One of the most distinctive records from the first days of alternative rock and an enduring cult classic,
Violent Femmes
brought the tense, jittery, hyperactive feel of new wave to a then unlikely context: raw, amateurish acoustic instrumentation. The music also owes something to both the urgency and straightforwardness of punk, but with minimalistic drums,
Brian Ritchie
's busy acoustic bass riffing and simplistic, to-the-point songwriting, the
Femmes
forged a sound all their own. Still, one of the main reasons
became the musical embodiment of young adult angst is lead singer and songwriter
Gordon Gano
. Naive and childish one minute, bitterly frustrated and rebellious the next,
Gano
's vocals perfectly captured the contradictions of adolescence and the torment of making the transition to adulthood. Clever lyrical flourishes didn't hurt either; while "Blister in the Sun" has deservedly become a standard, "Kiss Off"'s chant-along "count-up" section, "Add It Up"'s escalating "Why can't I get just one..." couplets, and "Gimme the Car"'s profanity-obscuring guitar bends ensured that
's intensely vulnerable confessions of despair and maladjustment came off as catchy and humorous as well. The songwriting throughout is no-frills but effective, with straight pop structures like "Please Do Not Go" remaining uncluttered enough for every minute detail to be immediately apparent, and fragile closer "Good Feeling" tender and spacious in the same way the best
Velvet Underground
ballads were. Arriving right when punk rock was mutating into hardcore,
offered a contrarian counterpoint to the overt aggression of the band's more distorted peers. These incomplex songs played on unamplified wooden instruments carried as much bile as the most ear-shattering punk band, and conveyed it all in a toxic mutter that was all the more intense for its relative quiet. The album helped create what became the template for college rock and subsequent movements in alternative music, and the
would refine and revise the formula that arrived here in its perfect, acerbic form for decades to come. [This expanded deluxe 40th anniversary edition includes remastered versions of the original album, along with early demos for tunes that both made it and were left off of the album, as well as live recordings from early concerts the band performed in 1981 and 1983.] ~ Steve Huey & Fred Thomas