Search - Residents :: Third Reich & Roll

Still brilliant

Koren | USA | 01/27/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Brilliant on a number of levels.

As an adolescent in a salmon-colored/mica-concrete c.1980 Florida fortress, had an arsenal of Empty-the-House-Albums. Put one on the stereo, & suddenly dear mom felt an irresistible urge to go out & buy groceries--asap.

Funhouse, Dead Kennedys, White Light/White Heat, 1st Cramps album, Siouxie's The Scream; sure, these were all effective to varying degrees--but for sheer speed of response time, Third Reich n Roll was unsurpassed in its ability to trigger parental errands. 5 mins, tops, she'd be hunting for the car keys. A twist of the volume dial, & shortly thereafter the house would reverberate with this amazing Pop-blender-from Hell. Guess it's time to add Reich n Roll to my Mid-Life Crisis Music Collection. Haven't seen or heard the album for over 20 years, but it stays w/you.

Funny to find out what *doesn't* weather the test of time: no enduring nostalgia for James White & "Contort Yourself"; Sex Pistols now sound fake & silly, a punk version of Spice Girls (ok, like Spice Girls who spit a lot). But who can't love the Residents' unforgettable "Hey Jude/Sympathy for the Devil"? Pity it's near the end of the record; poor Mom was rolling thru the aisles of Publix by that point & missed the experience..."

White-hot brilliance,my brain has melted

Dennis York | Vancouver,WA | 02/13/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have been curious about The Residents for a long time,having noted the mutated Beatles satire that is the cover of their first recording.

Then the eyeballs appeared and I kept wondering,"wazzup wit' deze guys"??

So,I read some reviews on Amazon and went to The Residents web-site and decided to take the plunge,buying The First Album and Third Reich,used of course. The Third Reich 'n' Roll arrived in the mail first a day ago and today,i have listened to it continously.

It is an amazing work of art. Sheer genius. And to think it's over 30 years old...it sounds like some artifact from the Future/Past...a sci-fi version of rock music. The equation of facisim with pop music is right on.

i love it and i will be buying a lot more Residents in the future.

What a group! (I wonder if Roger Waters had heard this before "The Wall"-you know, "The Wall" alludes to the facist effect that pop music has on music and young people-something David Bowie alluded to,also.)

The Residents are America's best hope.

(I had a similar revelation about the stupidity of wasting energy on rock music and it's lemming-like effect on young people at a Midnight Oil concert during their heyday-a lot of chest puffing about change,etc.but little or no action.)Also,now that i have heard these guys' music,i am afraid that listening to "regular" music will just be too boring!!!!

might as well throw out it all!!!

i never thought anybody would top Zappa,but the Residents have and then some...i bought a bunch more residents offa amazon today.

great,great,great. (and twining "Hey Jude" w/ "sympathy for the devil" is worth the price of this cd alone.) i am glad i finally had the courage to check this group out-very rewarding.is hearing the residents for the first time life changing? YES!"

Classic

William R. Nicholas | Mahwah, NJ USA | 06/25/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you like mustard with your bowling ball, your CDs washed for that soft Tide bounce and are turned on by your bookcases nipples, you probably have a lot of room for your life for Third Reich and Roll by the Residents. Good for you. I like a good strong-brewed cup of ceiling fans to get be up in the morning, too.





Surrealism is the name of the came with the Residents. These guys spent anonymous years preforming with huge plastic eye balls over their heads, and in the 1970s, made trying to guess what Kiss looked like under the makeup look like two three year olds playing paddy cake. Or were they playing kill the commie Maytag Iceboox Razor?



The Residents deconstruct music, all kinds of music. In the loosest sense, Third Reich and Roll is made up of 1960s rock and roll covers like "Land Of 1000 Dancers," and "Hanky Panky,"





But these covers are melted in to long suites, and calling them covers is like saying in down town San Fransisco, if you spill water, there could be war in Ukraine next year: technically true but completely meaningless. If you can picture Lemmy from Moterhead singing Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey," with a church organ and three of the 1969 Manson Girls, you'll start to get the idea.



Which is great. It is always joyful to spin the expected on its head, to make a Ford Mustang into a glass slipper. But unlike, say, Zappa or Beefheart, who used surrealism for musical effect, the Residents seem purely interested in deconstruction for the sake of noise and pure, true, unpretentious weirdness. But hearing the mainstream AM music hear completely perverted--I mean there are Nazi's watching the sockhop-- is refreshing.



Makes you think, don't it. Me too. Right now, I have to go put whipped cream on my reel to reel deck. It keeps the trumpet players who like padlocks away."