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Suicidal Tendencies is a 1983 hardcore punk album by the band Suicidal Tendencies. It is the band’s debut studio album. The album has been noted as having a strong influence on the thrash-metal genre, and is also one of the best-selling punk albums of all time.
Armed with unrelenting social commentary and lyrics, hefty riffs, and a high concentration of hardcore punk energy, Suicidal Tendencies delivered this raw, strong debut album to the table excellently.
The album opener, “Suicide’s An Alternative / You’ll Be Sorry” establishes in a 2 minute and 44 second timespan that this will be an album packed with angst and rebelliousness, in addition to slightly whimsical lyrics: the song is a list of everything the band is sick of, from innocuous things like chicks to more serious things with lasting consequences, such as the government, politics, and power.
This mix of serious and simultaneously silly lyrics occurs several times throughout the album. Though the ubiquitous “Institutionalized” is a mildly serious song about parents mistaking average teenage behavior for “going insane”, there is also an entire half-verse about just wanting “one Pepsi!”.
Unsurprisingly for an album called “Suicidal Tendencies”, there are a good few violent songs on the record. Among the most violent is a song called “I Saw Your Mommy…”, a song in which the narrator describes, in great detail, exactly how somebody’s mother died, and the song “I Shot the Devil”, where the “Devil” in the title refers to former US president Ronald Reagan. Songs like these showcase the determination of Suicidal Tendencies to be unapologetically direct in their lyricisim and delivery, as well as how their musicianship makes potentially campy concepts for songs pop.
Though there are many great songs on the album, my favorites are “Subliminal”, “Institutionalized”, “Two Sided Politics”, and “I Want More”. Out of my four favorites, “Subliminal” is my overall favorite: the delivery of the lyrics, the fluctuating, building energy of the song, not to mention the unforgettable riffs featured throughout the song, all combine to stand above the rest of the 11 tracks on the album.
Overall, Suicidal Tendencies is a strong, excellent debut album from Suicidal Tendencies. With a fine concoction of angsty, rebellious, high-energy instrumentation, memorable riffs, and unapologetically direct lyrics, the album succeeds in accomplishing everything that it intended to do, and more. Though the album is nearly forty years old, its songs stand the test of time, still packing the sizable hardcore punk punch they did all those years ago.