The Only Good Punk Is a Dead One

One of the first releases on the label, this was also the first album by England's . They played an eccentric, hard-to-pin-down style of political crossover with odd, yelping vocals, at times branched off into proto- ( ), at others veering into classic turf, like on the shuffling -isms that briefly pop on and All but four of the songs on the original 20-song album clock in at less than two minutes, with nine coming in at under one minute, and the pace is consistently fast, but there are a few breaks and variations, which help keep the flow from getting too monotonous. Worth noting is that the 2002 CD reissue of this album (whose title is abbreviated to simply ) contains 20 bonus tracks, including six tracks taken from compilation album, and 14 songs taken from a 1989 live recording (simply entitled ). A "highlight" of these live tracks is the half-second-long and the five-second "extended remix," showing off the band's sarcastic sense of humor, as well as staking their claim to "world's shortest song" honors (with the possible exception of 's ). ~ William York