Stupids were a
seminal act on the UK hardcore scene back in the day, one of the first bands to fuse the sound of US hardcore
alongside some very British humour. Imagine a band using Suicidal
Tendencies "Possessed To Skate" as their manifesto and
you've got a good idea of the Stupids raison d'ętre. Its easy to
forget how radical the Suffolk trio were back in the day, in
all possible meanings of the word. Remember we're talking
about a pre-internet and multi-channel TV time. Metal and
rock music media was restricted to a handful of marginal
magazines and about an hour's worth of television a week in those regions
lucky enough to receive Headbangers Ball so to have a British band bringing us top-notch skatecore was nothing
short of a revolution.
Not everything
about the Stupids however has stood the test of time, the humourous skit interludes throughout and rap/metal pastiches
belong in the mid eighties and should have stayed there, being borne, no doubt from the same spark that brought us Anthrax's woeful "I Am The Man", I blame the Beastie Boys
myself...., but in the main what you have here is some top
notch old school hardcore the equal of many of their American peers and I'm talking about some heavyweights of
the scene such as Gang Green, Circle Jerks and Dropkick Murphys et al.
What all this
means in 2008 is difficult to say as this pair of re-releases will
only find a select audience. However what they will do
is to allow Stupid's fans of old an opportunity to pick up the original
music, expanded with additional tracks, whist giving fans of
such a newer bands as Gama Bomb a chance to investigate what
was putting a smile on our faces whilst our heads were
banging back in the day.
