Welcome, everyone, to another Deep Dive. We are
absolutely thrilled to have you with us today.
We really are. It's great to be here. Yeah. And
if you're looking at your player right now, you
might have noticed the specific title and description
we laid out for today's journey. It's a pretty
packed title. It really is. Our title is Unpacking
Alien Sex Fiend. It's the album Format Wars and
80s rock trivia. Which is quite a mouthful, but...
Highly accurate exactly and the description gives
you a perfect roadmap of where we are heading
I'll just I'll just read a bit of it here. Go
for it. It says in this deep dive We explore
the enigmatic 1986 release it the album by English
rock band alien sex fiend Join us as we dissect
the eccentric track list Including a mind -bending
13 -minute opus and analyze the band's brilliant
response to the evolving physical media landscape
of the 1980s Yeah, that physical media aspect
is huge It is. The description goes on to say,
from Nick Fiend's DIY album art to the critical
acclaim from Trouser Press, we leave no stone
unturned. Whether you're a music history buff
or fascinated by the quirks of cassette and CD
reissues, this deep dive extracts the most important
nuggets of insight from the band's fourth studio
undertaking. And you know, we threw in some keywords
there too, like alien sex fiend, 1986 rock albums,
English rock bands, trouser press reviews, cassette,
and CD reissues. You gotta help people find the
deep dive, right? You know it. But I love that
description because it really captures the essence
of what we are doing today. It sets the stage
perfectly. Right. Because we are essentially
going on... Like a musical archaeological dig.
Oh, I like that framing an archaeological dig
Yeah, we are taking a single cultural artifact
from October 1986 this album by a highly provocative
English rock band and we are just gonna look
at it from every conceivable angle Which is the
best way to do it. You have to look at all the
facets. Absolutely We're talking about a band
with the incredibly striking name alien sex fiend
and this is their fourth studio album And fourth
albums are usually where bands either cement
their legacy or start falling apart. Exactly.
So the mission today is very clear. We are going
to dissect the release strategy behind this record.
It's absolutely wild track lengths. The critical
reception at Garnard and with this one specific
point in music history tells us about the entire
era. Yes, the entire era of physical media formats.
It is just fantastic to be here for this. And
I think your framing of this as an archaeological
dig is spot on. Thanks. It really feels like
one. It does. When we look at the historical
record of this specific 1986 release, we aren't
just looking at a list of songs. No, not at all.
When you start reading between the lines of the
track listing, you know, examining the production
credits and analyzing the fascinating variations
in how this music was physically packaged. Because
it varied a lot depending on the format. Exactly.
How it was sold across different formats. A much
larger narrative emerges. You realize you were
looking at a snapshot of a band that was actively
playing with and perhaps deliberately subverting
the very concept of what an album even is. They
were totally messing with the format. Right.
It's a reflection of a deeply transitional moment
in the music industry. The physical container
of the music was changing rapidly. Oh, for sure.
From vinyl to cassette. To the emerging digital
frontier of the CD. And this band decided to
make that transition, that friction a part of
the art itself. OK, let's unpack this because
right out of the gate. Before we even drop the
needle on the record, we have to talk about identity.
Yes, the identity is crucial. We have to talk
about the name of the band, the people behind
it, and how they boldly presented themselves
to the world in 1986. The band is called Alien
Sex Fiend. It's quite a name. Now, you hear that
name and you instantly know what you're dealing
with. You're not expecting soft rock, that's
for sure. Definitely not. If you are an English
rock band operating in the mid -1980s, which
is an era filled with highly polished, manufactured
pop acts, you are making a very deliberate, aggressive
statement before a single note is played. It's
a provocation. Exactly. You aren't naming your
band something soft, poetic, or generic. You
are putting a flag in the ground. You are actively
trying to get a reaction. And they certainly
did. And the core personnel anchoring this wildly
named project is a duo, Nick Wade and Christine
Wade. Yes, a duo sharing a last name, which immediately
gives us a vital clue about the internal dynamics
of the group. How so? Well, if we connect this
to the bigger picture, of band structures in
underground music, having a core duo, often a
husband and wife or a tight sibling dynamic,
it creates a very insular, highly focused creative
engine. Oh, right, like you don't have five different
egos fighting for control. Exactly. You see this
in other legendary underground acts, like Lux
Interior and Poison Ivy of the Cramps, for example.
