Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables – The 2022 Mix

19th September 2022 0 By Jon Deaux

Have you ever listened to an album for the 1st time and it was a proper lightbulb moment. Love at 1st listen and a feeling you wished you could get back again? Well, that’s happened to me upon listening to this version of Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables.

The Dead Kennedys debut has always been my 2nd favorite album from the day I 1st heard it back in 1984 (The 1st will always be Nevermind The Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols. That was the album that changed my life forever.) Anyway I digress.

This should really be called Fresher fruit for Rotting Vegetables. East Bay Ray, Ted, Klaus Fluoride and Jello Biafra sound phenomenal (they did on the original version.) But this really is like listening to a whole different animal. Sonically it’s less muddy and everything is now firmly in place. You can even hear 6025s rhythm playing on Ill In The Head clearly (one of very few recording of the Kennedys as a 5 piece)

When the Chris Lord-Alge mix of Chemical Warfare remix was released back in 2020, it was razor sharp and you could hear the difference straight away

. Over seen by Klaus and East Bay, Chris was given access to the original multi track tapes for Fresh Fruit and has made it sound absolutely stunning.

It’s not an album that need any plastic surgery and it would’ve been so easy for it to be a disaster, however it’s tightened it up and made it more pert. I almost prefer this mix but having grown up with the original, you’ll never surpass it.

It’s been amazing to get that 1st listen feeling again and the lyrical content is still relevant 40 years on which is quite sad, as we really haven’t moved on as a society.

If you own Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, treat yourself to this version and hopefully you’ll hear what I mean. If you haven’t got this album, you really should have and be ashamed of yourself for not.

Score 9/10