UMe reissue three seminal albums from psychobilly pioneers The Cramps on vinyl available today. These pressings include brand new Standard Black Vinyl LP versions of Songs The Lord Taught Us, Psychedelic Jungle, and Bad Music For Bad People.

Alternately, uDiscover Music also exclusively feature limited-edition pressings of Bad Music For Bad People on a Glow-In-The-Dark LP and Psychedelic Jungle on a Fluorescent Green LP — each with a special art print.

The Cramps initially materialized in the seventies with an uncanny and undeniable psychobilly seance of garage rock, gutter punk, voodoo blues, and dusty rockabilly steeped in trashy late-night horror imagery and sinisterly subversive fashion all their own. Their debut LP, Songs The Lord Taught Us, dropped in 1980 and effectively entrenched them at the forefront of the underground as a game-changing force. Indicative of its lasting imprint on punk music and culture, it has generated over 100 million streams and counting fueled by the likes of “Fever,” “TV Set,” and “Garbageman.”

Stereogum pegged the latter at #1 on its “The 10 Best Cramps Songs,” proceeding to add, “Throughout their career, The Cramps stressed that rock ‘n’ roll was not simply a style of music, but a lifestyle. ‘Garbageman’ encapsulates the classic sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.” Meanwhile, the signature “I Was A Teenage Werewolf” has gathered north of 24.9 million Spotify streams.

Side A:
1. TV Set
2. Rock On The Moon
3. Garbageman
4. I Was A Teenage Werewolf
5. Sunglasses After Dark
6. The Mad Daddy

Side B:
1. Mystery Plane
2. Zombie Dance
3. What’s Behind The Mask
4. Strychnine
5. I’m Cramped
6. Tear It Up
7. Fever

The Cramps began as a rock band who were influenced by the Blues and in turn possibly created the genre that is now known as psychobilly. Early on they entered into CBGB’s and the early Punk scene along with Television and The Ramones.

In 1979 The Cramps released Songs the Lord Taught Us produced by Alex Chilton (Big Star). The album taught us that the band were at their very best from the very off. I mean, this entire album is dangerously raw and exciting throughout.

So yes, Songs the Lord Taught Us was the debut album by the Cramps, following their EP Gravest Hits released the previous year in 1979. In this first full length, the Cramps unleashed a sickness that the country wasn’t ready for - and, frankly, still isn’t. The album still sounds fantastic, despite the weird lyrics (full of werewolves, psycho killers, and other assorted unsavory members of society) and the extreme guitar work!

Just a year later, the group really hit their stride on Psychedelic Jungle. Recorded at A&M in Hollywood and self-produced by the band, it first landed on record store shelves in May 1981. Beyond “Green Fuzz” and “Primitive,” it housed their inescapable cover of “Goo Goo Muck”—originally by Ronnie Cook and the Gaylads. 41 years since Psychedelic Jungle released, “Goo Goo Muck” appeared during a definitive sequence of Tim Burton’s NETFLIX series Wednesday in 2022.

Giving title character Wednesday serious moves, Jenna Ortega choreographed and performed her own mega-viral dance routine to the tune, leading to a surge of activity on social media and resulting in 138 million Spotify streams on the track. Inciting tastemaker chatter, Variety noted, “Ortega made The Cramps’ menacing brand of rockabilly her own,” and Billboard christened it a “psychobilly classic.” NYLON marveled at how, “she delivers an incredible dance scene to the groovy, psychobilly tune of The Cramps’ ‘Goo Goo Muck’.”

Side A:
1. Green Fuz
2. Goo Goo Muck
3. Rockin’ Bones
4. Voodoo Idol
5. Primitive
6. Caveman
7. The Crusher

Side B:
1. Don’t Eat Stuff Off The Sidewalk
2. Can’t Find My Mind
3. Jungle Hop
4. The Natives Are Restless
5. Under The Wires
6. Beautiful Gardens
7. Green Door

Hijacking rockabilly, swamp blooze, psychedelia, and Ed Wood for their own immoral purposes, The Cramps emerged from punk’s primordial ooze in 1980. Berserk Elvis-meets-Roky Erickson screecher Lux Interior and saucy guitar goddess spouse Poison Ivy were a campy, made-in-hell tag team.

I’m a really big fan of just the fusion of garage rock and punk rock present in this album, but the inclusion of rockabilly throughout makes the listening experience feel that much more unique. Though the music never really gets too psychedelic, there do seem to be some elements of psychedelic rock mixed in, with various primal drum beats, sound and feedback effects, and even darker tones and narration reminiscent of the Los Angeles psychedelic rock and garage rock scene circa 1967.

In short, their schtick-in-trade covered kooky garage relics Green Fuz and Goo Goo Muck and likeminded originals Don’t Even Eat Stuff Off The Sidewalk and Human Fly. A maggot-infested garbage can stuffed with sick sex jokes, The Cramps provided a blueprint for future schlock-meisters The B-52’s and Southern Culture on the Skids.

Then, there’s Bad Music For Bad People. This compilation collates 11 key cuts from The Cramps on one body of work, serving as the perfect gateway into their world. It boasts “Goo Goo Muck, “Garbageman,” “TV Set,” “Uranium Rock,” and “Human Fly.”

Side A:
1. Garbageman
2. New Kind Of Kick
3. Love Me
4. I Can’t Hardly Stand It
5. She Said

Side B:
1. Goo Goo Muck
2. Save It
3. Human Fly
4. Drug Train
5. TV Set
6. Uranium Rock

Bad Music For Bad People is their 1984 compilation, widely seen as a fun but sometimes cynical collection of their earlier singles and B-sides. Reviews down the years have often described the album as a raunchy, primitive, and energetic mix of rockabilly, punk, and garage rock, driven by Lux Interior’s vocals and Poison Ivy’s guitar riffs, with a whole lot of people (including myself) highly praising its iconic artwork as a great introduction to the band, per say.

Bad Music for Bad People provides a brief, but concise overview of the group’s previously released material, specifically from Gravest Hits, Songs The Lord Taught Us, and Psychedelic Jungle. However, there are also some B-sides and rarities. Despite this compilation album’s cynical origins (many see this collection as a cash-grab by I.R.S. Records after the group left the label), it’s hard to fault what’s here.

Bad Music for Bad People is by no means definitive but it’s still a lot of fun and provides a great introduction to the band’s innovative, potent, and seminal early material.

As new generations of fans revel in the brilliantly crass catalog of The Cramps, these albums provide the ultimate soundtrack for Halloween.