That's a great comparison. It creates a closed
loop of creativity where the vision can remain
incredibly pure and undiluted by outside opinions.
It stays fully intact. But what really stands
out in the historical record of this album is
how the identity of Nick Wade is handled. Oh,
the credit. Yeah. In the overarching personnel
categories, the broad metadata of the band's
history. He is listed simply as Nick Wade. Right,
just his normal name. However, when we look at
the specific credits for the album's visual presentation,
it explicitly states that the album cover was
painted by frontman Nick Fiend. I love that detail
so much. Nick Fiend. It's brilliant. It's like
a comic book alter ego that he just fully steps
into. It really is. And it raises a fascinating
point about the psychology of the frontman in
the Gothic and post -punk scenes. How he adopts
the persona. He is adopting the moniker of the
band itself into his own surname. He isn't just
a guy named Nick Wade who happens to clock in
and play in a band called Alien Sex Fiend. Right,
he becomes the Fiend. He embodies the project
entirely. And the fact that Nick Fiend is the
one explicitly credited with painting the album
cover is incredibly significant. Because that's
not normal for bands at that level. No. Painting
the cover isn't just about throwing some art
together to wrap a piece of vinyl in. We have
to view this as a radical act of quality control.
Right, because usually a band hands the music
over to the label. And the label takes over.
Yeah, the label's art department mocks up a cover
that they think will sell at the record store.
Exactly. The standard industry practice, even
for many alternative bands, was to let a graphic
design firm handle the packaging. So by doing
it himself, by painting the cover himself, Nick
Fiend is seizing total visual control of the
band's branding. It's a profound statement of
DIY identity. Do it yourself. Do it yourself.
I love that. He is ensuring that what the listener
sees and what the listener hears are born from
the exact same mind. It is a declaration of complete
creative ownership. I want you, the listener,
to just imagine that tactile reality for a second.
It's a very physical thing. Imagine it's late
October in 1986. You walk into an independent
record store in London. You can almost smell
the dust and cardboard. Yes, it smells like dust
and cardboard. You're flipping through the vinyl
bins and you pull out this record. You're holding
it in your hand. You're holding a physical object
where the The visual experience you are looking
at, the actual chaotic paint strokes reproduced
on that 12 by 12 inch cardboard sleeve, and the
audio experience you are about to put on your
turntable were crafted by the exact same person.
It's incredibly intimate in a weird way. It's
raw. It's unfiltered. It's not some slick...
corporate graphic design. It's Nick Fiend giving
you a piece of his brain inside and out. And
that fierce protection of artistic integrity
extends directly into the recording studio as
well. Yeah, the production credits are super
interesting. The credits for this album note
that the producers are Alien Sex Fiend and Pete
McGee. So they produce it themselves too. Right.
Again, the band isn't handing over the reins
to some superstar hit -making producer to gloss
up their sound and make it palatable for mainstream
radio play. They're avoiding that mainstream
polish entirely. They are in the booth. They
have their hands on the faders. They are shaping
the sonic landscape alongside McGee. So it's
totally homegrown. When you combine self -production
with self -painted album art, you are looking
at a project that completely rejects the traditional
music industry assembly line. Which brings us
to what might be the most fascinating part of
this entire deep dive. The formats. The titles,
the formats, the physical media meta game. Because
Alien Sex Fiend didn't just release an album
in 1986. No, they released a concept. They released
a concept of an album. And that concept literally
shape shifted depending on what piece of plastic
you decided to buy at the counter. It's such
a brilliant marketing and artistic move. Let's
look at the standard vinyl release, the 12 inch
record. It is titled simply and brilliantly,
It the Album. And it's crucial to note the punctuation
there. The word, it in quotation marks. Yes,
quote unquote, it the album. The cheeky self
-aware literalism of that title is just fantastic.
It really is. We were talking earlier about what
it means and it really feels almost daddy -ist.
Daddy -ist is the perfect word for it. For those
who might not be familiar, what does that mean
in this context? Well, daddy -ism was an early
20th century art movement. that totally rejected
logic, reason, and traditional aesthetics in
favor of absurdity and anti -art. Anti -art.
I love that. Think of Marcel Duchamp putting
a urinal in a gallery and calling it a fountain.
Exactly. It's like the band is stripping away
all the pretension of rock and roll mythology.
They're just giving you the object. They're handing
you a 12 -inch vinyl record and saying, here
is the object. The object is an album. We will
literally call it the album. It's so blunt. that
it becomes incredibly clever. But then the 1980s
format wars start to dictate the art. This is
where it gets really fun. Because if you didn't
buy the vinyl, if you went to the rack and bought
the cassette tape instead, you weren't buying
it, the album. No. The format dictated a change
in identity. If you bought the tape, you were
buying... It the cassette. It the cassette. Which
is just as blunt. And this isn't just a quirky,
superficial name change. There is a massive operational
difference between the vinyl and the cassette.
A huge difference. What was actually on it? The
cassette. Right. This is where we see the band,
and likely their label, Anagram Records, making
a very aggressive move in the consumer market.
They really pushed the tape format. The 1986
cassette version didn't just contain the new
tracks that made up. the album. No, it had so
much more. It included the band's entire full
-length previous album from 1985, Maximum Security.
The entire thing. They just tossed the whole
previous year's record onto the take alongside
the new one. Completely. And to understand why
this is so significant, we have to look at the
technological reality of the era. The physical
limitations. Right. A standard vinyl record has
hard physical limitations. You can only fit about
22 to 24 minutes of music on one side of a 12
-inch piece of vinyl. Before the audio gets messed
up. Exactly. Before the physical grooves have
to be cut so close together and so shallow that
the audio quality degrades. You lose the bass.
The bass frequencies in particular start to vanish
if you pack too much time onto the disc. So a
vinyl album is naturally constrained to around
40 to 45 minutes total. And what's the runtime
for the vinyl version of it? We know the vinyl
version of it. The album clocks in at exactly
46 minutes and three seconds. Wow. So they were
right at the edge. They were pushing right up
against the absolute physical maximum of the
medium. Right. The vinyl is completely full.
You couldn't squeeze another note onto that wax
without ruining the sound. Precisely. But cassette
tapes were a completely different technological
beast. Because they just have more space. A standard
pre -recorded cassette could easily hold 45 minutes
per side. Giving you 90 minutes of total running
time. Some could hold even more. So, anagram
records and alien sex fiend. looked at this format
and realized they had all this empty blank magnetic
tape just sitting there on side B. Just dead
space. Now, some bands would just leave it blank
or they would repeat the new album on both sides
so you didn't have to rewind. Oh man, I remember
those cassettes. Program repeats on both sides.
Exactly. But here they use that larger storage
capacity to essentially give the consumer two
albums for the price of one. It's such a good
deal. You get the brand new 1986 release. and
you get the full 1985 release. It's a brilliant
value proposition, but let me play Devil's Advocate
here for a second. Is this pure punk rock generosity
from the band just wanting to give the kids more
music, or is this a highly calculated marketing
tactic by Anagram Records? That is a very astute
question. Because cassettes were cheaper to produce
than vinyl, right? And the industry was aggressively
trying to push consumers toward tapes in the
mid -80s. It's almost certainly a mix of both.
The music industry in 1986 was in the middle
of a massive transitional war. Cassettes were
really taking over. Cassettes were taking over
because of the Sony Walkman. music was suddenly
portable. You could listen in your car, on the
bus. Labels loved cassettes because they were
cheaper to manufacture and ship than heavy fragile
vinyl. Meaning higher profit margins. Exactly.
By bundling a second full album onto the cassette,
Antigram Records was creating an overwhelming
incentive for the consumer to choose the tape
over the vinyl. It's basically a bribe. Buy the
cheaper format, get a free album. But from the
band's perspective, It's also a way to disseminate
their art as widely as possible. Regardless of
the motive, it totally changes how you, the listener,
experience the release. It changes the entire
context. If you bought the vinyl, you experienced
it as a standalone, 46 -minute curated piece
of art. Very focused. But if you bought the cassette,
you experienced it as part of a massive, overwhelming
double -feature marathon of alien sex fiends
discography. It's a totally different physical
and auditory commitment. But the format evolution
doesn't stop with magnetic tape, does it? No,
it keeps going. Because the mid to late 80s brought
us the shiny futuristic laser read technology
of the compact disc. The CD era arrives. So what
happens to our cheekily titled album when it
finally hits the CD era? The title adapts to
the technology once again, proving that the medium
truly is the message here. I love this part.
The historical record notes that the album was
later reissued in CD format and retitled it...
