FRESH FRUIT FOR ROTTING VEGETABLES
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is the debut studio album by the American hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys. It was first released on September 2, 1980 through Cherry Red Records in the United Kingdom and later issued by Jello Biafra’s own Alternative Tentacles label in the United States. It has been certified gold by the BPI. The best selling and generally the most critically acclaimed album by Dead Kennedys, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables has become a major staple of American punk. (More from Wikipedia)
In certain circles at least, Dead Kennedys are as well known as the Grateful Dead. They are the founders of hardcore punk in the San Francisco Bay area, though most of that action was in Los Angeles. Their 1980 debut album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is one of the landmark punk rock albums of all time and includes most of their well-known songs, such as “California Über Alles”, “Holiday in Cambodia”, “Kill the Poor”, and a cover of “Viva Las Vegas”.
I was first exposed unknowingly to Dead Kennedys when someone scrawled the lyrics to one of their songs, “Let’s Lynch the Landlord” in the basement of the apartment building where our real estate office in Raleigh was located for many years. Until I got my own copy of Fresh Fruit several years later, I didn’t realize where those lyrics came from, but they did seem too professional for just anyone to have come up with.
(July 2012)
