CDs Revisited: The Queers - 'Love Songs for the Retarded'

What an interesting first album for this project! Let's go.

I'm going to start off by saying that I bought this CD second-hand on Amazon during my sophomore year of college. I had already listened to it plenty by the time I bought it (thanks, internet), but there was someone selling a used copy that had been signed by Joe Queer himself and it was just under $10 (though if my order history on Amazon is to be believed, after shipping & handling the total came out $10.48). So that's how a physical copy came into my possession.

As far as the music goes, I feel pretty conflicted about The Queers in general. I always have since I started listening to them in high school. I know a lot of people in general, punks or otherwise, give blink-182 a lot of shit for writing sugary pop hooks and making dick jokes- a totally fair criticism and I say that as someone who enjoys blink-182. I've always found it weird then, that punks would give The Queers a pass despite doing essentially the same thing. Just look at the album title: obviously if any band tried to release an album called Love Songs for the Retarded today, they'd get a lot of backlash, but in the context of the album title I think it's clear that it's being used to insult their fans and themselves- they did write these love songs after all. (I realize I'm defending the usage of the word, but it's not like I can travel back in time and change it. I think the most we can do is place it into the context of a time when people used it disparagingly, likely used against the band's members, so labeling themselves as such was a way to fight back against it.)

Then there are "Ursula Finally Has Tits" and "I Can't Stop Farting"- probably the worst offenders here. The latter isn't a bad song- like I said it's just weird that people will give blink-182 and their fans a hard time for their lyrical content but love this album), but the former hypersexualizes a young lady going though puberty and it pretty terrible. I get that the 90's were a different time, and there was a mindset that being offensive was just a way to push buttons. I don't necessarily blame the band because whether we want to admit it or not, obsessing over an underage girl has always been an "acceptable" taboo subject in our society (Lolita, American Beauty, Taxi DriverYou Deserve Nothing, I'm sure there are plenty more), which means it's not really crossing any kind of line, and it just fits the status quo. Other than that one song though, I think a lot of this album still holds up. "Fuck the World" is still probably one of my all time favorite love songs, and lyrics like "I think I'd rather be at home listening to the Ramones/or hanging out and getting drunk with a bunch of useless punks" from "Granola-Head" accurately describe my life even more now than they did when I first discovered this album.

I'd like to note that Love Songs for the Retarded is the only Queers album that I ever really truly enjoyed all the way through. I wanted to really like their whole discography, but this is the only one that I ever liked enough to buy a physical copy of- though in 2010 I did buy Back to the Basement and that one isn't too bad outside of "Tit Fuck" (someone might be able to excuse "Ursula" as them being young and immature but "Tit Fuck" was written almost 20 years later) and a misguided cover of "White Minority." As far as early 90's pop punk goes though, I completely get why this album is still generally held in high regard.  A few years ago I went to see The Queers, and they played Love Songs in full. In spite of my problems with the aforementioned songs (I honestly don't even have a problem with "I Can't Stop Farting," I just think it's odd that there are people who love this album but think that blink-182 is too immature), and that I strongly disagree with a lot of Joe Queer's public stances,* it was a really enjoyable time. In the studio, a bunch of Queers songs have a big Beach Boys influence, with slightly slower tempos to fit the (for lack of a better word) sweet melodies but when played live even songs like "Debra Jean" and "Daydreaming" get the full-blown Ramones treatment and they were over in under two minutes (kinda). It's definitely a great experience.

*it's probably irresponsible of me to not dive into that here, but I'm going to try to keep this blog about the music as much as possible. If you're really curious, you can Google him and come to your own opinion. The only thing I'll add is that for someone to have first-hand experience knowing that cops will target innocent people and plant evidence, as well as experience getting into fights with homophobes and people who call themselves Nazis simply over a band name, but still come to some of the conclusions that he's come to is weird to me.

Final verdict: I find the album title and some of the lyrics problematic, but I chalk it up to being from a different time. I don't hate it. In fact, I still really like it. So far this blog is not living up to its name.

Do you not hate this album, too? You can stream it via Spotify below, or just buy it and draw your own conclusion.

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