San Diego Symphony

Violent Femmes

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of their self-titled debut album, Violent Femmes will be playing the album in its entirety with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.

Once hailed as the “soundtrack to male puberty,” Violent Femmes’ first record amplified teenage angst and alienation in the 1980s with such songs as “Kiss Off,” “Add It Up” and “Gone Daddy Gone,” written by Lead Vocalist and Guitarist Gordon Gano before he’d even gotten his driver’s license. The album, which was mostly autobiographical, would later prove to embody some of the most powerful anthems of a disenchanted youth that the world has ever known. And while it took 10 years to go Platinum and hit the Billboard Top 200, Violent Femmes has now sold three million copies worldwide and is still in rotation on today’s top rock stations, substantiating it as more than a simple battle cry for a misunderstood youth. Today, it stands as a pillar of an American underground movement, and one of the best early examples of alternative rock.