debut. It's such a uniquely lush song and given a lovely treatment here by the band that it's a true standout.

If I had one complaint about "Viva Wisconsin" it's that it's not a true concert. Often the tracks just fade out, depriving us of the feel of being there and just presenting the live versions of the songs.

Grade A
No Sides, just best tracks: Country Death Song, Confessions, Good Feelings, Sweet Worlds of Angels, Add It Up,

Reflecting Pool: Violent Femmes - New Times

Violent Femmes - New Times - 1994 (iTunes - Amazon)


This is actually the one I've been dreading. I was sent this for review when I was writing for Home Theater Technology 17 years ago. I listened to one track, got distracted by something and decided to write about something else. And then I never got back to it.
That's probably a good thing. Because I don't think I would have been as forgiving back then as I am now.
New Times is a difficult record. It is so OBVIOUSLY a Violent Femmes record. And the opening track, "Don't Start Me On The Liquor" is pretty good. Somewhere in the middle it breaks into a bass led jam that reminds me of "Black Girls" from Hallowed Ground. Maybe it's the addition of Guy Hoffman replacing Victor DeLorenzo on drums that has given the album the muscle that it has. I don't know. It's a pretty dark album.
If "Why Do Birds Sing?" was a return to the debut album sense of "Fun Thru Angst!" this is the follow up to Hallowed Ground.
There are a couple stand out tracks.
Breakin' Up shows the band feeling it's stadium rock oats. Not sure what stadium they imagine themselves playing and truth be told, the song is so dark that it would have probably been better served as a stripped down intimate tune al a the stuff from the previous records. But it's also pretty catchy.
The title track wants to be about something bigger and goes so far as to change itself up a couple times that it almost resembles an attempt at rock opera, but it ultimately fails.
I would really like to have been there, though, when Gordon Gano and Brian Ritchie came up with, "Machine". Because I would have done everything I could to talk them out of it. What the world does NOT need from the Violent Femmes is mediocre synth-laden, pedantic industrial rock. Who thought this was a good idea??? For me, this is like when Marky Ramone put out a rap album. The album loses an entire grade simply because of this incredibly stupid track.
Gano knows how to write the same song over and over again, which he does on "I'm Nothing" & the ballad "When Everybody's Happy." They're fine, but we've been there and Gordon doesn't seem to have much new to say.
This is definitely an eclectic batch of songs. Gordon seems to feel restrained by and yet bask in the idiom that is the Femmes' sound.
I do have a soft spot for Kurt Weill and when bands like Green Day visit that style I get a little excited. The Femmes don't really succeed with it on Mirror Mirror (I See A Damsel) but I give them props for trying. And to follow that with the oompa closer Jesus of Rio....the album just sort of gives up.

Ultimately, New Times isn't really about new times, but revisiting old times with less success.

Grade C-
A Side: Don't Start Me On The Liquor, Breakin' Up,
BlindSide: Key of 2, This Island Life, Mirror Mirror (I See A Damsel)
Downside: 4 Seasons, Machine, Jesus of Rio, Agamenon

Reflecting Pool: Violent Femmes - Why Do Birds Sing?

Gordon Gano's got girl trouble. Girl trouble up the ass!



Violent Femmes - Why Do Birds Sing? - 1991 (Amazon)