The CD. This CD, with no quotation marks around
it this time. It's just incredibly direct. I
love how they dropped the quotation marks for
this one. It's just so incredibly blunt. Here
is the CD. It is blunt, but it perfectly reflects
how the advent of the CD completely upended consumer
expectations and the economics of music. Because
CDs were so expensive when they came out. When
CDs first hit the mass market, they were incredibly
expensive. They were marketed as an elite premium
product with pristine digital sound that would
never degrade. You were paying a serious premium
for that little plastic jewel case. But more
importantly, a standard CD. could hold up to
74 minutes of music. Right. So much more space
than vinyl. Because of this expanded capacity,
a psychological shift happened. Consumers started
to feel shortchanged if they bought a CD that
only contained the original 40 minutes of a vinyl
album. They looked at the disc and thought, this
thing is half empty. Why am I paying a premium
price for unused space? They felt like they were
getting ripped off. Yeah, exactly. So the industry
standard rapidly became adding bonus tracks to
CD reissues to bulk up the total runtime and
justify the higher cost to the consumer. And
Alien Sex Fiend fully delivered on that expectation.
They absolutely did. The historical record shows
they added three specific additional tracks to
it, the CD. Bug me, Hurricane Fighter plane,
and it lives again. Yes. We are going to dig
deeply into the artistic implications of those
specific tracks a little later, but right now
I just want to pause and marvel at this. It's
a great encapsulation. This single release perfectly
encapsulates the entire physical format evolution
of the 1980s. It really does. You have the vinyl.
constrained by its physical grooves dictating
a strict 46 -minute runtime. The classic format.
Then you have the cassette leveraging its long
magnetic ribbon to offer a two -for -one double
album to win the format war. The portable revolution.
And you have the CD utilizing its vast digital
space to offer exclusive bonus tracks to justify
a premium price tag. The digital frontier. The
medium literally dictated the title, the length,
and the volume of the content. It's a masterclass
in physical media history, all wrapped up in
one single, bizarre rock album. It truly is.
The physical container fundamentally altered
the art itself. Okay, let's pivot from the packaging
to the actual art. The music. Let's look at what
takes up those 46 minutes and 3 seconds of the
original vinyl release. Before we break down
the track list, though. We need some critical
context. Right. How was this music actually received
in 1986? Was it dismissed as a novelty or was
it taken seriously? It was taken very seriously
by the people who mattered in that scene. Like
the alternative press. Exactly. The record cites
a specific review from Trouser Press written
by Greg Fasolino and Ira Robbins. Trouser Press
was a big deal. For context, Trouser Press was
not a mainstream pop magazine. It was a highly
respected deeply analytical alternative music
publication. They really knew their stuff. They
covered punk, post -punk and underground rock
with a lot of intelligence. Their review calls
the album unquestionably the group's most creative,
mind -expanding undertaking. Mind -expanding
undertaking. That is incredibly strong phrasing.
When a serious music critic in the 80s calls
something mind -expanding, they aren't talking
about a tight three -minute pop song with a catchy
chorus that you tap your foot to. No, they are
not talking about Top 40 radio. They are talking
about something that pushes boundaries, something
psychedelic, avant -garde, or structurally bizarre
that challenges the listener. It demands your
attention. So, as I'm looking at the track list
for Side A, I am searching for the why. Why did
Trouser Press call this mind expanding? And the
answer is staring right at us in the runtimes
of the songs. The track lengths on Side A are
incredibly revealing about the band's ambitions.
Let's go through them. Track one on Side A is
called Smells Like, and it runs for five minutes
and 49 seconds. That is a very robust, lengthy
opener. It's not a quick, punchy punk song rushing
to get to the point. It establishes a mood. It
takes its time. But then we hit track two. This
is the one. This is the one that completely stops
you in your tracks when you look at the track
listing. Track two is titled Manic Depression,
and the length is 13 minutes and 13 seconds.
It's massive. 13 minutes and 13 seconds for a
single track. That is a massive structural risk.
It is a staggering commitment of time, and more
importantly, a staggering commitment of vinyl
real estate. Yeah, let's talk about the math
there. Let's break down the physical math on
this to really understand the audacity. OK. The
entire album is 46 minutes and three seconds
long. This single track, Manic Depression, takes
up nearly 30 % of the entire record. Just one
song. If we assume side A and side B are roughly
equal in length, meaning side A is about 23 minutes
long, this one song takes up more than half of
the entire first side of the album. It's just
huge. And the placement is what really gets me.
