Punk rock has been around long enough to hold within its musical boundaries a slew of albums considered both classic and essential. We here at Dying Scene love and appreciate these classic albums, but every once and a while we have the urge to challenge what the community has deemed sacred. Every other Saturday, two Dying Scene writers will square off head-to-head and either attack or defend one of these so-called classics. Up for slaughter today is Fugazi‘s “Repeater.” Does the 1990 classic hold up today? You be the judge. Carson Winter will be defending and Jo will be attacking.
The Defense
I remember the days when I didn’t have a bed frame.
My mattress lay on the floor, a perfect image of young adult priority, next to a thirty dollar boombox and the three or four new CDs that were to be my gateways into real punk. There was something special about this set up– a practical arrangement prone to be romanticized endlessly with memories of learning songs with legs crossed and liner notes in hand.
Repeater was one of those albums and it represented a huge leap for me personally. I knew I loved punk rock, but I had not yet delved into it’s more experimental side. I exclusively listened to the genre’s more melodic undertakings. So, in retrospect, I’m surprised I ever even gave Fugazi a try. I can only imagine how it actually ended up in that small stack beside my bed, but if I had to guess I would assume I heard about it online, and was simply delighted to see the name of a band that I had heard of, and bought it on the spot.
From the opening notes to “Turnover,” I knew I had found something special. The ethereal feedback and funky bass propelled me into a profound sense of knowing: I finally liked cool music. When the distorted power chords kick in, “Turnover” transforms from an experimental amalgam of genres into something unmistakably punk. To my young ears, there was something exciting happening in there. For the first time I was listening to punk music that embraced punk by interpreting the concept, not pulling from a musical common language. Fugazi was tearing down the notion of what punk rock meant and rebuilding it in their own vision.
There’s a sense of revolution inherent in every aspect of Fugazi. They had the ethical high ground, and probably will forever, over virtually every other band in the scene. Fugazi wasn’t so much a band as a slave to the fleeting concept of what a band should be. They continued to push themselves musically, they challenged their audience lyrically, and at the end of the day they still kept it affordable. Repeater was their first full length and captured everything great about punk rock while affording itself the ability to edit out what wasn’t. Fugazi could be confrontational without being dumb, and one of the best things about Repeater was that it wasn’t yelling at you or resorting to condescension. The songs, and their messages treat you as an adult, talking to you at eye level; inspiring community with rallying cries meant to be shouted together. “Merchandise” opens bleakly with “when we have nothing left to give, there will be no reason for us to live.” But the power of Fugazi is to spin that bleakness into something positive, something that stands defiantly in the face of cold defeatism. The band turns the message on its head with it’s chorus, a unifying ‘fuck you’ to the producers of the world: “we owe you nothing! you have no control!”
“Blueprint” may be the best and most lyrically abstract song on Repeater, opening with a beautiful but oddly distant chord progression before launching into a refrain of “I’m not playing with you.” Using metaphors and cloaked language the band challenges the audience to look at their lives and understand that they have a choice in how they participate in this world. “Blueprint” escalates lyrically, beginning ambiguously and ending with a plain spoken statement (“Never mind what’s been selling, it’s what you’re buying and receiving undefiled.”). The result is an experience that allows you to fully understand the concept without having it spelled out. The details pile on until the last chorus gives you the key to its meaning. And then, suddenly it all adds up and there’s a moment of clarity.
For me, Repeater joined the ranks of the unforgettable immediately, and to this day remains in that elite group of albums forever destined to be counted among my favorites. Repeater is classic, essential, and even today still begs to be heard.
The Attack
Okay, let’s get a couple things said right off that bat. I like Fugazi. I like what they stand for, thematically. I like their dedication to their DIY ethics. I like their songs. I think they’re ground breakers. I think a lot of positive, happy thoughts about Fugazi. I am not some crazy Minor Threat purist who hates Fugazi on principle.
I just don’t like Repeater, as an album. Whenever you’re all done throwing shit at me and telling me this is the greatest, most single
defining moment of punk ever recorded…
Repeater could have been half the length it is, and still delivered exactly the same message. While each song packs its own individual
punch, the thematic elements of each movement and song are entirely too similar. Halfway into the album, I’ve got listener fatigue. The real pity here is by the time album highlight of “Shut the Door” closes, we’ve heard the same message so many times the meaning is lost.
Repeater is the semantic satiation of awesome albums. I get Fugazi feels as if the corporate structure and capitalism are inherently cringe-worthy. Now, tell me something else. What should I do about it? What else do you care about? Where do we go from here? What
about the current capitalistic structure makes it so evil? I’m not asking for a doctoral thesis here, but give me something to go on beyond eleven tracks of “cause it is.” MacKaye and Picciotto are brilliant, talented musicians, and the lack of diversity here feels like a cop-out from artists who show with their later work they are capable of much better depth.
Beyond redundancy, the album isn’t without weaker tracks. While there is no crime in bands with vocalists adding in purely instrumental
tracks to an album, they had better be good ones. Sadly, “Brendan 1” is one quick catchy beat played for 2 and ½ minutes. It’s a song that
starts off with a potentially successful pounding drum beat, and then fails to go anywhere with it. All that’s left is background music, the kind that plays in between songs while the singer goes to get a drink of water.
Also, I don’t know if I’m missing some great artistic statement here, but I’m fairly certain a band can’t cover themselves. “Provisional”,
the repackaging of earlier “Provisional”, just feels lazy and unimaginative. The latter isn’t different enough to be transformative
in any way.
Perhaps it’s unfair to compare a band to itself, but other Fugazi works show a greater range of ability and sound. Here, everything is
dialed-to-eleven self-riotous aggressiveness. The title of the album, Repeater, feels like a tongue-in-cheek joke to me. Fugazi is repeating the same song.
Give your fans a little credit, we didn’t need to hear your ethos elevnen times in a row to understand.
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