1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 142. MC5 – Kick Out The Jams (1969)

 

Although this is a live album, it’s one of those ones where the “live” elements – crowd sounds, banter, etc. have been removed to leave some raw performance footage.

MC5 are very punky – fast, hard guitars and aggressive vocals with iconoclastic lyrics. Counterculture has moved from polite hippy dreams of peace to angry imprecations about the people in power. If this lot didn’t inspire The Ramones, I’d be very surprised. 

The first half of the album is a lot more “punk”, especially the opener Ramblin’ Rose and the storming Kick Out The Jams. The second half becomes more bluesy, and is closer to the kind of blues-based hard rock of Led Zeppelin or Hendrix. Motor City Burning, about race riots in Chicago, is a chunky blues rhythm with squealing guitar solos over the top. The album closer Starship is a psychedelic odyssey into space, something like early Hawkwind, fading away to gentleness. Lead singer Rob Tyner leans fully into the almost sexualised vocal utterances and rock screams that are a little bit Jim Morrison, a little bit Roger Daltrey, a little bit Robert Plant.

It’s all great stuff.

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