20 Punk Rock Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
7. Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables - Dead Kennedys
When it comes to politically-charged punk rock music, it's quite difficult to hold a candle to San Francisco's Dead Kennedys. Similarly, it's hard to hold a candle to the pure energy that radiates from their first album, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables.
Jello Biafra's lyrics and singing style will go down in history for both their power and their uniqueness, as they should. When you listen to the straight-forward tracks like When Ya Get Drafted or Chemical Warfare, you can feel the anger and disillusionment with the United States in his voice. And the same can be said for the album's more satirical pieces as well.
Also, in the context of when this album dropped in the early 1980s, just before Ronald Reagan took office and the U.S. political climate began to lean towards being traditionally conservative, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, with its anti-authority edge, was prime counter-culture.