Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut is my #14 album of 1983, and a good example of the kind of album for which I have a lot of affection even though I never play it.
I discovered this album, and band, in college almost a decade after they first became popular. The alternative music scene at that point was leaning toward grunge, but the folk-punk aesthetic of this record still felt just right.
Today’s SOTD is one I’ll always associate with my college years, the early 90s, even though it was released nearly a decade earlier.
For one thing, that’s when I first heard it. But I also just can’t lump Violent Femmes’ ‘Blister in the Sun’ in with more typical 80s fare. It has a punk spirit more in line with the early 90s. I see the band that recorded this song on a double bill with Exile in Guyville-era Liz Phair.
Violent Femmes recorded off and on for 28 years, starting with their 1983 self-titled debut (still their most famous collection) and officially hanging it up in 2009, eight albums later. I briefly owned their second record, Hallowed Ground, but it really starts and stops with this first album.
Meet Me In Montauk 