Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
1982
This is the ultimate loser rock album. Gordon Gano speaks with such honesty it's almost shameful, but if you've ever been to High School and felt like an outsider it will move you. Really, I wouldn't consider somebody a real person if they couldn't relate to at least a few songs on here.
That said, this is a very delicious album musically. The bass in particular, speaks volumes, alternating wonderfully between melody and rhythm, driving the album rapidly forward into new areas of self-revelation. Gano's vocal delivery is all over the place, and carries an air of self-deprecation and absurdity which suits it perfectly. Like The Raincoats, Violent Femmes are a band to play up their faults until they become their strengths. Their name, for instance, refers to the derogatory term “femmes” which was used as epithet for geeks in their hometown of Milwaukee (meaning “girls,” for you Francophobes). The attached “violent” is hilariously self-mocking, but at the same time a good metaphor for the way they've turned their detachment and alienation into something constructive and explosive. Because this music is certainly explosive, and also implosive. It threatens to do both.
Take “Add It Up,” which brazenly handles school shootings. What? That was an issue in 1982? No way! Sure it was. So when Gano sings “don't shoot shoot shoot that thing at me/ You know you got my sympathy/ but don't shoot shoot shoot that thing at me,” it carries an intoxicating honesty that we don't get from the media, which is more interested in propagating the myth of evil than exploring the real causes of teenage frustration. “Confessions,” on the other hand, laments “I'm so lonely, I feel like I'm gonna crawl away and die.” Teenage angst? Sure. But not angst turned into tragedy or opera, angst for what it is. Somebody has to address it, don't they?
As you can probably see, I'm not too interested in talking about the music itself. It's like, folk music infused with punk. It's not exactly an acquired taste.