The Feeding of the 5000

by Crass

Overview

Perhaps the most uncompromising early British punk record. This is far more interesting for its form than its content: super-brief, incoherent rants over pummeling drums and incomprehensible vocals were made into a hardcore cliche by the early '80s, but were impossibly radical and noisy in 1978. If you're at all left-of-center, you can find a good deal to sympathize with in the lyrics here, which address class warfare, social hypocrisy, organized religion, and punk rock itself with serious venom. It's not without humor at times, either, as on the famous chorus, "Do they owe us a living? Of course they f*cking do!" (A lyric sheet, always an essential item for Crass releases, is provided.) The melodic and textural qualities of the record, not to mention the throat-full-of-vomit vocals, are unrelentingly harsh and monotonous, but with a band such as this, this is exactly the point. The most enduring piece, actually, had relatively little to do with traditional punk rock: on "Asylum," the spoken female voice delivers a vitriolic attack on Christianity over disquieting guitar feedback. ~ Richie Unterberger

Product Details

Release Date:	01/10/2020
Label:	One Little Indian
UPC:	5016958088262

Tracks

1. The Sound of Free Speech
2. Do They Owe Us a Living?
3. End Result
4. They've Got a Bomb
5. Punk Is Dead
6. Reject of Society
7. General Bacardi
8. Banned From the Roxy
9. G's Song
10. Fight War, Not Wars
11. Women
12. Securicor
13. Sucks
14. You Pay
15. Angels
16. What a Shame
17. So What
18. Well?....Do They?

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Crass   Primary Artist
Phil Free   Vocals (Background),Guitar
Eve Libertine   Vocals,Voices
Pete Wright   Bass,Vocals,Guitar (Bass)
Joy de Vivre   Vocals,Voices
Steve Ignorant   Vocals
Penny Rimbaud   Drums,Radio
N.A. Palmer   Guitar (Rhythm),Vocals (Background)

Technical Credits

Gee   Artwork
Pete Wright   Composer
Joy de Vivre   Composer
G Sus   Composer
Crass   Composer,Producer
John Loder   Engineer
Steve Ignorant   Composer
Penny Rimbaud   Composer