Best Dead Kennedys Album

Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

Man, they were like my favourite band when I was 18.

FRESH FRUIT, EASY.

oops sorry about Double frankenchrist action.

anyway, i'm gonna go with Give Me Convenience.

top three in order:
Give Me Convenience, In God We Trust Inc., then Fresh Fruit.

they were my favorite band from the age of 11 til the age of 15.

they still are my favorite punk band. nay, they're the only punk band i still listen to.

In God We Trust, Inc. = ep

Presumably this is a cakewalk for Fresh Fruit. I voted for it anyway.

Gonna go with Plastic Surgery Disasters, just to counterbalance the predicted 'Fresh Fruit' landslide; and because Side One is pretty excellent. (Prolly my most-played "side" of any DKs album - I owned the first four - and indeed I haven't listened to them since before I got my first CD player in '90.)

I've never heard of Kill The Poor.

Me, either. "Kill The Poor" is the opening track off Fresh Fruit; maybe there was an early UK only EP or something?

(another mistake. i should have just posted them, i know the albums' order, i was just lazy and cut&pasted from discogs.)

DRUG ME DRUG ME DRUG ME ME ME

Wait, can we talk about why "Fresh Fruit"? Yes, it is one of the best all-over punk albums ever, but I think "Give Me Convenience" is more...well, menacing. That and all of these songs are as good as anything on "Fresh Fruit," I think. 'Saturday Night Holocaust' might also be one of the best punk song titles ever.

1 Police Truck (2:23)
2 Too Drunk To Fuck (2:38)
3 California Über Alles (3:26)
4 The Man With The Dogs (3:01)
5 Insight (1:38)
6 Life Sentence (2:38)
7 A Child And His Lawnmower (0:54)
8 Holiday In Cambodia (3:43)
9 I Fought The Law (2:17)
10 Saturday Night Holocaust (4:22)
11 Pull My Strings (5:53)
12 Short Songs (0:20)
13 Straight A's (2:05)
14 Kinky Sex Makes The World Go 'Round (4:17)
15 The Prey (3:44)
16 Night Of The Living Rednecks (5:10)
17 Buzzbomb From Pasadena (2:20)

The skits are actually funny! "Kinky Sex" still freaks me out every time.

Give Me Convenience...

"We're not a punk rock band, we're a new wave band."

Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death is a comp, you fools.

yeah, the only DKs albums proper are Fresh Fruit, Plastic Surgery, Frankenchrist, and Bedtime.

for me, probably Fresh Fruit (my fave alb when I was 17 in 1983) but maybe Plastic as well. They are really very different records in terms of sound, song structure, and overall focus. I am of the purist opinion that the decline in music quality happened around the time of their censorship/lawsuit.

OK Plastic Surgery it is upon further reflection, for "Forest Fire", "Halloween", and most of Side 2.

Plastic Surgery Disasters by miles. Love all of them, but that one is just amazing start to finish.

Fresh Fruit loses because it has shitty version of California Uber Alles - the good one is the single on Give Me Convenience (which is also awesome but is comp so doesn't count).

i don't buy this "it's a comp so it doesn't count." purism be damned, "give me convenience" is miles above anything else.

"i don't buy this "it's a comp so it doesn't count." purism be damned, "give me convenience" is miles above anything else."

Amen. It's on the list, so I voted for it. It is IMO the best thing ever released with their name on it. Why shouldn't it count? If comps shouldn't count, then what about live albums? It's not a collection of covers, and it's the only record with "Pull My Strings" on it - one of my favourite DK moments of all-time. New Order, Bob Marley and the Wailers and Superchunk are 3 other bands I can think of off the top of my head with compilation albums that deserve to be considered among their best.

Yeah, this "no comps" thing on polls is irritating. Can't see why one compilation of songs should be privileged over another compilation of songs...I can think of all sorts of justifications that won't hold up under scrutiny (bands don't always pick the songs on their proper albums, tracks on an album aren't always from the same sessions, etc. etc.)

That said, Plastic Surgery Disasters. When the Superchunk poll comes up, I'm picking Tossing Seeds.

yeah. if tracks 1-10 on "give me convenience" made up an album, it would probably be considered their best album-- every track is singularly good and the sequence is incredibly effective. though the rest of it is still classic in my opinion, i think that from 11-17, "give me convenience" is an entirely different affair, and one that people don't take to as much. (from a REALLY critical standpoint, 11-17 is like "The Jello Show," with Biafra exposing his truly funny yet wildly grating side in a more pronounced way).

People don't like comps on these polls because then there's not much point in doing them, cos for most bands the "best album" is just going to be X's Greatest Hits.

I think that sequencing, and trying to provide some sense of unity still count for a lot with compilation albums. Just throwing 12 of a band's greatest hits onto one album is not always a recipe for success.

In a similar vein, should live albums merit the same consideration as proper studio releases?

Probably not.

See, that, for example, would eliminate my pick for best Swans album: "Feel Good Now." And I can't think of any good reason to do that. It's their best album, for christ's sake: better sound than Children of God, etc. etc.

Also, I totally disagree that a Greatest Hits will regularly trump all others. Maybe because I'm older (so still emotionally tied to the album format), but I'd say that's very, very rarely the case. Personally speaking, I think I might feel that way for Styx, Bread, and Chicago.

The idea that a collection of a group's most popular (or even "best," whatver that means) tracks will inevitabely represent the best listening experience is kind of like the idea that a meal consisting of all your favorite foods in sequence will be the best meal ever. (And I hope that everyone over 5 years old recognizes the futility of the latter.)

I suppose there's probably already a thread about this somewhere, so I'll shut up now.

Cake Walk For Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

Plastic Surgery Disasters without question.

Give Me Convenience is a very close second.

