Violent Femmes – Why Do Birds Sing? – Smoke Vinyl Record

Description

Violent Femmes – Why Do Birds Sing? – Smoke Vinyl Record

Why Do Birds Sing? opens with American Music, one of the clearest statements of what made Violent Femmes distinctive. The song has a welcoming melody and a rhythm that reaches back into older American music, but Gordon Gano's voice keeps it from settling into something merely nostalgic. Released in 1991, the album reunited Gano, bassist Brian Ritchie, and percussionist Victor DeLorenzo around a sound that brought folk, punk, and the players' improvisational instincts into the same small space. Its thirteen songs include material from several points in the band's history, newly gathered into one studio record.

Producer Michael Beinhorn helped the trio concentrate on the qualities that made its earliest work compelling. He understood that the group's strength came partly from the intimacy of its sound, the words, and the musicians' ability to respond to one another. Ritchie's bass has a more active role than a conventional backing part, while DeLorenzo's percussion gives the songs rhythmic personality without making them sound like a standard rock band. The arrangement can remain spare and still have plenty happening inside it. Gano's vocal then brings another layer of nervousness, humor, or impatience to the performance.

American Music became one of the band's most successful singles, reaching number two on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. The album also contains a surprising version of Culture Club's Do You Really Want to Hurt Me. Gano reworked much of the lyric, bringing the song into the Femmes' own language and making its placement beside their originals feel natural. It is an example of the group's willingness to take a familiar pop song as an opportunity for interpretation. The tune remains recognizable, while the performance gives it a different emotional temperature.

Out the Window and Look Like That reconnect with the direct sound of the band's earlier records. Girl Trouble, Life Is a Scream, and Flamingo Baby also draw on compositions that had been around since its early days, giving the album a link to material developed before the sessions themselves. Gano's writing can be funny without softening the discomfort in it, and the ensemble leaves those changes exposed. A bass figure, a clipped phrase, or an unexpected rhythmic accent can make the difference between a song that sounds playful and one that begins to feel considerably more uneasy.

The album was the trio's last studio release with original drummer Victor DeLorenzo, making it a useful document of that particular musical relationship. It also helped introduce the band to a new wave of listeners in the early nineties, with American Music remaining a lasting part of its repertoire. This smoke-colored reissue presents the original thirteen-song album with remastered audio. The concentrated program keeps the focus on a band returning to its own strengths: three highly individual players, Gano's recognizable voice, and songs whose humor often becomes more revealing the closer one listens.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Release Details

Artist

Violent Femmes

Album

Why Do Birds Sing?

Format

Smoke Vinyl Record

Number of vinyl records

1

Original album release

1991

Label

Craft Recordings

Vinyl color

Smoke

Track Listing

American Music

Out the Window

Look Like That

Do You Really Want to Hurt Me

Hey Nonny Nonny

Used to Be

Girl Trouble

He Likes Me

Life Is a Scream

Flamingo Baby

Lack of Knowledge

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