Track Listing

1. Rise Above
2. Spray Paint
3. Six Pack
4. What I See
5. TV Party
6. Thirsty And Miserable
7. Police Story
8. Gimme Gimme Gimme
9. Depression
10. Room 13
11. Damaged II
12. No Moe
13. Padded Cell
14. Life Of Pain
15. Damaged I

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31057 in Music
• Released on: 1993-12-31
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Founded by guitarist/songwriter Greg Ginn, Black Flag exploded out of LA in 1981 with a debut album so confrontational that MCA Records refused to release it, stating that Black Flag was "immoral" and lacking "redeeming social value". When the album finally came out on Ginn's own SST label, it was clear why MCA recoiled, as Black Flag's skinhead look and hardcore sound signalled a new chapter in punk--and rock in general. With Henry Rollins's venom-dripping vocals leading the way, the album features such hostile teeth-gnashers as "Rise Above" ("Try to stop us/It's no use"), "Six Pack" ("I got a six pack, and nothing to do") and, of course, "Life of Pain". --Billy Altman

CD Description
Perhaps the quintessential California punk band, and one ofthe founding fathers of hardcore, Black Flag is to America what the Sex Pistols are to the U.K. DAMAGED is the band's most loved album, featuring some of its best-known songs. Though the group's speedy, full-frontal assault laid the groundwork for the faster-and-louder generation of punks to come, the guitar interplay of Greg Ginn and Dez Cadena is still melodic, and often even hook-filled.
The songs, delivered in an impassioned rant by a young Henry Rollins, are classic Cal-punk, mocking American complacency ("Six Pack", "TV Party") with a winning combination of anger and satire, as well as an ingratiating sense of structure. Also included on the disc is the early, pre-Rollins EP JEALOUS AGAIN, on which the band similarly rages against the machine, though the attack is a bit less refined. DAMAGED is an American punk classic, and the cornerstone of any punk collection.

Customer Reviews

File under Easy Listening - NOT!
Yeah, bought this in '82, aged 14 - along with Dead Kennedys' Plastic Surgery Disasters, the other classic from that year. Nothing on the face of your earth prepares you for this sonic assault. Nothing. Heavy metal, eat my shorts, you lame losers, you fakes! Rise Above kicks off like they mean to go on, a spiralling, pummelling thrash of positive electricity that says 'you can kick me and beat me, but I will keep on getting up just to spite you goddamnit'. SPRAY PAINT THE WALLS - a 90 second slash across your ears. The feedback from Ginn's guitar before Rollins SCREAMS Depression, thrashing into a rolling thunder of pain and angst so real it hurts. The sound that launched a thousand boring imitations careers on through Life of Pain, Padded Cell, Room 13, all tempered and annealed in a white-hot, speed-of-light, grenade in the mouth and shit the pin's been pulled, NOISE that rips out to its 'de-facto' template with Thirsty and Miserable. Man, I felt like this. I lived it. Finally the record crawls, hobbles, spins out of control with the nightmare of working 9-5, living a lie and kissing your boss's butt just to get a slave wage as Rollins croaks and snarls his way through Damaged no.1. Damaged declares war on you - it'll leave you breathless, adrenalized and wanting to believe that the world cannot do anything to you more painful than you can inflict on yourself. You'll either find this LP a life-enhancing phenomenon or a crushing blow to all your sanitized pre-conceptions on what your trivial life is supposed to be. Nothing is louder, faster or harder. Believe me, I've heard it all. Accept no imitations. This is your brain through the mangle, into the mincer and fried in petrol. Lacerate yourself. Go on, you know you want to.

One of the best punk albums ever
This album first surfaced in 1980 when punk wasn't cool anymore. People talk about the British punk music classic bands but there was absolutely nothing as vitriolic and full of genuine fury as this album at the time. Henry Rollins, sounding like a kid just going through puberty, screams and shouts his way through 35 minutes of brilliance. It's amusing when you hear people whinging about the rough production of this album or the shoddy musicianship. Isn't that what punk is supposed to be about? If you listen to this album in the spirit it was intended to be then you will see why, rightly so, this was one of the most important punk albums ever. Other punk bands might have better production and be better musicians but this album was a decade ahead of its time, along with the likes of Bad Brains and Suicidal Tendencies.

My Blood Boils
Black Flag are the greatest band I've ever heard, or are ever likely to hear. Damaged is Life-affirming music that rouses you out of complacency. Frightening and real, this is not fake aggression, or forced aggression, this band lived this way, amidst so much harassment and bullshit it makes a mockery of most everything Ive heard since. "Depression" is sung with such conviction that cannot be faked. If you are listening to Korn/Machine Head/Fear Factory with their down-tuned dirge guitars, baggy-pants and goatee beards and think they are the real thing then pass this one by, you dont deserve to hear it. Riot Music, pure and perfect.