Ill In The Head: A Brief Review Of The New Mix Of Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables By Dead Kennedys
The new edition of the debut from Dead Kennedys is out now. It's worth stating up front how Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980) has been remixed by Chris Lord-Alge (Madonna, Whitesnake, Green Day, and so on). This new version of one of the most important punk albums this side of the Atlantic has its charms, but it's also likely to annoy many, many people.
The sound here is clean, maybe too clean, with the whole thing roaring out of the gate like a Nineties Bad Religion record. That's not a knock on Bad Religion, but just a comparison to illustrate how this doesn't sound like the seminal 1980 DIY release you've grown up with. Unruly tracks like "Let's Lynch the Landlord" and "I Kill Children" have a near-metallic sheen now, while the new remix does favor "Forward to Death" and "Ill in the Head", rendering the chaos of the playing a little easier to navigate. I don't know if that was the point, though. I think the unrelenting assault of this record has been weakened a bit, though anthems "Holidays in Cambodia" and "California über alles" still catch fire and thrill. It's hard to ruin these cuts, and if you start your listen of this new mix of Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables out of seqeunce, these two familiar classics might be the easiest bits to take.
Still, all that being said, it's worth noting that frontman of the band then Jello Biafra has gone on record that he was not consulted when this remix was undertaken. He doesn't entirely slam it, but he comes pretty close to doing so in quotes out there recently. Frankly, it seems both unnecessary and not as big a a deal as one might expect. I mean, Chris Lord-Alge didn't make this sound like Whitesnake, you know? But he did clean this up quite a bit, and the crystal-clear mix is startling in spots, with opener "Kill the Poor" somehow tinnier now, and "Viva Las Vegas", the smart-ass cover closer, seeming silly and less threatening now. Dead Kennedys always had a wit about them, and it would be hard to dampen that, but this new Chris Lord-Alge remix does make a record that felt dangerous to teenage me seem a bit too VH1 Classic, if you catch my meaning.
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is out now.