Bad Brains “Bad Brains” 1982. Reachout International Records (ROIR). Though the cover art was meant to convey Bad Brains being “Banned in D.C.,” the image remains timely for today’s political headlines. Bad Brains was their first full-length album, issued only on cassette at the time, and is considered one of the most important groundbreaking releases of the hardcore genre, and one of the best of all-time. Bad Brains intersperses breakneck punk tracks like “Sailin’ On,” “Supertouch/Shitfit,” “Fearless Vampire Killers,” “Big Take Over” and the punk anthem “Pay to Cum” (which was the first Bad Brains song I ever heard, on the 1981 Alternative Tentacles comp Let Them Eat Jellybeans!) with kicked-back Rasta reggae protest songs: “Jah Calling,” “Leaving Babylon” and “I Luv I Jah.” This blending of seemingly disparate sounds makes for a compelling listen. As Ira Kaplan (later of Yo La Tengo) writes on the back of the LP, “…Bad Brains have fortified the destructiveness of hardcore with the lazy determination of reggae. The result is a simmering anger that rarely bubbles over into outrage, and instead takes on an ominous quality of its own. It amounts to a realization of punky reggae ideas articulated but enacted upon – by the Clash and Bob Marley and maybe others. It’s loud (though not always) and it’s fast (though not always). And it pleases me very much. Movements come and go. The Bad Brains are real!”