Violent Femmes

This Milwaukee trio took punk's revenge-of-the-nerds aspect to heart; clean-cut choirboy Gordon Gano gleefully wheeled out his tales of sexual frustration and impending psychosis, while bassist Brian Ritchie and stand-up drummer Victor DeLorenzo both slammed away on acoustic instruments. Violent Femmes really stood out on the fledgling alternative circuit, and the group capitalized on its barebones mobility by playing impromptu street-corner gigs -- talk about punk pragmatism! The debut album gets over mostly on that loose ensemble feel; strumming and haranguing, Gano works up a compelling neurotic fury on three-chord classics such as "Blister in the Sun" and "Add It Up."

Gano did tend to sound unpleasantly nasal on the band's inevitable, talky mid-tempo melodramas. That tendency peaks on Hallowed Ground's pointlessly overwrought "Country Death Song"; between its shallow roots excavations and sarcastic fits, Violent Femmes' second album is nearly unlistenable. Producer Jerry Harrison (of Talking Heads) turns things around on The Blind Leading the Naked, focusing some of the group's manic energy and filling in some of the gaps in their technique. Gano responds with a far more considered set of songs, even looking out beyond his own cracked world: "Mother Reagan" stands as one of the best politico-rockers of the '80s, and the cover version of Marc Bolan's "Children of the Revolution" is actually less ironic than the glittery T. Rex original. Violent Femmes began to draw a younger, much-enthused audience around this time, and the prospect of MTV-fueled teen idolatry must've frightened the group off its feed. The album 3 is a jumbled stylistic grab bag, reflecting the members' various solo projects. (Gano formed a gospel band called Mercy Seat, and Brian Ritchie has recorded for the independent SST label.) The acoustic return of Why Do Birds Sing? makes a sad, brazen play for the early-'80s nostalgia market -- too bad the Violent Femmes' tuneless take on Culture Club's "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" actually makes you pine for Boy George. DeLorenzo went solo just after 1993 retrospective Add It Up was released (he was replaced by BoDeans drummer Guy Hoffman), and the Femmes have continued to slog along since then, intermittently releasing albums to little fanfare, the most recent being 2001's download-only rarities collection Something's Wrong. (MARK COLEMAN/BEN SISARIO)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide