Search - Plasmatics :: Coup D'Etat (Reis) (Mlps)

It still kills!

idle | Sammamish, WA USA | 05/11/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I love this album!!!! this is the 3rd version of it that I've had and it still sounds as good now as it did in the 80's when I bought the LP.

Buy this version not the Coup D' Grace version this one's more polished and hits harder and Mistress of Taboo is way better that Mistress of Passion."

Attempted Overthrow

Tim Brough | Springfield, PA United States | 08/21/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A Coup D'Etat is defined as "a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force." With the third and final album composed of the primary original trio (Wendy Orlean Williams, Wes Beech and Richie Stotts), "Coup D'Etat" was the point where The Plasmatics dove headlong into Heavy Metal. Not like no-one could see that coming, as both Beyond the Valley of 1984 and the Dan Hartman produced Metal Priestess were inching towards thrash metal years before it was a full-on trend.



"Coup" was also the album that found The Plasmatics off of original label Stiff and on to Capitol. This brought them bigger budget and a power producer, Dieter Dirks (Scorpions, Accept. While Stotts and Beech had become a more than formidable guitar team, Dirks buried Wendy deep in the mix. While that isn't always a bad thing, given that some of the songs are little more than two lines repeated over and over for four minutes, a message song like "Stop" deserves to have its lyrics front and center.



Along with "Stop," there are two other Plasmatic classics here, the infamous "The Damned" and the cover of Motorhead's "No Class." "The Damned" got Wendy onto MTV, riding atop a school bus roof and leaping to safety just before it blows up, and "No Class" is a perfect match of singer to song. Wendy could have been Lemmy; it's easy to see why they became pals and eventually recorded their Stand By Your Man duet.



"Coup D'Etat" also was formidable enough a rock album to draw the attentions of Kiss, who offered them an opening slot on their Creatures of the Night tour (and ultimately to Gene Simmons producing Wendy's WOW solo debut. Unfortunately, Capitol got gun-shy over The Plasmatics' controversial behavior and backed off promotional efforts on "Coup." It became the first Plasmatics album to not break onto the Billboard Top 200 albums (actually fairing worse than the albums on Stiff!). But don't be fooled. Wendy O Williams still had all the awesome power and the band had refined itself to a point where "Coup D'Etat" was more ahead of its time then anything else. It's an album that merits rediscovery."