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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is not the Dead Kennedys' Greatest Hits..., August 30, 2003
... but there are hit's nonetheless. Don't be discouraged after seeing many familiar titles in the track listing. Any "hits" from other albums that appear on this album have been rerecorded for this album. This album is more like a collection of b-sides and rerecordings that are not available on any other album. It doesn't have the continuity of a regular album, but it is still very good.Of course I'm not going to review every song one-by-one like some people do, but I will tell you about a few highlights. Police Truck is awesome and great musically, I Fought the Law is awesome too and in this version the law doesn't win, Kinky Sex is a prophetic spoken word/noise track about the US and UK teaming up to start a war and it's hilarious, Night of the Living Rednecks is a very funny story about Jello being chased down by some dumb rich rednecks, and finally Buzzbomb from Pasadena is musically the same as the original Buzzbomb, but this time it's about an old lady and sung in an old lady's voice for a humorous and creepy feel. This is one of the best three DK albums, so just go ahead and buy it. Also, it has come to my attention that the ex-DK's have been suing Jello and releasing remastered versions of the albums, so if you can, try looking at the Alternative Tenticles website (Jello Biafra's label) for the album first (Alternative Tentacles is the DK's original label with the original recordings and is ran by the DK's vocalist Jello. Alternative Tentacles don't have all the DK albums available, so if they don't carry it just go ahead and buy one from anywhere like here.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great compilation., September 8, 2005
Before i go any further (and I made this mistake myself), "Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death" is more of a Dead Kennedys rarities compilation than a career retrospective. Mind you, this isn't a bad thing, quite a bit of this material is essential-- A and B sides from early singles, some LP sides, and some live tracks all make for quite good listening, and the material is awfully good.
And since most people looking at compilations are thinking "introduction", I'll talk a bit to the band. Formed in the late '70s when vocalist Jello Biafra and bassist Klaus Flouride answered a magazine ad from guitarist East Bay Ray (eventually a drummer named Ted, later replaced by D.H. Peligro would round out the band), the band quickly fused British punk sounds with a political attack, their first single "California Uber Alles" being hte best example of this. Included on this set, the piece is a direct attack on then-California governer Jerry Brown. The band maintained a career of punk music laced with sarcasm, wit and quite a bit of groove and brilliant guitar playing. The band's career pretty much fell apart due to a decency law suit over the artwork of their last album, but by that point they'd laid down their legacy.
So this compilation is probably a reasonable introduction-- several essential pieces, "California Uber Alles", "Police Truck", the legendary titled "Too Drunk to F***", "Life Sentence", are all present, and show off the band's most well known side-- agressive, witty, and propulsive. But also of note is the band's ability to be almost minimalist as on the black "The Prey" and stunningly sarcastic and political, as in "Holiday in Cambodia" and "Kinky Sex (Makes the World Go 'Round)". These two are disturbingly relevent in the modern era, the latter in particular discusses establishing a war for corporate gain..... for that matter, there's music industry lament "Pull My Strings" (panning the Knack-- "my payola"). Again, given the news of the music industry that's emerged, it seems overly relevent now.
Another point of note-- the CD sounds fantastic-- remastered by the original engineer, the pieces are loud and in your face and all-in-all just superb. While the side effect of being a compilation is a lack of unity and not being a real intro to the albums of the band, its hard to give this five stars (I reserve that for masterpieces), but its a nice piece anyway. Recommended.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Collection of Wayward Tracks Given a Good Home, January 20, 2007
I remember having many of these songs on seven inches and twelve inch EPs (45 RPMs instead of 33 RPMs, fewer songs, usually extended versions, remixes or singles deemed worthy of the extra work and effort) before this first came out. This has everything, plus various items not released on LPs (or taken off, like Police Truck).
Probably the key releases to me are Police Truck, Too Drunk to F***, Life Sentance, A Child and His Lawnmower, Saturday Night Holocaust, Pull My $tring$, Kinky Sex Makes the World Go 'Round, The Prey and Night of The Living Rednecks (more a signal of what he would become than as an actual tune). But the rest of the tracks are good to excellent also.
A necessary release for any DK fan, and worthy for those learning about the band.
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