458. Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980)
















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

Review

This is the Dead Kennedys album to get it's got all their smash number one hits - In some better, commie alternative reality - like Kill The Poor, California Uber Alles and Holiday In Cambodia and is all around a great album. Also it doesn't end there, I knew little more than those tracks by the Dead Kennedys and it was actually a revelation how good the rest of the album is, although it is not as accessible, songs like Drug Me and Chemical Warfare are so full of angry energy that they are great.

Actually there is nto a single dud here, even Viva Las Vegas is imbued with a critical snarl which changes the meaning of the song completely. This is politically active music at its best, you can sing along to it, headbang along to it, or write an essay about it.

This is where the Kennedys win at life, they eschew the puerile anarchism of previous punk band and go for a focused political agenda, even if it sounds a bit childish and utopic it is very much recognisable as a far-left agenda, still they do it with a great sense of fun, making great use of sarcasm, just Jello Biafra's snarl gives you the requisite hint of sarcasm while the lyrics are an exercise in making mini Swiftian Modest Proposals. Great stuff.

Final Grade

1. California Uber Alles
2. Holiday In Cambodia
3. Kill The Poor
4. Chemical Warfare

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

Musically, Fresh Fruit laid the blueprint for future Kennedy's releases: loud, noisy, fast, but with a sense of dynamics and musical individualism. The surf and rockabilly-inspired riffs owe something to the Ramones' most influential recordings, drawing from early American AM pop and rehashing it in the immediate, aggressive context of punk rock. The lyrics lend a significant bite to the breakthrough of the already strident (yet surprisingly catchy) musical assault. On the original vinyl version Side A was tracks 1-7 and Side B was tracks 8-14.

California Uber Alles: