The first punk album?? (Kick Out The Jams - MC5)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Kick Out The Jams - MC5
Date:	14/08/09 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great raucous guitar playing and controversial intros

Disadvantages: None

Whilst Detroit's Alice Cooper is considered a major influence on metal and Iggy Pop & The Stooges take a lot of credit for influencing punk rock, it's actually Detroit's other sons MC5 who occasionally get given the credit of producing the first punk rock album.

Whether it is or not, I don't really care - it's a good album - Kick Out the Jams, released in 1968 has an awful lot of bite to it.

Guitars played in a hectic bluesy garage style, screaming, shouting and forceful industrious lyrics that helped influence the course of musical history in a mere 38 minutes. Admittedly the first track of the album "Ramblin' Rose" is more like something you'd expect Led Zeppelin to conjure up but it's the powerful title-track with a notoriously in your face start that sticks two fingers up before flying into an emphatic rock anthem.

Rocket Reducer No. 59 is another classic song with riffs that really mean business and Borderline is an odd one because it has parts where MC5 sound like a typical hippy band of the era and then every so often break in to brash bluesy hard rock.

The effect of track "I Want You Right Now" on punk is debatable, it just comes across as a controversial kind of jam and the kind of thing you may expect to find 1 and a half decades later in the glam metal genre.

The enjoyably bluesy "Motor City is Burning" may not be the band's wildest work but it's one of my favourite songs on the album.

The final track Starship is quite epic, psychedelic in a way and rowdy in another, pure madness really but an interesting concept. Overall this is a must have album for any rock lover.

1 Ramblin' Rose
2 Kick Out The Jams
3 Come Together
4 Rocket Reducer No 62
5 Borderline
6 Motor City Is Burning
7 I Want You Right Now
8 Starship

Summary: Awesome proto-punk