Learning English: Lesson One

by

Die Toten Hosen

Edit

Cover albums are generally a cheap and easy way for bands to release an album when they have not gotten around to doing anything themselves. To keep fans hanging, they knock out a few songs someone else has written. Some work reasonably well ('Acid Eaters' by The Ramones), some are decidedly average ('Garage Inc' by Metallica, 'Undisputed Attitude' by Slayer) and some are outright rubbish ('The Spaghetti Incident?' by Guns and Roses). 'Learning English, Lesson One', however, is in a class of it's own.

Die Toten Hosen were at one time the biggest punk band in the world, but were generally ignored by English speaking audiences because they performed in German. In their first crack at English, the band produced a highly entertaining album.

Moreover, what we have here is a delightful English language instruction tape, complete with Janet and John discussing the finer points of pronunciation, usage, taking dirty pictures, and making Molotov cocktails. It is a collection of a number of defining moments from the formative days of punk, along with a track written by the Hosen themselves. Most fans of 70s punk will be familiar with "Blitzkrieg Bop", "If The Kids Are United", "Gary Gilmore's Eyes", "Smash It Up" and "Stranglehold", and all are reproduced with great reverence, but with a nice clean 1990s production. There are short stories from the band members as to why the songs were included in the liner notes.

One of the cool things about this album is that musicians who originally recorded the songs made guest appearances on all of the tracks. Some have died since. Included are Joey Ramone, and the last recording of Johnny Thunders, who died just 36 hours after helping record "Born To Lose". Other legends of punk on the album include living fossil Charlie Harper, Captain Sensible, Jimmy Pursey, Handsome Dick Manitoba, and Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs. Biggs helped write the irreverent tribute to punk "Punk Was".

As you can probably see from the track listing, this isn't the sort of thing that would appeal to fans of Discharge, The Exploited or Agnostic Front. It is too pop-oriented. However, if you enjoy a fresh take on some old favourites, this is addictive stuff. It is almost impossible to listen to this album and not have one of the songs stuck in your head for the rest of the day.