You know this album isn't even available on iTunes or Amazon MP3 download. A shame, really, because much of this record, for me, was a real return to the Femmes I fell in love with.
I know that the last bastion of the lazy music reviewer is to criticize the album art but I think the art for "Birds" is important. It's a return to the ambiguous, non-sequitor art that was found on the first album. And, this album is as much an attempt to return to that form as possible.
The opening track, "American Music" has been a staple of repeat play on my music delivery systems for almost 20 years now. It's haunting and desperate and almost calls to mind David Lynch at his most accessible.
By the time we get to the second cover in the band's repertoire, we've actually been set up for it, we discover, for about a decade. The Femmes' version of Culture Club's Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? may have only been about 9 years removed from the original but it could be a generational expanse. It makes sense in Gano's twisted, troubled larynx. At once nostalgic and refreshing at the same time, the Femme's version is, I dare say, as good as the original.
Even piffle like the wistfully chirpy, "Hey Nonny Nonny", cause me to tap my feet and bounce a little. (The backing nods to the Stones' Sympathy for the Devil is a treat) And the counterpoint of melody and melancholy of Used to Be is beautiful. It might be the best produced track in the band's catalog.
When Gano sings "He likes me!" on that song he is so sick with sarcasm and jealousy that he proves that, while he's not in high school anymore, he certainly hasn't lost that frustrating feeling that comes with adolescent, post-adolescent and, even, 20something unrequited amour.
Why Do Birds Sing" isn't their best album. I think we can all agree that that is a battle between their first 2 but it IS one of their most accessible. In fact, I would have to rank it just below Hallowed Ground. It was almost too late for the band to regain the crown of relevance when they released this. Too bad, really.
With the exception of toss-off turds like Flamingo Baby & Lack of Knowledge this album is exceptional. The kiss-off to the jerks who mocked him in his youth, "More Money Tonight", is Gano at his most vindictive.

"Have mercy on me, I have girl trouble up the ass!" Oh, Gordon, you crack me up.

Grade A
A Side: American Music, Out the Window, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?
BlindSide: Look Like That, Hey Nonny Nonny, Used to Be, He Likes Me
DownSide: Flamingo Baby, Lack of Knowledge

Reflecting Pool: Violent Femmes - 3

Stripped down to their basics, can the Femmes find the fire?



Violent Femmes - 3 - 1988 (iTunes - Amazon)


You know what? I think the Violent Femmes are just exhausted. They cut their teeth busking on the streets of Milwaukee and they were hungry and edgy and young.
Look at the cover of 3. It's that same big, flaccid 80s design that you saw everywhere. As though CDs were cause for more important pictorials. Like anyone actually wanted to see what these guys looked like.
When 3 came out, I hadn't given up on the Femmes. Yeah, I didn't care for Blind Leading the Naked but I was willing to give them another chance.
Stripping down to the basics is probably the best thing they could have done. The songs are about as on par with the previous record but at least the come across as that Ol' Femmes Sound!
In later years Richie would accuse his bandmate as having lost his ability to write songs after Gano sold the use rights of Blister in the Sun to a fast food commercial. ("... you see dubious or in this case disgusting uses of our music you can thank the greed, insensitivity and poor taste of Gordon Gano, it is his karma that he lost his songwriting ability many years ago, probably due to his own lack of self-respect as his willingness to prostitute our songs demonstrates.")
And you can hear Gano forcing himself to write. Looking at the situation, I don't doubt that it was frustrating. Gano wrote the bulk of the first two albums when he was in high school. When he WAS that angst ridden teen. As a mature (26!!) man who maybe wasn't expecting to be the voice of a generation, perhaps he suffered from, well, what I suffer from as a songwriter: I really only wrote anything of any worth when I was in distress. Frustrated. Scared. At the height of emotion. When all that crap was over, the creative burst sort of evaporated. Sure I could put the chords together that I knew and I could pump out a tune or two. But my heart wasn't in it.
Maybe that's what happened.
The album actually has some high points, specifically at it's lowest point. I would love to hear Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits record "Nothing worth Living For", and while that will never happen, it's one of the more despondent moments in the Femmes catalog.
"World We're Living In" is another fine example of Gano tapping into the darkest hippy psyche. And the sparse backing sax is perfectly mournful. And Outside The Palace could've been a leftover track from Springsteen's Tunnel of Love. It has that same "adult contemporary soft rock" feel to it. It's very comfortable but it has no evident teeth. The real bite lies beneath the surface.

It isn't until "Mother of a Girl" that the old Femmes come to life. Maybe it's a holdover, maybe Gano channeled his younger self, but the band is right there. Energized. Explosive. Folk punky as if they invented the form (and they really did!)

For the most part the album is just fine. Perhaps if you've never heard any other VF records this might be refreshing. But it will always have to be compared to the earlier work. And it can't quite hold up.

All that said, 3 is a very listenable spin. It's obvious they will never be the band of yore. But, who among us are the same people in our 20s as our teens?

Grade B
A Side: Nightmares, Fat, Mother of a Girl, See My Ships
BlindSide: Nothing Worth Living For, World We're Living In
Downside: Nothing really. It's all very listenable. I kind of forgot how much I liked it the first time.

Reflecting Pool: Violent Femmes - The Blind Leading The Naked

The 3rd Femmes record. Bigger production. Better distribution. So, what happened?



Violent Femmes - The Blind Leading the Naked - 1986 (iTunes - Amazon)

I really couldn't wait for this album to come out. I think I got it at Tower THAT day. And then I think I listened to it once, taped the songs I liked and never listened to it again.
Why?
What happened?
First off, the Femmes have a much larger worldview this time. They are almost peaceniks from the sound of the opening tracks.
While "Old Mother Reagan" has the edgy, aggressiveness that I've come to expect, it clocks in at less than a half minute and goes right into the almost pedantic but still rousing "No Killing", which suffers from 80s overextension.
The gospel track, "Faith" is one of my favorite songs from the era. But the production isn't quite right. I'm not sure about the horns, the sax, the harmonicas, the jangly piano...the horns of dilemma are given too much room to breath and it doesn't quite sit right. "Breakin' Hearts" sounds like it could've dropped off "Greatest Hits of the Appalachians" but, it, too, is catchy and fun piffle. And abutted up against the pop-punky "Special" it's a neat one-two punch.
But that production. It's just too dry. It's like early Talking Heads records.....wait! That's right. This was produced by Jerry Harrison! No wonder! The early Heads records always left me cold, like they were recorded in a vacuum. The first two Femmes records are wet, dank, bloody and dangerous.
Not here. While this is a much more fun and catchy record than the last, it's production could leave you cold.
It also has the honor of debuting the songwriting stylings of Brian Richie & Victor DeLorezo. If you never have to hear the roots rock "Love and Me Makes Three" count yourself lucky. Then again, "In the Morning of the Morning, I hear Mourning of the deepest kind" are some of the dumbest lyrics Gano has written and that song, Candlelight Song, closes side one.
"My doll is dead", indeed.

Side Two kicks in with one of my favorite Gano songs ever, "I Held Her in My Arms". Lyrically, it's frustrated and confused and just everything you would expect from this songwriter. The flat production sounds like, well, the way the rest of the album sounds. Like the band is nowhere near the singer or the main band. The Femmes actually come across like they're part of a backing band and the producer is more interested in that backing band than the leads. And every song suffers for it.
The cover of Children of the Revolution feels like someone decided they needed a hit single and this was their choice? I think their version of Eep-Opp-Ork-A-A from the Jetsons a few years later has more integrity.
The feel good, stoop sitting in the summer, "Good Friend" wears out its welcome 40 seconds before it ends and "Heartache" just sounds like a leftover at this point.
The Blind Leading the Naked sounds like a band that's trying to hard to be relevant. Coming after two of the most relevant and powerful albums of the decade this is such a disappointment.

Grade B-
A Side: Old Mother Reagan, Faith, I Held Her in my Arms
BlindSide: No Killing, Breakin' Hearts
DownSide: Love and Me Make Three, Two People

Reflecting Pool: Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground

Their debut was a seminal Indie college radio release. How did Violent Femmes follow it up?



Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground - 1984 (iTunes)

For my money, Hallowed Ground is Violent Femmes best work. It is one of the darkest albums (Country Death Song, a powerfully crafted masterstroke of familial murder that should horror and scare you) and it's also a Christian Rock Record (Jesus Walking on the Water, I hear the Rain, It's Gonna Rain).
The Horns of Dilemma appear here and really take the elegiac Black Girls to a height I couldn't have expected but, in retrospect, should have. There's a freaking Jew's Harp on that song!
While Hallowed Ground may not be as accessible as the debut (on the surface) one listen and you can't help but be hooked.
The torture is still here, the unease. But, then Gano turns around and gives us a lovely ballad in "I Know But I'm Sorry to Say".
The album is all over the place but it's really not. Just when you get a tongue lashing lesson the band turns around with "Sweet Misery Blues" to show that Gordon is the same guy. He's still falling in love and desperate. But, he's not a high school kid begging for the car anymore. Instead, he's more balladeer. And he believes in God. Which just makes his tortured soul that much more intense to me.
The trio of religious songs do nothing but elevate Hallowed Ground. It's the EXACT kind of Sophomore album every band should aspire to.