Track two. It's placed right at track two. You
open the album with a nearly six -minute song
and then immediately plunge the listener into
a 13 -minute epic. What does that do to the listener's
momentum? It completely dictates the terms of
engagement. It forces you to slow down. If we
connect this back to the Mind Expanding label
from Trouser Press, it makes perfect sense. What
does a 13 -minute rock track actually imply?
That you're going on a journey. It strongly suggests
heavy, uncompromising experimentation. You don't
write a 13 -minute song using a standard verse
chorus verse structure. The human brain would
get bored. Right. It would just feel repetitive.
A track of that length implies extended instrumental
interludes, shifting tempos, perhaps long -spoken
word sections, or a very slow atmospheric hypnotic
buildup. It's a complete departure from anything
normal. It is a deliberate, aggressive departure
from anything resembling a radio -friendly structure.
It requires immense patience from the listener.
You can't just put this on in the background.
It demands active listening. If a 13 -minute
song is playing, people might leave the room,
make a cup of tea, come back, and the song is
still evolving. It's still going. It forces you
to sit still. It demands that you sit down and
let the music wash over you and alter the atmosphere
of the room. The band is asking you to go on
a very long, very specific journey with them.
Exactly. And the title itself, Manic Depression,
combined with that imposing runtime, it suggests
a piece of music that is going to take you through
extreme psychological highs and extreme lows.
Mirroring the clinical reality of the title.
To place that at track two. is an act of supreme
confidence. They are filtering their audience
immediately. Like a gatekeeper track. Yes. If
you can't handle the 13 -minute descent into
manic depression, you aren't going to make it
through the rest of the album. It's a heavy,
imposing centerpiece. And think about the physical
vinyl again. Visually, it would look crazy. Because
that track is so long, the master engineer would
have to cut the grooves differently. The physical
look of Side A would be dominated by this one
massive continuous spiral. It's an imposing visual
before you even drop the needle. And then, after
you've survived this 13 -minute sonic odyssey,
the band brings you back down to earth with Track
3 to close out the side. Yes, Track 3 is, believe
it or not, clocking in at 4 minutes and 40 seconds.
Which, interestingly, feels like a fairly standard
accessible song length. But following a 13 -minute
epic, it probably felt incredibly brief. Like
a sudden palate cleanser to the listener before
they have to get up and flip the record. Exactly.
So side A is just massive. It's top -heavy, it's
sprawling, it's only three tracks, but they total
almost 24 minutes of dense audio. It is the absolute
definition of a mind -expanding undertaking.
It feels like a monolithic crawl. But then, you
physically lift the needle, you flip the 12 -inch
record over, and you drop it on Side B. And this
is where the album gets even more interesting.
This is where the pacing of the album becomes
a fascinating character in itself. The structural
contrast between Side A and Side B is striking.
It's totally different. Side B actually starts
by tricking the listener into thinking they are
about to embark on another sprawling Side A -style
journey. Right. Track 1 on Side B is April Showers.
And it runs for 9 minutes and 15 seconds. Another
massive epic. Almost 10 minutes just to open
the second side. As a listener, you're settling
in thinking, OK, this is just what Alien 16 does
now. They make massive, long -form, drawn -out
compositions. But then... This strategy completely
violently shifts. Just whiplash. Immediately
after the fade out of April showers, we get a
rapid fire sequence of tracks that are remarkably
concise, punchy, and completely different from
what came before. Yes. Let's look at this sequence.
Track two is Wop Bop at three minutes and 42
seconds. Short and sweet. Track three is Get
Into It at three minutes and 43 seconds. Consistent.
Track four is Lesson One at three minutes and
35 seconds. Track five is, do it right at five
minutes and three seconds. It's an absolute sprint.
It's a completely different auditory experience.
If side A is this slow, psychological, monolithic
crawl, then the back half of side B is a sudden
sprint to the finish line. And if you look closely
at the language, the actual linguistics of those
rapid fire track titles, a very clear thematic
pattern emerges. Oh, the titles change tone completely.
The titles shift from the abstract -like, smells
-like. or manic depression, to the highly direct
and instructional. Get into it. Lesson one. Do
it right. It sounds like a demonic 1980s aerobics
video. Uh -huh. That is a brilliant analogy.
