Reviews list for Plasmatics - Coup d'état (1982)

The Plasmatics originally formed in New York in 1977 when former porn star Wendy O. Williams first became acquainted with controversial performance artist Rod Swenson. Rod wasn’t a musician as such but he specialized in creating confrontational experiences for his audiences & that was exactly what he had in mind for Wendy. Together they created an extreme stage show based on a five-piece punk rock backbone. Their performances featured everything from extreme nudity to sledgehammering TVs to chainsawing guitars in half to blowing up cars on stage & this seemed to interest a public that craved ever more shocking visual experiences. The Plasmatics shows were selling out on a nightly basis with fans lining up around the block to see Wendy viciously spitting out her lyrics while wearing nothing but some well placed electrical tape. In fact, Wendy would often find herself in trouble with the local authorities for her overly sexual stage antics. It was about as punk rock as it gets really & the Plasmatics were receiving much more attention than one would normally expect from a band who had yet to release any studio output.

When they finally did get into the studio, the resulting albums didn’t achieve the sort of commercial success the band had hoped for without their controversial shock rock show. Their first two records “New Hope For The Wretched” & “Beyond The Valley Of 1984” were very much in the punk rock style they had championed to that time but for 1982’s “Coup d’etat” album they elected to go down a different route with more of a hard rock-driven heavy metal sound. The core of the Plasmatics sound was influenced by bands like the Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Stooges & the Ramones but on “Coup d’etat” we hear a lot more of their hard rock influences with KISS, New York Dolls & particularly Alice Cooper & Joan Jett & the Blackhearts springing to mind. The music is really pretty basic with your standard old-school rock ‘n’ roll verse/chorus song structures & riffs that you’ve heard many times before but the Plasmatics are essentially just a vehicle to showcase Wendy’s aggressive delivery because the world had never heard anything like this from a female before. She absolutely screams her guts out here in what may well be the most extreme vocal performance the metal world had experienced to the time. In fact, during the recording of the album, Wendy had to visit a medical professional every day to have her vocal cords attended to as to ensure that she hadn’t done any permanent damage.

“Coup d’etat” became the breakthrough album for the band but it still didn’t give them a commercial success that they hoped it might. Personally, I don’t find this surprising as the novelty doesn’t last too long leaving the bare songs sounding pretty dumb & lacking in intelligence at times. It's worth noting that “Coup d’etat” is known for being one of the earliest punk/metal hybrids but in reality there isn’t as much punk on this as people often make out. Sure you can hear a Motorhead influence but that doesn’t really constitute legitimate punk in my opinion. Speaking of Motorhead, the album includes a cover version of “No Class” which was originally intended for a sequel to Motorhead & Girlschool's “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre” split E.P. & it’s probably my favourite song on the album even though it’s clearly a couple of steps down from the original. Love it or hate it “Coup d’etat” certainly made an impact even if it did just open the world up to the idea of women in metal or the combination of punk & metal that seems to be so popular in modern times.