Suicide didn’t issue a record until half a decade after their first performances. By that time, the punk explosion had caught up with their confrontational approach, but the music was still light years ahead of its time. That, along with the quality of perfectly written and still-shocking songs like “Ghost Rider”, “Cheree” and “Rocket USA”, makes Suicide one of the twentieth century’s enduring classics. Upon release, the overwhelming and haunting “Frankie Teardrop” was as transgressive as popular music had gotten; its impact is undiminished almost 50 years later.

Notorious for years among New York City performance circles for their audience-attacking approach, but at the same time with a full set of songs under their belt and honed by years of performance, by the time Alan Vega and Martin Rev made their debut album in 1977 they knew exactly what they wanted. They got it: with Rev’s rough, propulsive and eerie keyboards matched with Vega’s post-Elvis crooning, shrieks and wails, the unnerving scenarios on “Ghost Rider,” “Rocket U.S.A.,” “Cheree” and the epic “Frankie Teardrop” were unique compositions.