Turning 30 This Year: The “Violent Femmes” Album

If you were into alt-rock in the early 1980s and looking for the perfect soundtrack for your teen angst, the Violent Femmes’ first (and best) album, Violent Femmes, was your best option. Songwriter and lead vocalist Gordon Gano wrote most of the songs on this album when he was still in high school in Milwaukee, which is probably why it rang true for so many of us when we first put it on our turntables or cassette players (they’re ancient music playback devices, kids).

Violent Femmes is a near-perfect album, featuring some solid songwriting, great instrument playing, and hey, Gordon Gano’s “so off it’s on” voice suits the material perfectly. It’s also a bit of an oddity, having gone gold (500,000 sold) a whole four years after its release, followed by going platinum (1 million sold) four years after that, all while never having broken into the Billboard charts, but garnering its success through play on indie, alt-rock and college radio, as well as word-of-mouth. During my days as a DJ at Crazy Go Nuts University’s Clark Hall Pub, all the crowd has to hear was the introductory “Day…after day…” from Add It Up, and there’d be a mad rush for the dance floor. Not bad for a song with only two chords!

Here, for your listening pleasure, is the Violent Femmes’ Violent Femmes. Enjoy!