Details
Track Listing
1. Kill the Poor
2. Forward to Death
3. When Ya Get Drafted
4. Let's Lynch the Landlord
5. Drug Me
6. Your Emotions
7. Chemical Warfare
8. California Uber Alles
9. I Kill Children
10. Stealing People's Mail
11. Funland at the Beach
12. Ill in the Head
13. Holiday in Cambodia
14. Viva las Vegas
| Details | | Producer: | East Bay Ray, Norm | | Distributor: | Ryko Distribution | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | AAD |
Album Notes
Dead Kennedys: Jello Biafra (vocals); East Bay Ray (guitar); Klaus Flouride (bass); Ted (drums).
Additional personnel: 6025 (guitar); Paul Roessler, Ninotchka (keyboards).
Recorded at Moibus Music, San Francisco, California.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
The Dead Kennedys: Jello Biafra (vocals); East Bay Ray (guitar); Klaus Flouride (bass guitar); Ted (drums).
Additional personnel: 6025 (guitar); Ninotchka (keyboard); Paul Roessler (keyboards).
Recording information: Mobius Music, San Francisco, California (1980).
To followers of the early-'80s West Coast punk scene, few acts have greater import than the Dead Kennedys, and FRESH FRUIT FOR ROTTING VEGETABLES is their definitive work. Fueled by the hyperactive, paranoid rants of frontman Jello Biafra, the band lays out a blueprint for societal upheaval, preaching distrust of everything, and the eventual breakdown of the totalitarian police state in which we live. His disturbing world view is propelled by the guitar stylings of East Bay Ray, who replaced punk's stereotypical volume assault with carefully chosen and flawlessly executed bursts of musical sarcasm and frightening sonic inventiveness.
The album's opener, "Kill the Poor," is a jubilant excoriation of society's treatment of poverty. Songs like "Let's Lynch The Landlord" and "Stealing Peoples' Mail" provide detailed (and hysterically funny) plans for undermining society's oppression, as does "Chemical Warfare," which even goes so far as to act out the violent rebellion. This was rage of unprecedented intellect, vitriol whose eloquence only served to make it more effective. The politics of the classics "Holiday In Cambodia" and "California Uber Alles" are extreme and violent, but also expertly stated and brilliantly executed.
Industry Reviews
Included in AP's 10 Essential Political-Revolution Albums - ...Biafra takes on the monied classes and the government, and the songs become almost too intricate for punk. Massively influential.
Alternative Press (11/01/2000)
5 stars out of 5 - ...Dead Kennedys were surely the most influential proponents of late-'70s US punk...
Uncut (02/01/2003)
Ranked #9 in Mojo's Top 50 Punk Albums - Singer Jello Biafra's vitriolic, merciless verbal lambasting set to a musical backdrop of fervid punk...
Mojo (03/01/2003)
4 stars out of 5 - Included in Q's 100 Best Punk Albums - One of the most fiery, politically explosive diatribes you are ever likely to hear...
Ranked #46 in Spin's 50 Most Essential Punk Records - ...FRESH FRUIT scans like an old anarchist newspaper. But 'Kill the Poor' sounds perfect for Dick Cheney's America.
Spin (05/01/2001)
Dead Kennedys brought a horror-show vibe to punk that remains more unsettling than the Misfits' comic-book core and battier than My Chemical Romance's make-up.
4 stars out of 5 - Dead Kennedys could echo both the weirdness of Beefheart and the sort of spectral pop that came off Spector's production line. Still fresh. No rot.
4 stars out of 5 -- [T]he shrill, nervy majesty of FRUIT remains unblemished.
[O]ne of the finest slabs of rant 'n' roll ever made.
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