650 Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes (1983)

 650 Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes (1983)

Studio Album - Acoustic Punk



About the Act:

Violent Femmes are a folk punk band from Milwaukee. They have had 10 studio albums, two hiatuses and have three ex-members since they formed in 1979.

About the Album:

This was their first and most successful album.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

I knew the first song as soon as it started. Maybe I've heard it on the radio or something. Oh look, I have a live version of it on a compilation album. And album I thought I had not listened to very often. Well it is very distinctive.

They kind of missed the punk bubble, but this has a sort of punk feel to it. For the most part this is acoustic guitar, acoustic bass and drums, and singing. The bass is really nice, it has the crunchiest bass sound ever, and the playing is great. The other two are good, too, deceptively so, because it is simple, musically, and they play with sounding a little naff, but in an ironic way, I think. It's pretty sparse, and so everything is really exposed. The idea of acoustic punk is weird, and maybe it's more alt rock really, but it has that slightly rushed and unpolished feel of punk, like Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash. 

The singer, Gordon Gano sounds like a your Lou Reed in his delivery, with a voice that matches the burr of the bass sound nicely. His delivery is at the same time naïve and world-weary, like a precocious teenager. The song writing is again simple, but deceptively good, and the delivery, while far from a technically good voice, is really expressive and effective. There's quite a lot of break-offs and spoken bits, and lines that break the conventions of songs, deliberate hesitations and that sort of thing.

The end result is good. Not musically sophisticated, but stylistically clever, with an air of spontaneity and freshness, despite some NSFW content. There's a section in Kiss Off when he is enumerating "one for this, and two for that" and so on that's just.. clever. It's all designed to create a mood and a feel, and they pull it off. To the extent that some of the songs have really naff lyrics, but you just get the sense that this is all part of the irony, parodying 50s vocal crooners. Ok, they sometimes telegraph the irony with slightly affected voices.

I really liked it. It's a great use of a small band to create a listening experience that's engaging, and lyrically for the most part thoughtful and honest. I've been suckered into thinking that American Punk was all like the Ramones (who I am not that impressed by so far) yet this is proper good. Also, great album cover photo.

8.1/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0Ojio25IPzIrw1rUmgrhrG

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtPqy66FKl5tgeFZDY1tiLm5wqujdbQ_z

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Femmes_(album)



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