Black Flag – Damaged LP

This is Hardcore: 101. Black Flag had already run through three different frontmen by the time D.C. transplant Henry Rollins made it out to the West Coast to snarl through the L.A. punk force’s fiercely antagonistic debut album. A seething indictment of mainstream society, Damaged houses defiant, dangerous-sounding early punk cuts about police brutality, alcoholism, depression and more.  It’s even got their loveably gimmicky Eighties pop culture goof, “T.V. Party”. Once described as an “anti-parent record,” Damaged is an essential part of understanding early Eighties hardcore.