It really is commanding the listener. The band
is giving you imperatives. And this is where
we have to look at the connective tissue of the
entire project. Here's where it gets really interesting
for me. Let's look at track three on side B.
get into it the title drop yes now remember the
title of the record we established earlier the
vinyl is called it the album the cassette is
it the cassette go on and quote it right and
right here deep on side b they have a track telling
you to get into it they are literally verbally
instructing you to engage with the physical object
you are currently holding in your hands or spinning
on your turntable It's a direct command to the
listener. They are referencing their own album
title in the middle of this rapid fire instructional
sequence. Here is it. Get into it. Lesson one.
Do it. Right. It's an incredibly cohesive, self
-referential piece of world building. It creates
a brilliant meta narrative. The album is fully
aware of itself as a physical, commercial object,
and the songs themselves are instructing you
on how to consume that object. It's incredibly
postmodern. Very much so. Yeah. But perhaps the
most fascinating structural and narrative choice
on Side B is how it finally ends. The finale.
After this exhausting sequence of punchy, instructional,
high -energy tracks, we arrive at Track 6, the
absolute finale of the original 1986 release.
Trek 6 is to be continued, running at a mere
42 seconds. A 42 second track to close out a
dense, exhausting 46 minute album. It is an incredibly
cinematic choice. It's a literal cliffhanger.
It really is. Ending an album with a sub -minute
track explicitly named to be continued deliberately
leaves the listener unbalanced and unresolved.
Think about the psychological effect of that
sequence. Right, you've just been through these
massive epics. You've survived the 13 -minute
and 9 -minute tracks, then a relentless burst
of 3 -minute instructional tracks, and then 42
seconds of what? We don't even know. The historical
record doesn't explicitly describe the audio
of this track, but based on the context, we can
extrapolate. Is it a fading outro soundscape?
Is it a snippet of distorted dialogue? Or is
it a burst of chaotic noise that gets cut off
abruptly just as the needle hits the runout groove?
That would be jarring. For those who might not
collect vinyl, the runout groove is that endless
looping physical circle at the very center of
the record where the needle just rides indefinitely
until you pick the arm up. It's the continuous
loop of static. To have a 42 -second track bleed
into that endless loop, it's haunting. It is.
Whatever the actual audio is, the title makes
a promise. It promises a sequel. It tells the
listener that the story of it is not over. It
deliberately leaves you wanting more, which is
a brilliant, highly calculated tactic for a band
that, as we will see, is producing albums at
an absolutely staggering pace. It totally works.
If I finish an intense, weird record like this
and the last thing I see on the label as the
needle hits that run -out groove is the phrase,
to be continued, I am instantly hooked. You're
waiting for the next release. I am wondering
when the next album comes out. And speaking of
more, we have to talk about what happened when
this album transitioned to the CD format a few
years later. The bonus tracks. We discussed how
the CD format inherently demanded bonus tracks
to justify its premium price tag. But the specific
tracks Alien Sex Fiend chose to add are not just
throw away filler or cheap remixes. They are
incredibly deliberate. They really are. They
provide crucial context for the band's deepest
musical influences and highlight their specific
dark sense of humor. Let's break those down.
The CD reissue bulks up the runtime by adding
tracks 10, 11, and 12. Track 10 is bugging me,
which comes in at 3 minutes and 39 seconds. A
solid addition. But track 11 is one that really
demands our analytical attention. Track 11 is
Hurricane Fighter Plane, clocking in at a substantial
6 minutes and 48 seconds. And the historical
record specifically notes that this track is
a cover song. Originally by the band Red Crayola.
This is a massive flashing neon clue for anyone
trying to understand Alien Sex Fiend's true sonic
DNA. Why is Red Crayola so important here? If
we go back to that Trouser Press review calling
the album mind -expanding, the choice to cover
this specific song validates that critical assessment
entirely. So Red Crayola was experimental. For
listeners who might not be deep into 1960s obscurities,
Red Crayola, sometimes spelled with a C or a
K depending on a specific era, was a deeply experimental
avant -garde highly psychedelic rock band from
Texas. Wow, from Texas? That formed in the late
1960s. They were notorious for creating harsh
noise collages, completely unconventional, broken
song structures, and generally breaking every
established rule of rock music. So they weren't
just a standard 60s pop rock band, they were
the weirdos of the 60s. The ultimate weirdos.
