Bad Religion – Suffer

(Epitaph, 1988)

Review by Class Warrior

I realize that everyone knows this album already, at least if you’ve listened to any punk rock in the past twenty-five years. Odds are very good that you’ve formed an opinion about it, good or bad. In addition, the story of Bad Religion is well-known. They had a good run in the early 80s as teenagers, Greg Graffin decided to make “Into the Unknown” and nearly destroyed the band’s reputation, Brett Gurewitz rejoined the band….

Then they dropped this fucking bomb on the world in 1988. My life has not been the same since I heard it the first time shortly after its release.

The following story is one I’ve never told to anyone in quite this way, so you, dear Internet, are the first to hear.

My early high school years were not the most pleasant experience. I grew up in a very small town in the western U.S. from age one through my high school graduation. (Then I got the hell out of there, but that’s a subject for a quite different story.) I knew everyone, and everyone knew me, more or less. By the time I got to high school, most people my age probably thought I was mute. I had a speech problem – I couldn’t pronounce the “ess” sound properly – and I was quite ashamed of it. I knew what I needed to do to fix it – practice the sound and use it in public – but I was too embarrassed and self-conscious to start the process. As a result, my days at high school were a torment. Sometimes, I would hide in the bathroom during lunch hour just to avoid interaction. The special ed kids would come in sometimes and take dumps, which added insult to injury! My only social outlet was playing Dungeons & Dragons with my brother on weekends. Needless to say, I had no luck with the ladies.

Either during 10th grade or the beginning of 11th grade (in 1990 – now you know how old I am), my brother introduced me to punk rock. His friends gave him tapes of the standard “intro to punk” bands, like Dead Kennedys and Black Flag. Included among those first bands we heard was Bad Religion and their Suffer album. I was blown away the first time I heard it. Never had I experienced such rage, such scathing critique, or such ass-kicking guitar crunch as B.R. delivered. They offered a fresh, intelligent perspective on topics I had been thinking about, such as the (non) existence of a higher power, humanity’s insignificance in the grand scale of the universe (yet extreme arrogance and self-centeredness), the horrors of capitalism, and the futility of war. The Suffer album addressed all of these concerns, and more. All of a sudden, my little speech problem didn’t seem like such a big deal. I got to work on correcting it. By the time senior year rolled around, I no longer had a problem. Plus I was a punk rocker! Still no luck with the ladies, though. I had to go to college for that.

I credit a great deal of my personal and intellectual development to my introduction to punk rock in general and Bad Religion in particular. I would not be where I am today without it. That is why this album holds a very special place in my heart. I still listen to this record twenty years after I first heard it.

At a time when metal-punk crossover ruled, Suffer was a straight-up hardcore punk blast of energy with a two-guitar attack and awesome vocal harmonies everywhere (the “oozin’ aahs”). Guitarists Mr. Brett and Greg Hetson (of Circle Jerks, etc. fame) played power chords pretty much all the time, with only an occasional lead part. Jay Bentley, the bass player, provided plenty of good low-end thwack that kept everything together. The drummer was quite good as well (can’t remember his name at the moment – sorry!). He could have used a little more cymbal bashing. I’m a big fan of drummers who really ride those cymbals. Needs some cowbell too. I’m just nitpicking now, so I’ll stop. Highlights for me include “How Much Is Enough?”, “When?”, and “Forbidden Beat”, but every single song is great.

It’s they lyrics that set Bad Religion apart from other bands. Greg Graffin and Mr. Brett wrote some tremendous songs with great topics for my young brain (and my slightly older one). My brother and I would get out the dictionary whenever we encountered a word we didn’t understand. Here’s an example from “How Much is Enough?”: “Tell me can the hateful chain be broken / production and consumption define our hollow lives / avarice has led us across an ocean / toward a land that’s better, much more bountiful and wide / When will mankind finally come to realize / his surfeit has become his demise / how much is enough to kill yourself? / that quantity is known today / as we blow ourselves away.” Sheer poetry, but it’s poetry with a strong message (i.e., down with imperialism and capitalism!). The album is full of lines like these. Suffer, without a doubt, contains the best lyrics to come out of the late 80s/early 90s punk scene, and arguably the best punk lyrics ever. I still know all the words after all these years.

This will be seen as heresy in some punk circles, but I think Suffer is the best punk album of the 1980s. It may very well be my favorite album (of any genre) of all time, although it probably comes in second to a record I will review soon. It earns a full TEN out of ten punk points from me. It is one of the very few albums I own both on vinyl and CD. I had it on a (copied) cassette too! If you haven’t heard this album yet (or its follow-ups, No Control and Against the Grain), drop everything, head to the local punk record store, and get a copy!

(Note: I will review a record from the nineties next time. I had to skip that decade because the album I have in mind is packed in a box as I prepare to move across the country.)