THE THIRD REICH 'N' ROLL
This album is the first published example of two things for
which The Residents became known: the concept album
and music about music. Considered by some to be the
cornerstone of The Residents' reputation, The Third
Reich 'N' Roll consists of two tracks (one on each side of
the LP), each a medley of deconstructed (dismembered?)
covers of popular songs from the '60s.
In the original album liner notes, The Cryptic Corporation
calls The Third Reich 'N' Roll The Residents' "tribute
to the thousands of little power-mad minds in the music
industry who have helped make us what we are today, with an
open eye on what we can make them tomorrow." The ESD
Classic Series CD liner notes call the album a "scathingly
satirical look at '60's bubble-gum rock somehow twisted
into shocking '70's bubble-gum avant-garde". Other
descriptions included "Pop meets Dada", "the 60's as done
by the 70's German avant-garde". Uncle Willie describes the
album as "[taking] all your favourite bubble gum riffs from
the sixties, dress[ing] them up in avant-guard drag, and
send[ing] them into the streets to break windows".
The Residents put a lot of effort into the packaging
and promotion of the album. In keeping with the "Third
Reich" theme, the promotional photos featured men in
swastika glasses and wearing giant swastika collars. The
Nazi references and swastikas were a problem all through
the album's history.
In fact, the album couldn't be released in Germany at all
because the swastikas in the cover art are banned there.
The band put out a "censored" version of the album cover in
responce.
The Residents also made a short film to promote the
album -- one of the very first music videos. It is in
two parts. The first features The Residents, in
newspaper costumes, dancing around to the album's version
of Land of 1000 Dances in a newspaper world the band
created in their studio. In the second half, a newspaper
man is joined by an Atomic Shopping Cart, giant pork chops,
and various other props from the Vileness Fats movie in a
pixelated dance. The newspaper costumes caused more
publicity problems for the band, though, since the tall,
conical hoods led some of people to think that the group
was promoting the Ku Klux Klan. In actual fact, the
costumes were made that way because that was the simplest
way to make a head-covering out of newspaper.
Ralph Records also released a special limited release of
twenty-five The Third Reich 'N' Roll Collector's Boxes in
1980. The packaging was very elaborate: the disk was "hand
pressed" in red marbled vinyl with a silk-screened sleeve
and labels, all wrapped up in a black, velvet-lined wooden
box. The box opened by a sliding panel which was hand
silk-screened with the cover art, and contained two signed
and numbered lithographs. The whole thing was bundled up in
a draw-string bag made of fabric left over from a Christo's
art project.
The album is currently in print through Mute Records.