Every Fugazi album ranked from worst to best
Just like Fugazi, Minor Threat were more than a band. They were arguably the best and most celebrated hardcore band of their era. Considering that’s an era that includes Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and Bad Brains, that’s saying a lot. Even if the music wasn’t utterly staggering from start to finish, they did something that few bands ever do—name an entire subculture, if not invent it outright. The straight-edge subculture took its name from the 1981 Minor Threat song, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your outlook, but it speaks to the band’s influence.
An influence that, when the band split up in 1983, meant that what Ian Mackaye did next was suddenly very important indeed. Most musicians would never be able to live up to being in a band like Minor Threat, but he did it twice in true Mackaye fashion. First forming the influential emocore band Embrace, then putting together one of the best rock bands of their generation in 1986, Fugazi.
Like every dyed-in-the-wool punk, Mackaye had grown seriously tired of punk and punks in general. With this new project, he wanted to branch out and make music that wasn’t confined to a 90-second song structure and at least 200 bpm. In a 2011 interview with Paul Brannigan, Mackaye said that the original idea for Fugazi was to make music that was “MC5 plus reggae”. Over the next two decades, they would build on that to arguably become the first post-hardcore band, releasing six absolutely stellar albums until splitting in 2003.
Yes, that’s six. Anyone who’s spent even a little time with Fugazi will be wondering where the band’s most important record, 13 Songs, is on this list. It was most people’s introduction to the band as a whole, mine included, and it doesn’t count because it’s a compilation album. It’s their first two EPs combined; thus, it’s not a studio album. If that’s not enough for you, then rest assured, if it was on this list, it’d be number one with a bullet. It’s not, though.
With that out of the way, let’s dive in.
Every Fugazi album ranked
Red Medicine (1995)
Now, let’s get one thing straight. Fugazi absolutely did not make a bad album. They didn’t even make a good album. Their albums run the gamut of being great to generational, so when you start comparing them, saying stupid shit like “Red Medicine is their worst album” is unavoidable. I can only hope that if their cult-like fanbase finds this list, they at least consider the context of a snub like this. Or at least let my family know where they can find my body.
Seriously, though, Red Medicine rocks. It’s the moment that the band began to experiment with what they could do in the studio and for me personally, it’s the only time that their experimentation has got in the way of their otherwise razor-sharp song structures. I cannot stress enough how much this is an eight out of ten in a group of nines and tens, though. An album doesn’t inspire The Shape Of Punk To Come by Refused for nothing.
Steady Diet of Nothing (1991)
Steady Diet of Nothing is the sound of a band that has well and truly worked themselves out. The joy of 13 Songs, along with another album we’ll get to later, is the sheer white-knuckle thrill of holding on tight and finding out where everything goes next. With their second studio album proper, you have the pleasure of hearing a band completely confident in their sound and abilities.
One who knows when to prowl, like on Stacks and Long Division, and when to pounce, like on Runaway Return and the ludicrously exciting opener Exit Only. That confidence can sometimes lead to tracks running into each other, which may explain the record’s slightly lower place on its list compared to how well it was received on release. However, when those tracks are so thunderously exciting, that similarity feels more like an artistic choice than a lack of ideas.
End Hits (1998)
This album was the closest thing the band had to a badly received album upon release. This is more of a testament to the sheer level of respect the band had earned than anything else because End Hits might just be the band’s most dynamic work. The experimental feel that began with the previous album had blossomed into a record that is simultaneously more daring and less intense than anything they’d made previously.
Tracks like ‘No Surprise’ showed how the sheer telepathy they shared as a band could now be put into graceful, expansive songs. Songs like ‘Foreman’s Dog’ show off a more tender side of the band without sacrificing their trademark intensity. It doesn’t all work, ‘Floating Boy’ is an aimless test of all but the most die-hard MacKayephiles’ patience. For an album that was speculated to be the band’s final effort, there’s so much life here.
In On The Kill Taker (1993)
Number three. An album like In On The Kill Taker makes number three. An album which threatened to make Fugazi a household name. An album that caused Ahmet Ertegün himself to meet them in person and offer ten million dollars to sign to Atlantic. An album which made fans out of Eddie Vedder, Michael Stipe and Kurt Cobain. An album that is absolutely worth all that attention and more. They still made two records better than it. Madness. Especially since, two tracks into the record, you’re convinced you’re listening to the best punk album ever made.
‘Facet Squared’ and ‘Public Witness Program’ are among the best opening one-two punches in the history of punk. Considering that’s a lineage that includes Fugazi’s own ‘Waiting Room’ and ‘Bulldog Front’, that’s saying a whole lot. What’s more, …Kill Taker keeps up this momentum. The likes of ‘Sweet And Low’ and ‘Walken’s Syndrome’ show the extremes of what they’re capable of. For any other band, this would be the sort of high point they’d kill to achieve, but not so much for Fugazi.
The Argument (2001)
You talk about going out on top. As befitting a band who turned down a spot headlining Lollapalooza because the tickets were too expensive at $33 (it was a different time), Fugazi made an art form out of integrity. The biggest proof of all? That they called it quits after making this masterpiece and then stuck to it. Not even for interpersonal reasons either, the band are mates to this day that meet up and jam from time to time.
They just dropped one of the most influential albums in the history of post-hardcore and then decided they wanted to do other things like absolute kings. An album that, upon release, was pretty much immediately hailed as an effort up there with Zen Arcade and Daydream Nation as a cornerstone of American indie rock. Two decades later, The Argument holds up like Atlas himself, and it’s a key reason why, after all that time, rock fans of any and every generation are still crossing their fingers and going, “It’s only a hiatus, it’s only a hiatus, it’s only a hiatus…”
Repeater (1990)
The comparisons this album has with The Beatles’ Revolver are no accident. From their stark, black and white covers to their titles, which Mackaye said is based on the same pun. “A record revolves, and it also repeats. A revolver is also a gun, and so is a repeater.” Most of all, they’re both total expansions of what guitar bands could do in their genre. Except the Fabs did it with their seventh studio album. Fugazi did it with their first. Yes, it is their first, don’t make me tap the 13 Songs sign again.
To this day, Repeater is still one of the most exciting rock albums ever made. Merchandise. Blueprint. The title track. It’s an embarrassment of riches. One that shows how, if they wanted to be, Fugazi could have been just as much a reason for alternative rock going mainstream in the early 1990s as Sonic Youth and Nirvana. Maybe they knew that the music was enough. After all, they did everything their way, and yet still became an influence on everyone from Rage Against The Machine and American Football to Paramore and The Knife and beyond.
It’s one of the few cases where I genuinely hope for a reunion because it’s the only way we’ll see their like again any time soon.
