Great Dictations

The Dickies | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: A&M
• ASIN: B000008F1K
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #376,604 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All Hail The Dickies!!!, April 12, 2010

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over and under - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Dictations (Audio CD)

I've collected my share of punk albums over the years, spending a lot of time listening to Thelonious Monster, The Dead Kennedys, X, The Clash, The Ramones, and the Sex Pistols, but in truth there's only one band in the Punk Pantheon that really does it for me... and that's The Dickies.

I'll take the Dickies over the Ramones anyday of the week. Not only are the Dickies quirky, succinct, and hard edged in their delivery of beautifully crafted punk gems like "Poodle Party," "Manny Moe and Jack," and "Give It Back," but most importantly they alternate between humor and angst in a way that no other punk band has been able to manage.

It's true, the Dickies are a funny band, hilarious even, but don't make the mistake of consigning them to parody. The Dickies are themselves, amusingly clown-like in a way we normally don't associate with punk. And when you think about it, perhaps that's why so many punk bands fell by the wayside to begin with. Punk always took itself too seriously. Always angry... and little else. The Dickies know how to have a good time doing what they do best.

And they're still pleasing fans thirty years later. How many punk bands that you know of can still say that?

Almost every track on this record comes from the Dickies first two albums, "The Incredible Shrinking Dickies," and the shorter but no less brilliant "The Dawn of the Dickies." They could have put a lot of their later stuff on this album, as well (notably from the wonderful "Stukas Over Disneyland" - awesome album cover, btw), but the fact that so many tracks come from their first two albums is a real testament to their song-writing skills as early pioneers of punk.