Frankenchrist  by Dead Kennedys

The third album by the Californians Dead Kennedys will be Frankenchrist and will be released in 1985. The Dead Kennedys continue to critique the issues in the U.S. here as well. Musically, the album moves in the post-punk and hardcore punk genres. The length of the songs has increased and the compositions are not as rough as in the previous two albums.

Frankenchrist sparked a lot of discussion at the time, both for its cover and its inner sleeve. The cover features a snapshot from a parade of the Shriners, which is a Masonic fraternity. The four members depicted filed a lawsuit against the band. The photo was published in Newsweek magazine about ten years prior (!). The major headache for the group came from the use of Swiss artist H. R. Giger's "Penis Landscape" or otherwise "Work 219: Landscape XX" as the inner sleeve, where male genitalia are shown entering female (!). This led to trials which of course did not convict the band and their record company, Alternative Tentacles, but it bankrupted them due to legal expenses. The company was saved through donations from Dead Kennedys' friends.

The album had the best production of any other album by the band. The role of producer was taken by Jello Biafra. In Britain, it sold 60,000 copies.