Suicide (1977 album)

Suicide is the debut studio album from the American rock band Suicide. It was released in 1977 on Red Star Records and produced by Craig Leon and Marty Thau. The album was recorded in four days at Ultima Sound Studios in New York and featured Martin Rev's minimalist electronics and harsh, repetitive rhythms paired with Alan Vega's rock and roll-inspired vocals and depictions of urban life. Upon its initial release, Suicide was greeted with some favorable reception from the UK press, but was universally panned in the United States, where it failed to chart. However, the album would soon be regarded as a milestone in electronic and rock music. In 2013, Pitchfork named Suicide one of the greatest albums of the 1970s, while in 2012 and 2020, Rolling Stone ranked it as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album also influenced artists in various genres, including Bruce Springsteen, the Fleshtones, Spacemen 3, and Peaches. Suicide was the first group to sign to Marty Thau's Red Star record label. Thau had previously worked at Paramount Records and Buddah Records and had sold his assets to Richard Gottehrer to create Red Star Records. After hearing a demo tape from Suicide, he asked if he could see Suicide perform live which led to them being signed to Red Star. Red Star hired Craig Leon to co-produce the record. Suicide entered the studio with much of their songs already written and rehearsed from having spent the previous five years playing shows. The recording of the album was done in four days. Leon had previously worked with reggae musicians Bob Marley and Lee "Scratch" Perry and seen them create dub-like effects with their music and used an Eventide digital delay unit to create these echo effects on the album's vocal tracks. Leon returned to California after four days of work which led to Marty Thau to work on the rest of the production. Alan Vega changed the lyrics of "Frankie Teardrop" during the mixing sessions of the album. Thau remixed the tracks "Ghost Rider", "Rocket U.S.A." and "Cheree".