Bad Religion

Bad Religion is an American punk rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1979. The band makes extensive use of soaring 3-part vocal harmonies (which they refer to in their album liner notes as the "oozin' aahs"), guitar solos and lyrics that often contain religious and political commentary. Their lyrics often relate to matters of social responsibility. The band's lineup has changed several times over its lifespan, with lead vocalist Greg Graffin being the only consistent member; the current lineup, however, features three of the band's four original members (Graffin, Brett Gurewitz and Jay Bentley). To date, Bad Religion has released sixteen studio albums, two live albums, three compilation albums, three EPs (one of which is composed of covers of Christmas songs) and two DVDs (which were both recorded live). They are considered to be one of the best-selling punk rock acts of all time, having sold over 5 million albums worldwide.

Bad Religion had built an underground following in the United States with their early albums before signing to Atlantic Records in 1993. They rose to fame that same year with their seventh studio album Recipe for Hate, which peaked at number 14 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart.Recipe for Hate was followed a year later by Stranger than Fiction, which spawned their biggest hits "Infected" and a re-recorded version of "21st Century (Digital Boy)", and was certified gold in both the United States and Canada. Shortly before the release of Stranger than Fiction, Gurewitz left Bad Religion to focus on his label Epitaph, and was replaced by Brian Baker. Since the return of Gurewitz in 2001, the band has undergone a resurgence in popularity, with their sixteenth studio album True North (2013) becoming Bad Religion's first album to crack the top 20 on the Billboard 200 chart, where it peaked at number 19. The band is expected to release their seventeenth studio album around 2017.

Recipe for Hate

Recipe for Hate is Bad Religion's seventh full-length album, released on June 4, 1993. This was their last album on Epitaph Records and the band switched to Atlantic Records before its release.

While the album was reissued on a major label, Recipe for Hate initially received mixed reviews from music critics, who generally found it to be less impressive than Bad Religion's past releases. Recipe for Hate was also the first Bad Religion album to chart in the U.S., debuting at #14 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart, with "American Jesus" and "Struck a Nerve" in particular becoming major rock radio hits. The album also contains significant songs like, "Recipe For Hate" and "Skyscraper", which are both fan favorites and are staples of their live show today. "Recipe for Hate" is a song that Bad Religion often opens their set with.

Album cover

The album cover features an image of two dog-faced humans. It is an original photo-collage - using the bodys of 1930's southern racists mocking the press after their acquittal by an all white male jury for murder, and 1944 Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp guard dog heads. This is a metaphor for how far hate can spread. Hate by simple conversation that escalates - soon becoming the norm in culture ( Artist ). The artwork was designed by Fred Hidalgo (known for drawing the cover for The Offspring's highly acclaimed 1994 album Smash, which was also released on Epitaph). Recipe for Hate was the first Bad Religion album since 1988's Suffer to display the Friz Quadrata font on the cover; the band would use this font again on their subsequent albums (except for The Process of Belief and The Empire Strikes First).

American Jesus

"American Jesus" is the first single by Bad Religion from their 1993 album Recipe for Hate. It was their second all time single since their signing to Atlantic Records. Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam provides backing vocals on the track.

Track listing

Atlantic CD Promo

Sympathy For The Record Industry 7" Single

Semaphore Records CD Promo

Music video

The video is entirely in sepia tone. It shows the band driving around in a car through L.A. with various civilians carrying crosses around the city with blindfolds on. The video cuts to clips of the band performing in the desert as well as Graffin walking through the city. It ends with the civilians chanting "one nation, under god" while standing in a row.

References

External links

Hatred

Hatred (or hate) is a deep and emotional extreme dislike. It can be directed against individuals, groups, entities, objects, behaviors, or ideas. Hatred is often associated with feelings of anger, disgust and a disposition towards hostility.

Ethnolinguistics

James W. Underhill, in his Ethnolinguistics and Cultural Concepts: truth, love, hate & war, (2012) discusses the origin and the metaphoric representations of hate in various languages. He stresses that love and hate are social, and culturally constructed. For this reason, hate is historically situated. Although it is fair to say that one single emotion exists in English, French (haine), and German (Hass), hate varies in the forms in which it is manifested. A certain relationless hatred is expressed in the French expression J'ai la haine, which has no equivalent in English. While for English-speakers, loving and hating invariably involve an object, or a person, and therefore, a relationship with something or someone, J'ai la haine (literally, I have hate) precludes the idea of an emotion directed at a person. This is a form of frustration, apathy and animosity which churns within the subject but establishes no relationship with the world, other than an aimless desire for destruction. Underhill (following Philippe Roger) also considers French forms of anti-Americanism as a specific form of cultural resentment. At the same time, he analyses the hatred promoted by Ronald Reagan in his rhetoric directed against the "evil empire".

Religion

Religion is a cultural system of behaviors and practices, world views, ethics, and social organisation that relate humanity to an order of existence. About 84% of the world's population is affiliated with one of the five largest religions, namely Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism or forms of folk religion.

With the onset of the modernisation of and the scientific revolution in the western world, some aspects of religion have cumulatively been criticized. Though the religiously unaffliated, including atheism and agnosticism, have grown globally, many of the unaffiliated still have various religious beliefs. About 16% of the world's population is religiously unaffiliated.

The study of religion encompasses a wide variety of academic disciplines, including comparative religion and social scientific studies. Theories of religion offer explanations for the origins and workings of religion.

Etymology

Religion

Religion (from O.Fr. religion "religious community", from L. religionem (nom. religio) "respect for what is sacred, reverence for the gods", "obligation, the bond between man and the gods") is derived from the Latin religiō, the ultimate origins of which are obscure. One possibility is an interpretation traced to Cicero, connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully". Modern scholars such as Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell favor the derivation from ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect", which was made prominent by St. Augustine, following the interpretation of Lactantius. The medieval usage alternates with order in designating bonded communities like those of monastic orders: "we hear of the 'religion' of the Golden Fleece, of a knight 'of the religion of Avys'".