Damaged (1981)

Damaged is the debut studio album by the American hardcore punk band Black Flag. It was released by SST Records in November 1981.

The album was largely ignored by critics and the public at the time of its release, but has since been recognized as a classic and one of the most influential punk rock records ever made, appearing on a number of "best of" lists by fans and critics alike. The album was ranked number 340 on Rolling Stone's 2012 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, though moving down to number 487 in the 2020 revision. Pitchfork also ranked it number 25 on its list of the Top 100 Albums of the 1980s.

Background

Black Flag had made at least two cancelled attempts to record a full-length album since the release of its first extended play Nervous Breakdown, with singers Keith Morris, Ron Reyes, and Dez Cadena. Some of the Reyes sessions became the Jealous Again EP, while selections from two of many Cadena sessions became the Six Pack EP and the "Louie Louie"/"Damaged I" single; other session outtakes later comprised the Everything Went Black double album.

By the time Damaged was recorded, Cadena had moved to rhythm guitar, a position he had initially intended to take when Reyes was still in the band. The new lead vocalist was 20-year-old Washington, DC expatriate Henry Rollins, hired a few weeks before the sessions occurred. Unlike Reyes (who had never sung in a studio before joining Black Flag) and Cadena (who had not even sung at all before joining the band), Rollins already had one recording credit to his name with the short-lived DC hardcore punk band State of Alert, who recorded No Policy, an EP released earlier that year on Dischord Records.

The band recorded their backing tracks without Rollins, who overdubbed vocals with band members Greg Ginn (guitar) and Chuck Dukowski (bass) coaching him afterward. The most complicated vocal tracks ended up being Dukowski's "What I See", which was supposed to have an improvised speech in the song's bridge but ended up having one written out by Dukowski when Rollins could not come up with anything that he was satisfied with, and "T.V. Party", which featured backing vocals from the entire band.

The album was recorded at Unicorn Studios, on Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood. The band was living and rehearsing in another part of the building that housed Unicorn Studios prior to the sessions.

Drummer Robo was wearing bracelets on his left wrist that rattled when he played. The rattling sound of the bracelets is audible on Damaged whenever he hit his snare drum, especially on downbeats.

The version of "Rise Above" on the album was recorded at an earlier session with Rollins and was intended as a standalone single release. Another version was recorded during the album sessions but the band abandoned it and decided to include the single version instead for Damaged.

The closing track, "Damaged I", is Rollins's first writing credit with the band. In his book Get in the Van, Rollins reports he improvised new lyrics each time the song was performed live. For Damaged, the first of two takes of the song was used.

Cover art

The cover art, taken by punk photographer Ed Colver, depicts Rollins putting his fist through a mirror. The effect was made by cracking the mirror with a hammer, while the "blood" on Rollins's wrist is a mixture of red ink and coffee. The photograph has been described as "iconic" in the pages of Artforum.

Business disputes with Unicorn

Black Flag's distribution deal with Unicorn—which was associated with MCA Records—resulted in an initial pressing of 25,000 copies. In September 1981, MCA refused to distribute the album after the label's president, Al Bergamo, objected to its lyrical content. Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, Bergamo stated: "I'm not the kind of guy who believes in burning books, but this record bothered me. As a parent with two children, I found it an anti-parent record, past the point of good taste. I listened to it all last weekend and it just didn't seem to have any redeeming social value." Subsequently, the members of Black Flag personally visited the pressing plant to apply a sticker over the MCA logo which read, "As a parent ... I found it an anti-parent record"—thus essentially throwing Bergamo's words back in his face.

Longtime SST employee Joe Carducci has reported that the "anti-parent" statement was a red herring. In fact, according to Carducci, Unicorn Records was so poorly managed and so deeply in debt that MCA lost money in distributing Damaged, regardless of its content, and was eager to sever its relationship with Unicorn by any possible pretext.