Fuck You!!! And Loving It!!!: A Retrospective

Track one begins with a lo-fi rehearsal of “Tight Black Pants”, which around the half-minute mark starts to fade, transitioning to the track being performed before a live audience. Pretty cool effect, except I wanted to hear the full rehearsal recording. Despite having never released a live album, the Plasmatics released plenty of live tracks, either plonked between studio tracks, or tacked on as bonus tracks, but they've never released any of their rehearsals aside from the first thirty seconds of this compilation. At least the live track is a different version than the one included as a bonus on the Plasmatics Media, Inc. CD reissue of New Hope for the Wretched. The live version of “Sex Junkie” on track three is also different than the one included on the Metal Priestess EP. They don't sound wildly different, but anything that makes these compilations more than redundant is appreciated.

Fuck You!!! and Loving It!!!: A Retrospective is the only one of these comps released by Plasmatics Media to be branded under the Wendy O. Williams name rather than Plasmatics. Strange that the track list isn't more focused on the music from the band's stint playing as Wendy O. Williams. There's one song from the Plasmatics debut LP, (the aforementioned New Hope for the Wretched) “Butcher Baby”, their most well known song, but not a very good one, with possibly Williams' worst vocal performance. Sophomore LP, Beyond the Valley of 1984, is represented with its final track, “A Pig Is a Pig”, which has a honky tonk intro leading to angry hardcore with pointedly political lyrics. Coup d'État, their best album, is the only full length not represented, likely because they don't own the rights to it. Unlike subsequent comps, they didn't include any of the demo recordings from that album. We only get one song from WOW, the first and most famous album to be released as a Williams solo album, and shameless radio-bait that's as close as possible to being a Kiss album without being a Kiss album. The song is “It's My Life”, perfectly acceptable shout-along stadium rock. The next Williams LP, Kommander of Kaos, gets two tracks, giving listeners a good taste of what that album offered, i.e. similarly accessible fist-pumpers with parties 'n' sex lyrics, but reinjecting some of the metal edge from their pre-WOW material. Maggots: The Record, the only LP released under both the Williams and Plasmatics name, also gets two tracks. This was the band's most metallic offering, where they went total thrash, making you wonder what might have been had they continued on this path. Unfortunately, the band split up, and only one more thing came from their camp, the confounding hip hop misadventure, Deffest! and Baddest! Oddly, the track they chose, “Know W'am Sayin'”, is one that doesn't include Williams' vocals, instead featuring the Hometown Girls, Katrina Astrin and La Donna Sullivan. Their aggressive shouts are more exciting than Williams' charisma-less rapping, anyway.

Any differences between this album and their studio counterparts are minor. “Butcher Baby” cuts out early during those distorted noises at the end. The songs from Maggots are longer as they tacked on parts of the story sections from that album. I am not a fan of those sections, but since these are only snippets, it doesn't harm the listening experience. Other songs are a second or two longer or shorter, but nothing consequential. Unlike the Put Your Love in Me comp, the titling is faithful to the originals, save for the addition of the indefinite article to “Pig Is a Pig”. Speaking of that comp, I'm being a little more generous with my score for this one because: 1. The inclusion of new material, however slight. 2. This was the first comp they released so it wasn't quite as pointless at that time. 3. The cover photo is one I haven't seen elsewhere. You might expect a retrospective to include more unseen photos inside or maybe liner notes. Guess not. I won't claim all Plasmatics albums are must-own, but if you're going to purchase their material, you should get a proper album rather than a thirty-five minute CD even diehard fans have little reason to want.