Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death [ORIGINAL RECORDING REISSUED] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Dead Kennedys

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 11, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 1987
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Manifesto Records
• ASIN: B00005NT4K
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #35,163 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Track for track and album after album, the Dead Kennedys were the most relentlessly political and controversial stateside punk rock band to gain much public notoriety. Originally released in 1987, Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death collects 17 of the band's singles, compilation tracks, and rarities spanning the eight years they played together. This is a wide and deep collection of favorites like "California Über Alles" and "Holiday in Cambodia," but the real reason to pick up this disc is the more obscure and rare material. From 1979, "Night of the Living Rednecks" has hyperactive mouthpiece Jello Biafra relating a tale of being chased by irate rednecks while the rhythm sections jams. Their version of "I Fought the Law" rewrites it into a true-to-life murder ballad, while rippers like "Life Sentence," "Insight," "Pull My Strings" and "Straight A's" are off the map unless you were lucky enough to pick up the original singles or compilations that they're pulled from. And "Kinky Sex Makes the World Go 'Round" is Biafra at his sarcastic best, as he tells of one corporate head instructing another on the economic necessity of a new war. The DKs were a truly important and relevant band, and Give Me Convenience provides 17 livid reasons why. Boy, could we use them now. --Carl Hanni

Product Description
This Manifesto reissue of 'Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death' release has been digitally remastered (by the original sound engineer), features 17 tracks, a new lavish CD booklet with tons of photos & newspapers clippings!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is not the Dead Kennedys' Greatest Hits..., August 30, 2003

By	Tony Hall "If the movie stinks, just don't go!" (the internet) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

... 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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great compilation., September 8, 2005

By	Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

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

By	Donald Hargraves (Munster, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.