Suicide's debut album (1977): a milestone in electronic music

They made punk music before anyone else. They made punk music better than anyone else. And they didn't do it with guitars, they used battered old keyboards and cheap drum machines. From the mean streets of 1970s New York, Suicide broke every taboo in the book, getting themselves some nasty bruises along the way...

Suicide was an American musical duo composed of vocalist Alan Vega and instrumentalist Martin Rev, intermittently active between 1970 and 2016. The group's pioneering music utilized minimalist electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers and primitive drum machines, and their early performances were confrontational and often ended in violence. 

Rev and Vega met and became friends in 1969. After the former's avant-jazz band broke up they decided to form a band together.

According to a 2002 interview of Alan Vega, the name of the band was inspired by the title of a Ghost Rider comic book issue titled "Satan Suicide". He further explained, "We were talking about society’s suicide, especially American society. New York City was collapsing. The Vietnam War was going on. The name Suicide said it all to us."

Rev's simple keyboard riffs (initially played on a battered Farfisa organ combined with effects units, before changing to a synthesizer) were accompanied by primitive drum machines, providing a pulsing, minimalistic, electronic backdrop for Vega's murmuring and nervy vocals. It was the first band to use the term punk to describe itself, which the band had adopted from an article by Lester Bangs. Some of the band's earliest posters use the terms "punk music" and "punk music mass".

In terms of their significance, if not their sales, Suicide are indeed one of the biggest bands in rock 'n' roll history. But theirs is a story of destitution, darkness, violence and despair, as well as improvisation with next to nothing, a fiercely futurist vision and, ultimately, recognition and vindication.

Right up until 2016, when Alan Vega sadly died at the age of 78, they were the last of the 1970s New York art rock revolutionaries to still be standing, pulsating, raging...

Though never widely popular among the general public, Suicide have been recognized as among the most influential acts of their era. Their debut album Suicide (1977) was described as "a landmark of electronic music"

 It was released in 1977 on Red Star Records and produced by Craig Leon and Marty Thau. The album was recorded in four days at Ultima Sound Studios in New York and featured Martin Rev's minimalist electronics and harsh, repetitive rhythms paired with Alan Vega's rock and roll-inspired vocals and depictions of urban life.

Upon its initial release, Suicide was greeted with positive reception from the UK press, but received mixed reviews in the United States, where it failed to chart. However, the album would soon be regarded as a milestone in electronic and rock music.