Suicide: Suicide - 1977

This was a totally unclassifiable but also very innovative and ground-breaking album from US vocalist Alan Vega and keyboard instrumentalist Martin Rev. From their name you might expect nihilistic, snarling punk, but no, their style was a minimalist electronic and mysterious one, surely influenced by Krautrock bands like Neu! and Kraftwerk, along with lyrical and stylistic influences from The Velvet Underground and The Modern Lovers.

A track like Cheree also bore hints of sixties freakbeat and psychedelic pop and slowed-down garage rock, like Louie Louie after taking lots of drowse-inducing drugs. Was this punk? Musically, no, but in terms of individualistic attitude, yes. was it post punk, before punk had even been and gone? Most possibly.

It was a sort of drugged-up post punk electronica. The track Johnny has airs of Patti Smith about it, and I can also hear that sort of dense, industrial, metallic sound that U2 would recreate so much in the nineties. 

One of the album's more unexpected influencees was one Bruce Springsteen, who stated that the haunting, unnerving ten-minute, Patti Smith-esque Frankie Teardrop heavily affected his composition of State Trooper, on his 1982 Nebraska album. I can sort of understand that - the deep, bleak bass line and the hoarse, semi-spoken vocal. 

Overall, it was a totally oddball album, very much ahead of its time and one that still retains its quirky appeal.