Credit: Dangerous Minds / Dead Kennedys

Most of the time, when an album nearly bankrupts an independent label, it’s because of the costs of making the music.

I mean, what else could it be?! Making an album is rarely a cheap affair. You need rehearsal space to work out the material. A recording studio to, er, record it. Producers and engineers to work on it. A PR campaign to promote it, then a hundred thousand other unforeseen costs that come at you from all sides. All the while paying the ungrateful fucks you signed to make it a king’s ransom to sit around getting baked while waiting for “inspiration” to strike.

Of course, a major record label can afford to take these losses. They’ve got, I dunno, Sam Fender three studios down who’ll make them more in first week sales than you’ll make them in your entire career. That doesn’t mean they won’t drop your sorry arse back onto the dole, or worse, Cooking Vinyl if you don’t make them any cash. Think of the real victims here; those yachts don’t pay for themselves. Where this really becomes a problem is the intensely precarious world of independent record labels.

Those precious few labels are big enough to make an album that the masses could take to heart, but small enough that if something goes kaput, the entire company would pay for it. The most infamous example of this is My Bloody Valentine basically bankrupting Creation Records while making Loveless. It just goes to show how much of a tightrope walk running an indie label is, though, that one can be bankrupted through different means, too.

The band responsible? The Dead Kennedys. Because obviously.

How did a Dead Kennedys album bankrupt their label?

One would assume that, at least on a technical level, making any kind of hardcore record wouldn’t be that much of a risk. All the rehearsal and writing can be done on the road/in their mom’s basement, then you shut them up in a garret with a four track recorder in it, then chuck their first takes into a pressing plant, put a big middle finger on the cover and Bob’s your uncle, hardcore album done, onto the road we go, right? Well, putting aside the fact that the Dead Kennedys were always a more complex band than most hardcore chuggers, their 1985 album Frankenchrist proved that assumption false with aplomb.

Kennedys singer, being the unruly little scamp that he is, the moment that he saw the HR Giger print Landscape #XX, he knew he’d seen the cover of his band’s next album. This is despite the fact that the print looks like a magic eye picture consisting entirely of penises fucking vaginas in stark grey and black. At least one of them is wearing a condom; safe sex is important after all. Despite Giger giving the band his blessing, the band’s label, the hilariously named in context Alternative Tentacles, flatly refused.

Biafra being Biafra, he didn’t back down and eventually, an agreement was reached. The artwork wouldn’t be the cover, but it would be housed as a poster in the album, which would be shrink-wrapped in stores so no one who didn’t buy the album would see it, with a sticker placed on the album warning people of its contents. Then people bought the album. Oh fuck. Quite literally.

Yeah, turns out there was no warning strong enough for that poster, and people were absolutely scandalised, especially parents who’d brought the album for their kids. One wonders what they expected from an album called Frankenchrist, but logic is rarely these people’s strong suit. Biafra was immediately sued by a number of horrified parents for distributing harmful images to minors, and their label nearly went bankrupt fighting the case. Thankfully, due to a hung jury, Biafra was not found guilty, and the charges were not re-filed.

Such is life in independent music. You never know where the next threat to your existence is going to come from.