Henry Rollins selects his favourite political albums
US hardcore’s great polymath, Henry Rollins is perhaps best known as the veiny, sweat-drenched frontman of Black Flag. He’s also a poet, publisher, monologuist, DJ, voice-over artist and erstwhile talk show host. Today, he remains the living embodiment of ’80s American radicalism.
Born in Washington in 1961, Rollins came of age as the world woke up to punk. A huge fan of the music coming out of both Britain and America at the time, he spent his teenage years performing with several bands in the D.C. area. His stint with Black Flag began after the young musician climbed onstage during one of the band’s concerts and joined in on vocals. Frontman Dez Cadena had already been considering moving to guitar, so invited Rollins to take over as lead singer, who saw the release of two of Black Flag’s most revered albums, 1981’s Damaged and 1985’s My Head.
Black Flag parted ways in 1986, at which point Rollins recruited musicians for the Rollins Band, with whom he recorded a string of albums through the 1990s and 2000s, including Weight, which gave birth to Rollins’ first top 40 single, ‘Liar’. Not content with a successful life in music, he turned his attention to the publishing house he’d established while still a member of Black Flag, publishing his own poetry as well as works by the likes of Hubert Selby Jr and Nick Cave. In the decades since, he’s turned his hand to radio, television and podcasting.
In this list, we’ll be exploring some of Henry Rollins’ favourite political albums, from proto-punk classics to hip-hop landmarks. Though written from a diverse range of perspectives, all seek to challenge authority and remind the listener of their individual power against the forces that be.
Henry Rollins’ favourite political albums:
Raw Power – The Stooges (1973)
The final album released by The Stooges before their 30-year hiatus, Raw Power encapsulates the anarchic, distorted minimalism of Iggy and the gang at its most intense. For Henry Rollins, the 1973 album is the perfect example of an LP that showcases its politics in actions, not words.
“I would like to put in a caveat that overtly political music,” Rollins told Yahoo back in 2017. “Well, it doesn’t exactly leave me cold, but it’s not usually something that grooves to me. It’s like a lecture with a backbeat, so if it’s too political, while I might respect it and dig it, I can’t play it all that often, because it just feels like marching orders to me. I don’t have a ton of political music favorites. So to me, a great Vietnam War album is Raw Power, because the lyrics are talking about napalm, firefight, ‘Search and Destroy’ — that’s all Vietnam era, and when you do some researching, you see how close to the Vietnam War every Stooges member was. To me, it’s political in a way that’s not necessarily wearing it on a posterboard or jumping into your face. I kind of dig that.” Right on.
Inflammable Material – Stiff Little Fingers (1979)
One of the great albums of the late ’70s Irish punk boom, Inflammable Material was released via Rough Trade in 1979, at the height of the troubles. A remarkable document of the times, this explosive record made Never Mind The Bollocks look like novelty pop.
“You get perhaps a better understanding [of this album] if you read about the troubles in, or have ever been to, Northern Ireland,” Rollins explained. “This record came to America as an import item, so only people who actually worked for a living like me could afford it, and all my lazier friends would listen to my copy. We thought the music was so intense, and Jake Burns’s vocal sounded like he ripped his throat out or drank acid, and then stepped up to the mic. You could tell he was angry, and the music was urgent. The beginning of the song ‘Suspect Device’ is just one of the most hectic things I had ever heard. I was like, ‘Man, this guy is not fooling around! What does he mean? We’ve got to look this up.’”
Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables – Dead Kennedys (1980)
Henry Rollins met Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra at one of their concerts shortly before the September 1980 release of Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables. The pair became fast friends, but Rollins always remained slightly nervous about the intensity of his political views.
Fresh Fruit struck Rollins in much the same way. “That record hit me – like, it kind of scared me – because I knew ]Biafra] It was a bit much for me, like ‘Let’s Lynch the Landlord’ or whatever. I’m like, ‘Why? What are you doing? You’re an anarchist, I’m kind of nervous around you!’ He tripped me out with that record, and it kind of blew my mind. It was like politics with a fuse that you’re supposed to light, and I didn’t want to light it. It was a bit much for my young mind to get itself around. Jello is like an intellectual terrorist, and he was one of the first people who made me understand the power of an idea. I joined Black Flag soon after I heard that record.”
The Clash – The Clash (1976)
Few other bands have questioned authority quite so effectively as The Clash. The group’s self-titled debut album arrived in 1976, the year zero of British punk. There had already been anarchy in the UK for a long time by then, but it was British groups who really cemented the mood of the punk era.
“It really that Clash record that really made me question authority, question any established structure,” Rollins said of coming across the album for the first time. “I was in high school when I heard that, and that record, I was going to a prep school with a uniform and a bunch of ex-military yelling at me every day: ‘Get up!’ I’d stand up. Your parents paid good money to have teachers yell at you for all of high school, and that’s what I went through. I was terrified of them, and I was kind of submissive in the face of yelling power. Once professor Joe Strummer got to me, I started going to Saturday detention, because I started pushing back. The Clash album pulled the scales away from my eyes and I went, ‘Wait a minute, screw the lot of you,’ I turned into a real pain in the ass because of that record. I became smart.”
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back – Public Enemy (1988)
So far, we’ve seen a whole lot of punk and not much else. Well, next up, we’ve got one of the most pioneering records of hip hop’s classic period, Public Enemy’s 1988 album It Takes A Nation of Millions. The group’s second full-length studio release, this album galvanised the American hip-hop scene and inspired countless young punk fans to switch up their game.
“This is a political record that’s coming from a different experience. It’s not a scrawny, freckled Irish kid. It’s an African-American male relating the African-American experience to anyone who will listen,” Rollins said. “And who should listen to that record? Every white person born after a certain year. The disconnect between white America and black America is regrettable, because we’re paying for it every day in blood and money and a lack of progress. It is so distinctly different, the two, that you might as well have them be two other planets.”
The Feeding of the 5000 – Crass (1979)
Formed in Essex in 1977, Crass were England’s premier anarcho-punk outfit. For Henry Rollins, their political views were secondary to the vitriolic intensity of their music. Based initially around an anarchist commune established in a 16th-century cottage on the fringes of Epping Forest, they eventually moved into pressing records and actually ended up pressing the first Black Flag single in the UK.
“My best friend, Ian McKay, his younger brother, Alec McKay, had this record and played it all the time,” Rollins recalled. “By hanging out with Alec, because I was homeless for a while, I was living in his room, and he always played it. I read that massive, football-field-sized foldout book thing, and I started to understand where these anarchists are coming from. They’re into a Thatcher-Reagan anger, really speaking to what’s going on in Britain, which was very bleak. It’s enough punk rock and enough anger and futility expressed in it where I saw myself in it.”
