Suicide was released in late 1977 and back in those days my brother and I were still in grade school. We spent a lot of time in the summer at 7-11. One of our favorite things to get there was to fill up a cup of pop with one quarter each of Coke, Mountain Dew, Fanta Orange, and Fanta Grape. We called it a “suicide”. Did anybody else do that?
The first track, “Ghost Rider”, starts off with a really cool riff. I’m not sure what instrument it is only that it ain’t a guitar. It was probably Martin Rev’s keyboards played through something unusual or nontraditional. As Rev said, “…we had no guitars, no drums…”1
I found the soundscape intriguing throughout right up until the devastating slice of American horror “Frankie Teardrop”. A truly unsettling portrayal of a desperate man whose insanity drives him to commit atrocious acts opening his way to hell. A track described as “the most terrifying song ever”.2
Not only was it the most terrifying song ever, it also strongly influenced one of the greatest artists ever: Bruce Springsteen. It’s true. In fact, Bruce said they belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His classic album Nebraska was heavily influenced by Suicide.3 Springsteen said of “Frankie Teardrop,” “Oh, my God! That’s one of the most amazing records I think I ever heard. I love that record.”4
Overall, even though the subject matter isn’t exactly uplifting, I really dug the vibe of this album and enjoyed it thoroughly enough to spin it twice today. My rating:
Martin Rev says that ‘Frankie Teardrop’ "reflects the whole working class experience, those things that pop art wasn’t addressing."5
Heather Phares for AllMusic:
Proof that punk was more about attitude than a raw, guitar-driven sound, Suicide's self-titled debut set the duo apart from the rest of the style's self-proclaimed outsiders. Over the course of seven songs, Martin Rev's dense, unnerving electronics -- including a menacing synth bass, a drum machine that sounds like an idling motorcycle, and harshly hypnotic organs -- and Alan Vega's ghostly, Gene Vincent-esque vocals defined the group's sound and provided the blueprints for post-punk, synth pop, and industrial rock in the process.6
Rolling Stone looked back on Suicide after Alan Vega’s death in 2016:
Suicide’s sound was so radical that, even amidst punk’s foment, the group didn’t get to record an LP until 1977. The 10-minute-plus “Frankie Teardrop” was the centerpiece of their debut. At the time, their electronic gear included little more than a beat-up Farfisa organ, a primitive drum machine, some Electro-Harmonix distortion pedals and a transistor radio good for ambient white noise and feedback generation. Suicide recorded with producer Craig Leon, a 25-year-old who helped create the debuts by Blondie and the Ramones. Leon had the idea to run Vega’s voice, along with some of Rev’s keyboards, through an early Eventide digital-delay pushed to the distortion point, a technique he’d learned from Jamaican producer Lee Perry during a Bob Marley session.7
In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Chris Shade wrote:
Arriving in a sleeve full of slash and blood imagery and sounding like a nightmarish netherworld, Suicide’s technical and musical innovations make it sound almost contemporary today.
Suicide’s harrowing vision of 1970s America has won praise from acts as diverse as Spiritualized, Nick Cave, and Bruce Springsteen.8
Enjoy and listen without prejudice. Cheers!
Prime Playlist: 184. Suicide by Suicide
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For details about this project, read this: Project 1001 Albums
Charts
• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: n/a
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: n/a
• RIAA certification: n/a
Released on December 28, 1977. Here’s what else was happening:
Pop Culture
• Number one song: “How Deep is Your Love” by The Bee Gees9
• Number one album: Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt10
• Number one movie: Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg11
• Most watched TV programs: Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days, Three’s Company, Charlie’s Angels, All in the Family, 60 Minutes, Little House on the Prairie, How the West Was Won, M*A*S*H, One Day at a Time, The Amazing Spider Man, Eight is Enough, Soap, The Harvey Korman Show, Barney Miller, Monday Night Football, Fantasy Island, Project UFO.12
• NYT bestseller, fiction: The Silmarillionby J.R.R. Tolkien13
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot14
Some other albums released that month
• The Belle Album by Al Green
• Running on Empty by Jackson Browne
• Draw the Line by Aerosmith
• ABBA: The Album by ABBA
• Blue Lights in the Basement by Roberta Flack
• Don Juan's Reckless Daughter by Joni Mitchell
• Taken by Force by Scorpions
• Before and After Science by Brian Eno
• Eddie Money by Eddie Money
• Mr. Mean by Ohio Players
• Free Your Soul and Save My Mind by Suicidal Tendencies15
Sport
• Dec 25 7th Fiesta Bowl: #8 Penn State beats #15 Arizona State, 42-30.
• Dec 30 Australian Open Women's Tennis: Evonne Goolagong Cawley wins her 6th career Grand Slam title; beats fellow Australian Helen Gourlay Cawley 6-3, 6-0.
• Dec 31 Australian Open Men's Tennis: American Vitas Gerulaitis wins his first and only Grand Slam event; beats Englishman John Lloyd 6-3, 7-6, 5-7, 3-6, 6-2.16
Notable Births
• Dec 21 Emmanuel Macron, French politician, President of France (2017-), born in Amiens, France.
• Dec 30 Laila Ali, American boxer.
• Dec 31 Psy, South Korean pop star (Gangnam Style), born in Seoul, South Korea.17
Historical Events
• Dec 13 Fourteen University of Evansville basketball players die in plane crash.
• Dec 20 1st Space walk made by Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Grechko during Salyut 6 EO-1 mission.
• Dec 25 Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meets Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in Egypt.18
Notable Deaths
• Dec 25 Charlie Chaplin, British actor and comedian (Modern Times, The Kid), dies in Switzerland at 88.
• Dec 10 Adolph Rupp, American Basketball HOF coach (NCAA Div I Tournament 1948, 49, 51, 58; Uni of Kentucky; 5 × National Coach of the Year), dies of spinal cancer at 76.
• Dec 26 Howard Hawks, American director and producer (Rio Bravo, Scarface, The Big Sleep), dies at 81.19
New York Blues: Four Decades Of Suicide, Martin Rev & Alan Vega | The Quietus
Hermes.
Shade, Chris, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Fifth printing, ed. by Robert Dimmery p. 386.
Ibid.