S.O.D. "Please Don't Go" by Violent Femmes

3/1/2015     From their debut album "Violent Femmes" in 1983, this punkish love song joined by other hits such as "Add It Up" and "Blister in the Sun" combined to make this dynamic album.  It remains the band's most successful to date and was ranked  #21 by Slant Magazine on the list of the best albums of the 80s.  The album achieved something unique in the music world by going gold four years after its release without showing up on the Billboard's Top 200 album chart. Less then four years later it went platinum.  

     The band's lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter, Gordon Gano wrote  most of the songs for the album while still in high school in Wisconsin. It eventually peaked at #171 on Billboard's Top 200 album chart.  The musical trio originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1980   and after months and months of playing street corners and coffee shops were eventually discovered by the Pretenders' James Honeyman-Scott in 1981 while playing in front of the Oriental Theater on a Milwaukee street corner. That night Pretenders' lead singer Chrissie Hynde invited them to play a brief set after their opening act.