Tell me the good Killing Joke albums! I’ve got the first four, a live record called HA!, and CHAOS FOR BREAKFAST which collects their first four singles. I’ve never sat down and listened to anything after the first two albums.
Don’t worry, you can say all of it if you want.
ZAMBONI 
9 Comments
the self-titled album from 2003 is pretty awesome
yeah i agree with Trash Mammal, their debut album [Killing Joke(1980)] is definately their best. i also like their second album a lot, but from then on theres a decline in quality with each release IMO.
the first one.also, can you make your albums .zip files? please? is it just way easier to upload .rar files? it's like torture looking at all these great records and not being able to open them, is all…thanks for reading.
just use a rar program, it's really quite simple to do
As a Joke fan since 1979 when Turn To Red came out on 12 and 10 inch and ignoring any live albums or compilations I can recommend the following studio albums:Killing Joke (1980)Whats this For (1981)Revelations (1982)Fire Dances (1983)Night Time (1985)Pandemonium (1994)Democracy (1996)Killing Joke (2003)The ones to avoid areBrighter than a thousand suns(1986)Outside the gate (1988)I haven't heard their only other 2 studio albumsExtremities Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions (1990)Hosannas From The Basements Of Hell (2007)so can't comment. My favourite changes with time; which is how it should be if you like such a body of work. Try to listen to them in the order they were released you for maximum effect. Thank you.
I wore out my "Night Time" LP. I think the debut might be the best. I have none of the live/bsides/live comps.
Night Time works for me. A bit overblown but the 17 year old me played it to death when it came out. Was my guilty pleasure (not sure it fitted with the Smiths, REM, etc.). I was reading Stephen King's Stand at the same time and it soundtracked that for me.Hmmm have I just argued for the first album too?
First and Second album are definitely my favourites.Of the 80's/90's stuff….'Extremities Dirt And Various Repressed Emotions' is a brilliant return.Worth it for 'termite mound' alone.PS:Many,many thanks for your blog.Very much appreciated.
Coming a little late to this, but what the heck. I've been listening to Killing Joke since 1981 or so. The only ones I never listen to are Outside the Gate, which was apparently intended to be a Jaz Coleman solo album, and The Courtauld Talks, which is a Jaz spoken word album. Every other proper studio album is worth at least checking out, because their sound's gone through a lot of changes, and it's hardly as simple as "the first one's good and it's downhill all the way from there." The ones I listen to the most are probably the first one, Revelations, Night Time, and Pandemonium, with most of the others close behind.I haven't heard any really good live albums by the band, and there are a lot of compilations of odds and sods. I'm not sure if there's one single place where you can get the first four-song EP on a single CD, but it's worth tracking down. Really different from the first album, with dub and disco influences.