The Cramps - Smell of Female (Red Vinyl)

If Rock 'N' Roll doesn't scare your parents, you're not listening to the right stuff.

This is the first thought that comes to mind if you put on a Cramps album. I won't bore you with the history of the band: just know that the couple Lux Interior (frontman) and Ivy Poison (lead guitar, as well as Interior's partner) were the filthiest, most depraved, perverse, and brilliant in rock 'n' roll, which with them was called Psychobilly. After shaking up the underground music scene with their first two albums, the Cramps decided to release their first live LP: "Smell of Female."

Recorded in 1983 (after two years of forced recording inactivity due to a legal dispute with Miles Copeland) at The Lounge Peppermint discotheque in Manhattan on February 25 and 26 of the same year, the album, in just 32 minutes, shows the band at one of the highest levels of their career. Except for "Beautiful Gardens" from the album Psychedelic Jungle, included as a bonus track on the reissue, the original tracklist features four unreleased tracks and two covers. The band's explosiveness is overwhelming: the use of a lead guitar (Ivy Poison's semi-acoustic) and King Congo Powers' rhythm guitar, eliminating the electric bass, gives the sound a sharp imprint like a shiny, well-sharpened blade. The typical Rock 'N' Roll chords are merely a means to convey the Cramps' original style. Their music is made for partying, as nihilistic as you can find in the music world. It forces you to total abandonment. It's music made not to make you think; that is, amoral (and not immoral) music, which makes puritans and moralists cringe, highlighting that in this world there is also sex, horror, and violence. They uncover and narrate the dark side of Man and society. To draw a literary parallel, in my opinion, they can be considered the Charles Bukowski of the music scene.