The Feeding of the 5000, Crass, 1979, :31
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Holy fuckballs! Where has this band been all my life? From the utterly-shocking-even-in-2020 gratuitous spoken-word blasphemy of the first track, to the inexorable proto-Clash machine gun bass and guitar, to the denunciation of sexual politics on the female-bellowed "Women," to the anti-war chants, to the social rebellion of the last track ("Do they owe us a living? Course they do, course they fucking do"), this is pure punk. A less melodic, angrier, and more vulgar Clash, they rail against all organized religion, the military-industrial complex, private prisons, war, Thatcher, and every other authority. In true punk fashion, they also include a personal complaint, about being "Banned From the Roxy." These guys should have taken over the fucking world. Apparently later they moved closer to something like a feminist art collective. Their third album was called Penis Envy! Truly, the world was not worthy of Crass. A lot of people I know would hate this. To me it's the antidote to the infected tattoo on the face of music that is David Lee Roth. I could listen to it on repeat several times in a row. Could, and did. Favorite tracks: "Do They Owe Us a Living?," "So What" ("So what if the master walked on the water / I don't see him trying to stop the slaughter"), "General Bacardi."
