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Rating: Having seen no reviews concerning this album, I took the liberty of posting my opinion as a massive ignoramus in the field, hoping not to infuriate those who know more than me with galactic nonsense.
Frankenchrist by Dead Kennedys, dated 1985, is an album that, while in my opinion losing immediacy compared to their masterful debut and the grand follow-up, really brings to light the group's ability to reinvent themselves, grafting onto solid foundations like their themes and proven style elements that nevertheless demonstrate an evolution on the musical level.
Biafra & Co. once again concentrate all their denunciation towards the entire system and the American socio-political structures, touching on the most diverse aspects -alienation, conformity, corruption, poverty- remaining almost always lucid and focused in their criticism, I say almost because I found Jello less immediate and demonic compared to the early works but almost more "entangled" by the structure of the songs themselves, even cryptic in some of his denunciations.
The four give birth to dystopian and distorted tracks that convey their message not with a sharp slap as happened with the songs of the previous two albums, but through punk rides of anti-punk or at least anti-hardcore length almost by definition, characterized by riffs that repeat incessantly and, at times, also by sudden changes of rhythm. In this sense, "Soup is Good Food", "This could be anywhere" and the martial and alienating "At my Job" are worth mentioning. Despite everything, traces of pure hardcore remain in "Hellnation" and "Jock-O-Rama", probably the most immediate, pressing and energetic songs of the work.
Sometimes they get lost in the meanders of their own progression, see the yet tireless "Stars and stripes of corruption", in which Jello delivers one of his most lucid, heartfelt, and desecrating (and lengthy) analyses of the entire system and way of thinking made in the USA; or, again, "A growing boy needs his lunch", which associates a cryptic text with a very dark sound. A separate discussion must be made for what I consider to be the masterpiece of the album, one of the most wonderfully fierce attacks on the false and hypocritical world of the music industry along with the renowned "Pull my strings"; "MTV get off the air".
A song I love from start to finish, where desecrating and parodic tones mix with sincere anger, where it is affirmed here more than ever that one must "Forget honesty, forget creativity," because "The dumbest buy the mostest\that's the name of the game". And how can one resist the initial beat with its accompanying childish chorus, Jello's boastful voice breaking in, East Bay's tearing guitar which seems to spew the piece's and the group's entire anger onto all the self-righteous in the music industry, the trumpets? Do we want to talk about the wonderful trumpets that break in during the final minutes? An epic track in the truest sense of the word, one of the many gems in DK's discography.
Ultimately an album I love less than the first two but which is nevertheless essential to fully understand the group's musical trajectory and Biafra's thought in all its entirety.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Hellnation (02:20)
Hellnation's when they teach us
Profiting from greed
Hellnation's where they give us
Coke, heroin and speed
Hellnation's when they tell us
You gotta go clean up your act
You're the one who dragged me here
And now you drag me back
(chorus)
Problem is, few care
About the people in despair
If you help no one
You're guilty in this Hellnation
Hellnation's when the president
Asks for four more fucking years
Hellnation's when he gets it
By conning poor people and peers
Hellnation - got no choice
What's the point in trying to vote?
When this country makes war
We all die in the same boat
In this Hellnation
(chorus)
It's the only world we've got
Let's protect it while we can
That's all there is and there ain't no more
Hellnation - asking please
For a nuclear freeze
So the unborn kids
Get their chance to live and breathe
Hellnation - asking aid
For the minimum wage
So the kids of tomorrow
Don't wind up slaves to their trade
In this Hellnation
(chorus)
05 Chicken Farm (05:04)
Another rainy morning mingling at the market
Bartering for food for another day
Rifle shots ring out behind the crumbling buildings
Executions have begun
Sprawled in the square are today's broken bodies
Lots to pick clean if you're first and quick
Rift through their pockets, peel off their clothes
To wear or sell when you wash out the blood
Run my little brother
Run to the chicken farm
Opportunity is calling
You might even find a watch
We're going down
To the chicken farm
Napalm rains no more
But the war goes on
Little brother died playing at the dump today
He found a new toy and held it up proud
Then it blew him to bits
How many more children
Will be killed or die at birth
Deformed by Agent Orange
In our food chain forever more
We're going down
To the chicken farm
This time we'll buy our way out
I've got a plan; you wait and see
I smuggled you this map
In the gash I sliced in my thigh
I hope I'm there to join you, love
We're blown to bits one by one in this camp
We crawl shaking through the fields at gunpoint all day
To defuse leftover landmines—by hand
We shiver on the deck and stiffen for the worst
If the pirates come around we might as well be dead
We'll be thrown in the sea
Or butchered if we're women
All in the name of gold
One foot in a land we can barely understand
Can't speak the tongue of Yankee hospitality
Our kids at school get beat up
To the tune of "Boat people, go home"
Sliced with a machete
From the breast of our homeland
Our new world tries to spit us out
But it sure beats the chicken farm
07 Goons of Hazzard (04:23)
Happy hour belongs to America's best-loved thugs
Here comes the 4-wheel prosthetic penises
Got yer gun racks, tractor tires and lynch mob drivers
We couldn't find a chick to sit in the middle
So we drink ourselves sick
Lean out the windows and pinch ass instead
We are the Goons of Hazzard
Glorified on your TV
We run down bikes and hitch hikers
And we know we'll get off scot-free
We're the vigilante heroes of your tough-guy flicks
Bashing punks & bums and fags
With our baseball bats
No deer to blow away in the woods today
So we go to Oroville and shoot a black kid down
Or waste demonstrators in Greensboro instead
We are the Goons of Hazzard
Glorified on your TV
We leave you in a pool of blood
Cos we know we'll get off scot-free
Let's get him…
C'mere
C'mere
Say something to me?
We've got him cornered
We've got him cornered
Is anybody looking?
Does anybody even care?
No!
Local papers paint us up to be big heroes
City fathers & Chamber of Commerce want us deputized
The stoner gestapo keepin' your town clean
Get a shave, kid
We'll pay you as a strike-breaker
Maybe you'll make Tac Squad for the L.A.P.D.
We are the Goons of Hazzard
Glorified on your TV
We leave you in a pool of blood
And we always get off scot-free
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