Don't think compilations should be included/excluded? No problem, start your own poll and leave 'em out/in. Or maybe include a write-in option. Poll results aren't exactly scientific. (My take: List comps if they consist mostly of material not on the regular albums. Which would include Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death.)

xpost

A good argument can be made for Convenience but Fresh Fruit is probably the most important album I've ever heard. It was the first punk rock I was introduced to and permanently warped my sensibilities.

It's gotta be Fresh Fruit, but I have huge, huge love for Plastic Surgery Disasters.

DRUG ME wins

I think like Singles Going Steady is to the Buzzcocks or The First Four Years is to Black Flag, Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death is an excellent distillation of what the DK's did.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I'D RATHER STAY A CHILD AND KEEP MY SELF-RESPECT
IF BEING AN ADULT MEANS BEING LIKE YOUUUUUUUU!

COMPS ARE NOT ALBUMS, YOU DICKHEADS.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Boo!

5 dickheads

"5 dickheads"

6 including yourself.

PSD deserves the second spot but I thought it would have gotten more votes...I really don't understand the admiration for In God...I always skip over those tracks at the end of the CD reissue.

I don't care if "Give Me..." is a comp or not, it's the best DKs album as far as I'm concerned (it being the only one I still feel like I need to own).

6 including yourself.

-- j-rock, Sunday, July 15, 2007 10:06 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Link

ILL MEET YOU ANYTIME ANYWHERE, BITCHDRIZZLE. COMPS ARE NOT ALBUMS AND ILL FIGHT YOUR FACE ON THAT.

XPOST - YOU TOO ARE STUPID. NO DRUG ME NO CREDIBILITY.

Fresh Fruit for overall in terms of both musical and lyrical completeness but I do tend to listen to GMC more than any other DKs album. Still the greatest punk band ever.

chaki, you are the one being the dick here. in fact, you seem to be the only one who cares so much. so shut the fuck up.

Warning: Bimble has a Blog, a recent post of which is dedicated to Plastic Surgery Disasters.

Plastic Surgery Disasters is still the best one. I must have listened to that 1000 times.

I don't know what to say, it makes me feel so weird to hear that and realize it somehow failed to touch my teenage years. I almost feel as if I knew it existed in spirit.

I haven't actually heard Dead Kennedys in maybe 8 years. My favorite was always the Convenience comp. I don't think there's any album I've gotten drunk to as much as Plastic Surgery... Joy.

What struck me on seeing the Convenience track list now, is that my 14 year old self thought "Buzzbomb from Pasadena" was one of the coolest songs EVER. I'd completely forgotten about that! I should go put it on and see if it sounds as retarded now as it does in my head.

I didn't really like Bedtime for Democracy or Frankenchrist, but since buying new albums was a rare thing back then, I've played both a ridiculous number of times in the hopes that they'd grow on me.

Oh hell, another fun teenage Øystein fact: I fucking hated "Too drunk to fuck". Not because it was a bad song, but because all the jocks I hated loved it.

I am now listening to "Pull my Strings" and it's awesome.

lol "adorn"

Had a weird urge to relisten to Plastic Surgery Disasters today. Wow, the vocals are really out front on that, aren't they. And suddenly it hit me that up to a point Jello sings like a very, very angry Feargal Sharkey (Undertones years) which actually made me like him a little bit more.

Some of those songs really are pretty great (esp. Halloween) but I'd like to hear a remix with the vocals turned *waaaaaay* down.

that's maybe my favourite album OF ALL TIME if I have one

I remember being extremely disturbed by it when I bought it, back in middle or high school. Even the extra-thin cardboard sleeve disturbed me. They seemed very mysterious and dangerous at the time. I remember reading a bio of the band that drew attention to Jello's non-rhyming lyrics: "Belushi's my hero, I lampoon and I ape him. My news of the world comes from Sports Illustrated."

Guitar parts on this are really killer. It's like, if Jello had just been a better lyricist, this would probably be my favorite album OF ALL TIME too, at least some days. The way "Riot" builds and shifts moods is pretty impressive, but again it comes back to the lyrics. Sigh.

Clipping from this recentish interview with Geza X

(Q.) How do you feel about your production of the DKs single Holiday in Cambodia. I think the second version – rerecorded for Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables – loses the urgency of the first recording
--
The first one was done at Tewksbury Recording in SF. The 16 track tape machine was so old I had to stop the reels with my hands between takes or it would just spill the giant two-inch tape onto the floor. That’s the secret of my Big Sound. My hands had battle scars for weeks

I recorded it just like a Top 40 Song. Most punks would be appalled! We doubled the guitars and QUADRUPLED the vocals on the chorus of the song. Yeah there are four Biafras screaming there!

Ray got mad cause I dragged his guitar amp into the studio’s LIVE ECHO CHAMBER. He already uses an effect called an Echoplex, which is a tape echo unit that makes everything huge. I said lets just TRY it, pretty please. It sounded colossal!! We were all shocked when we put the mikes up and listened on little speakers

I put a wallet on the snare drum like you do in Disco songs to get that THUD. That was a carry-over from my mid 70s Funk sessions. If I had it to do over I would have used a more bouncy sounding snare

So basically EVERYone had something to complain about. I think Jello and I did the final mix together because there were a lot of switches to flip and there was no automation for poor punx in those days. But then Ray remixed it cause my mix didn’t have enough bass. I hadn’t recorded any hip-hop yet and was as white as a saltine cracker

Posting this here for a reason

Some of you know this story, but here's the public (surprising) story about when @not_on_display learned about his bio-dad just after he turned 50.

Jim was adopted as a newborn in 1969 (pre-Roe v. Wade). He had found and contacted his bio-mom before I met him. 1/9

— Jessamyn West (@jessamyn) October 3, 2021

i love that.

awesome, always nice to see reunions like this

Wow