D.R.I. – Dealing With It (Rotten)
In many ways, D.R.I.‘s second long-player Dealing With It is the greatest concept album about teen angst ever recorded. There are some obvious holes to this theory: the band name (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles), cover art, and simpleton themes running throughout the album don’t exactly point to an archetypical concept record. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty certain that none of the members of D.R.I. have ever gone on record to state that Dealing With It is a concept album at all, let alone try to explain a story line.
Allow me. Dealing With It is the story of four teenage boys coming of age in the ’80s, dealing with issues of social alienation and feelings of worthlessness. They notice the crass consumerism of those more fortunate than them and begin to notice the hypocrisy of Ronald Reagan‘s voodoo economics. While they’re not able to completely understand or eloquently address the ills of society, they’re able to determine what’s right and wrong, and they struggle with why those who are presumably more intelligent can’t see the same things.