And Alien Sex Fiend, choosing to cover a nearly
seven minute Red Crayola song in 1986, is them
aggressively planting their flag. They are speaking
directly to the music nerds. They are telling
the listener, Look, we aren't just guys wearing
spooky Halloween makeup making goth music. This
is who we are listening to. This is where our
weirdness actually comes from. We know our history.
Precisely. It proves they weren't just a surface
level gimmick. They were actually carrying the
torch for that. weird 60s avant -garde sound.
It bridges a massive cultural gap between 1960s
Texas psychedelia and 1980s English post -punk.
It's a huge leap. By placing Hurricane Fighter
plane on the CD version of an album that already
contains a 13 -minute monolith like Manic Depression.
They're absolutely solidifying their identity
as the rightful inheritors of that experimental
boundary -pushing tradition. It legitimizes them.
But they never lose their sense of humor because
right after that heavy historical cover song,
they close out the seedy version with track 12.
The punchline. Track 12 is It Lives Again running
at 3 minutes and 46 seconds. I cannot help but
laugh at this inclusion. They just will not let
the joke die. They won't. They carry the linguistic
motif right into the bonus tracks years later.
They are treating their own album like a B -movie
horror monster. It's a brilliant, highly self
-aware conceptual pun. Think about the timeline.
The original 1986 album was it. The last track
on that album was The Cliffhanger, to be continued.
Right. So when the seedy format comes along and
resurrects the album for a new technological
era, what is the final new track they add? It
lives again. The monster hasn't just returned.
It has been reanimated by the cold digital laser
of the CD player. It shows a band that takes
their music seriously enough to construct 13
minute psychological epics, but completely refuses
to take themselves so seriously that they can't
make a great schlocky conceptual joke out of
their own track listing. It's so good. It shows
genuine personality, which is something a lot
of bands in that scene lacked. They were having
fun with the medium. Which brings me to the broader
timeline of this band. I want to zoom out and
look at the alien sex fiend chronology that is
documented in our overview. Because it paints
a picture of a band that was working at a blistering,
almost unhealthy pace. Their work ethic, as documented
here, was truly incredible. Let's run through
it. The discography footprint lists their early
studio albums in sequence. They released their
debut, Who's Been Sleeping In My Brain, in 1983.
OK. They followed it immediately with Acid Bath
in 1984. Another one. Then Maximum Security in
1985. That's three for three. And then our subject
today is the album in October 1986. That is four
full -length studio albums in four consecutive
years. Let's put that in perspective. In the
modern music industry, where bands routinely
take three, four, or even five years between
releases to endlessly tour, strategize social
media, and focus group their sound, a one album
a year pace is almost totally unheard of. It
implies a constant, unrelenting state of writing,
recording, and creating. It's a fountain of raw
creativity. But as I was looking closely at the
chronology provided in the digital record of
this band, I noticed something deeply strange.
The glitch. I spotted a literal glitch in the
matrix of the archive. Ah, yes. The digital archive
anomaly. This is a fascinating wrinkle. Okay,
listener, I want you to picture how historical
data is laid out on a digital platform today.
Think of a standard wiki page. At the top of
the record, in the primary information box, there
is a section mapping out the alien sex fiend
chronology. The quick summary box. It lists the
previous album we discussed, Maximum Security,
from 1985. It lists the current album, the album
from 1986, and then it lists the band's follow
-up album, titled Here Come Germs, and it explicitly
gives the release year for that album as 1988.
Correct. That is what the primary top -level
data states. A two -year gap, placing the next
record in 1988. But if you scroll all the way
down to the bottom of the digital record to the
comprehensive navigation menu that attempts to
list the band's entire studio album discography
in order, the timeline inexplicably changes.
It totally contradicts the top box. It lists
the album in 1986, just as before. But then it
lists Here Come Germs with the release date of
1987. Closing the gap. And it places an entirely
different album, Another Planet, in the 1988
slot. This discrepancy raises a profoundly important
point about how we categorize and consume music
history in the modern digital age. We are looking
at a real -time contradiction within a single
historical document. The top summary says 1988,
while the bottom comprehensive list says 1987.
So how do we reconcile this? What does this mean
for us trying to understand the band's actual
history? Rather than getting bogged down in the
mechanics of how digital encyclopedias are edited,
we should view this anomaly as a testament to
the sheer chaotic velocity of underground music
in the 1980s. It was moving too fast to track.
