10 Great Albums That Came Out After The Band Split Up
4. Dead Kennedys - Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death
"Punk's not dead, it just deserves to die" - Chickesh*t Conformist
Icons of punk rock and pioneers of politically motivated lyrical narratives, Dead Kennedys are undoubtedly one of the most important punk bands in history. Forming in 1978 and changing the scene forever with 1980’s ‘Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables’, the Californian punks were never shy about expressing their feelings. Despite this, it seems they may have been slightly misunderstood at the time.
Dead Kennedys took aim not only at the straight-laced people from beyond punk rock, but also at the toxic subgenres of fans who festered within the scene. The band were always taking aim at Nazi-punks, skinheads and abusive crowdkillers which gathered at hardcore punk shows. Gradually, the band became disgruntled and started to feel marooned within their own scene which once represented free-flowing artistic ability, and was now falling to the same conformist rules of any other genre.
The band officially stopped touring in February 1986, but wouldn’t record their final studio album, ‘Bedtime For Democracy’ for another few months. ‘Bedtime For Democracy’ was released in November 1986 and was followed by the compilation album ‘Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death’, a year later. ‘Give Me Convenience…’ is still one of the band’s most widely recognised releases to this day, featuring previously unreleased versions of ‘Police Truck’, ‘Saturday Night Holocaust’ and ‘Insight’. Because of this, Dead Kenendys are the only band on this list with two post-split releases highlighted, both of which being great albums.