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Violent Femmes' Violent Femmes

Violent Femmes' Violent Femmes cover

Violent Femmes' Violent Femmes

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Pre-order. Available Apr 02 2026
$15.80 RRP $19.75 Website price saving $3.95 (20%)

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Description

The self-titled debut from Milwaukee post-punk acoustic trio the Violent Femmes is one of those rare albums that seems to have altered the course of popular music and influenced just about everyone who heard it while also managing to operate almost entirely outside of the mainstream. Released in 1983 to little sales or attention, the band was so iconoclastic that it couldn't even engender support from Milwaukee's anti-establishment punk scene. Over the ensuing years, though, Violent Femmes managed to exert itself as an unstoppable cultural force, ascending the college radio charts and spreading through word-of-mouth.

Through rare access to band members and their archives, this book investigates the creation of such iconic songs as “Blister in the Sun,” “Kiss Off” “Add it Up” and “Prove My Love,” as well as the album's recording process, which took place only after a $10,000 loan from the drummer's father secured a week of time in a nearby studio. Violent Femmes didn't sound like anything else when it was made, and it still doesn't sound like anything else. The album somehow exists both outside of time and as one of the most evocative and enduring artifacts of the alternative '80's.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Organist
1. Making the Album
2. Song by Song
3. The Instruments
4. Cultural Influence
Epilogue: The Party

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published Apr 02 2026
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Extent 152
ISBN 9798765133538
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Series 33 1/3
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Nic Brown

Nic Brown is a writer, musician, and professor at…

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