Exactly. When an independent band is churning
out music at this blistering, pace -releasing
singles, EPs, live albums and full -length studio
records in a constant stream, the neat, tidy
digital archives of the 21st century often struggle
to keep up. They try to box it in, but they can't.
As an analyst, when I see a chronological contradiction
like this, my instinct is to look at the established
behavioral pattern of the artists. What's the
pattern? We know for a fact they released albums
in 83, 84, 85, and 86. That is an unbroken four
-year streak of relentless momentum. A machine.
The bottom lists suggest they simply continued
that exact same streak, dropping Here Come Germs
in 1987 and Another Planet in 1988. That trajectory
fits the established workaholic nature of the
band much better than assuming they suddenly
took a two -year hiatus and then dumped two albums
in 1988. It completely fits the pattern. They
were on a treadmill and they just didn't stop.
Honestly, I love that this glitch exists. It's
a great reminder for you listening right now,
digital archives are not infallible. Go from
it. They are often trying to force the messy
chaotic reality of 1980s underground release
schedules into neat little standardized boxes
and sometimes the data just breaks. You have
to do the work yourself. It reinforces the importance
of actively engaging with history. You can't
just passively consume the top line summer. You
have to look deeper, cross -reference, and embrace
the mystery when things don't perfectly line
up. The contradiction in the archive is almost
as revealing as the music itself. It highlights
the friction between the analog past and the
digital present. Man, this has been such an incredible,
expansive journey. It really has. We started
with a very simple title, hit the album, and
a 46 -minute runtime. And by slowing down and
looking closely at the details, the album art
credits, the format names, the extreme track
lengths, and a single review quote, we have painted
a vivid, tactile picture of this eccentric, highly
creative English rock band navigating a pivotal
era. We covered a lot of ground. We see Nick
Fien painting his own album covers to maintain
fierce DIY control over the band's identity.
Artistry. We see a band possessing the sheer
audacity to push the physical limits of a vinyl
record with a 13 -minute psychological opus,
only to turn around and give fans a massive two
-for -one double album on cassette tape to win
the format war. Adapting to survive. We see them
treating their eventual transition to the CD
format not as a chore, but as an opportunity
to add experimental 60s covers and self -referential
horror jokes. It is a powerful reminder that
art simply does not exist in a vacuum. Not at
all. A piece of music is inextricably shaped
by the physical container it comes in. Always.
Whether that container is a vinyl groove with
strict time limits that dictate a 46 minute maximum.
a spool of magnetic cassette tape offering vast
amounts of blank space to be filled, or a digital
CD laser demanding bonus content to justify a
high price tag, the medium fundamentally influences
the message. The medium is the message. Alien
Sex Fiend understood this intimately, and they
made the physical format an active, playful participant
in their art. I absolutely love that phrasing.
The format is an active participant in the art.
It's the only way to look at it. So as we wrap
up this deep dive, I want to leave you, the listener,
with a final thought to mull over. We've spent
this time thoroughly dissecting the physical
constraints and quirks of 1986 media. The limits
of a 12 -inch cardboard sleeve, the capacity
of a plastic cassette tape, the pricing economics
of a compact disc. All physical realities. But
we live in an entirely different world now. We
live in an era of endless, invisible digital
streaming. Everything is in the cloud. An era
where track links aren't constrained by physical
grooves, where album covers are just tiny thumbnail
pixels on a glass screen, and where the concept
of flipping from side A to side B is completely
obsolete for most listeners. Which changes everything
about how an album is built. So my question for
you to explore on your own is this. In today's
landscape, where music is just weightless data
floating in the cloud, what are the subtle, invisible
quirks of today's digital platforms that are
secretly shaping the way modern artists create
their music? Oh, that's a brilliant question.
What are the modern equivalents of the vinyl
time limit? Are algorithms dictating how quickly
a chorus hits? Absolutely, they are. 40 years
from now, what invisible digital constraints
of today will music historians be trying to decode?
That is a phenomenal, open -ended question. The
containers have completely changed, they become
invisible, but the artists are always, always
adapting to them. They always are. Thank you
so much for joining us on this deep dive into
Alien Sex Fiend, the brilliance of the album,
and the fascinating tactile world of 1980s format
wars. Keep asking questions, keep looking closely
at the details, and keep exploring the history
behind the music. We'll catch you on the next
deep dive.