Grade A+
A Side: Country Death Song, Jesus Walking on the Water, It's Gonna Rain, Black Girls,
BlindSide: Never Tell, Hallowed Ground, I know it's true but I'm Sorry to Say
DownSide: Nope, nothing to report here.

Reflecting Pool: Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

It took 10 years for their debut album to make platinum status. They became darlings of the Indie scene in the 90s. And they have fallen off the face of the Earth.
I'm gonna go back and give the Femmes a more than cursory listen.



Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes - 1983 (iTunes - Amazon)

I was at a poker game a couple years ago and the question of what was the most influential album of the 80s was posed.
I know that many people wanted to lobby for Thriller. But I think that the residual effect of Thriller is nothing more than mercenary saleable Vegas pop and I said so here.
For my money the definitively influential album of that sad decade has to be Violent Femmes' debut.
Just firing up The Builders & The Butchers 2007 debut album reminded me of how fresh and contemporary the Femmes' sound is.
The sparseness and simplistically punk sound can be found on Okkervil River's album, The Stage Names.
Gordon Gano's warbly, angst ridden voice laid the groundwork for Rivers Cuomo.
The DIY nature of the record pervades the entire CD and is the precursor to the age of "anyone can make a record".
The story of the Femmes has been told often. In a nutshell they were discovered busking near the theater where the Pretenders were performing by James "Honeyman" Scott. They were invited to play in between opening act and the main Pretenders show.
They got signed to (one of the greatest labels ever) Slash Records.
Their debut never charted but managed to move over 1,000,000 units by, basically, college word of mouth over the course of more than a decade.
Oh yeah! They were the band that practically INVENTED alternative college radio in the 80s. If you were in college in 1984 and you hadn't heard Violent Femmes you weren't "in the know".

About 7 years ago Beth and I were driving across country with Liz in tow. We had our CDs in the player and we were cranking, I mean CRANKING, "Blister in the Sun" and singing along. After it was over, my 10 year old daughter turned to us and said, "Dad, can we stop listening to oldies now?".
I wanted to die.

So, how does the record hold up?

It's perfect. Gano's singing, warbling, desperation plead-singing serves every song. Brian Ritchie's basslines are air-guitar worthy. He's the unsung Entwistle of the 80s.
Blister in the Sun is an anthem of the baby emos.
The sing-a-long of medication on Kiss Off is still fresh.
Add It Up has been a staple on modern rock radio for 25 years and it's still deserving. You could play this for an 18 year old and say it's a new Indie Band from the Pacific Northwest and they wouldn't know the difference. In fact, Gnarls Barkley's cover of Gone Daddy Gone is almost note for note the same song. A quarter century later just why are the Femmes so contemporary?
They weren't part of the machine that was squeezing overdub, anthem drums and big hair sound. They slipped in under the radar. They were punk AFTER punk. They were New Wave after new Wave was gone.
Sure, the record gets a little flabby around the middle with "Confessions". But after a second listen you realize that Gano has his finger on the pulse of danger, foreboding, unease. And that is made even more evident with the tortured "To The Kill".
Thankfully, if you buy the album now you get the singles, "Ugly" and "Gimme the Car". The former could be perceived as the band's genuflectingly absurd attempt at a single and that's fine. It's catchy. And Fun.
But the real crowning achievement is "Gimme the Car". A song so desperate and full of what a teenage boy really wants, needs, craves that it should be required listening for every 15 year old girl.

Grade A+
A Side: Blister in the Sun, Kiss Off, Add It Up, Gone Daddy Gone
BlindSide: Gimme the Car, Promise.
Downside: Are you kidding?

It should be noted that almost ALL of these songs were written when Gano was in high school. No wonder he has teenage angst down so well.