How about this for an incredible, hard-to-believe fact: Broken Ballads & Savage Beats is the first vinyl album by The Prostitutes in nearly 28 years! I have had the honor of writing about this band dozens of times since 1996, but this is only my second time reviewing a Prostitutes release on 12" vinyl. That's wild!
The Prostitutes as an entity within the punk rock universe have survived numerous breakups, implosions, relocations, and reboots. I was reasonably certain when the first iteration of the band collapsed in 1998 that The Prostitutes were gone forever — destined to become one of those bands of punk lore that burned hard and fast before irreversibly going up in flames. But two years later, Kevin McGovern revived the band from the ashes with a mostly new lineup — and within months it seemed The Prostitutes were again dead and buried, surely this time obliterated beyond the point of no return. Or so we all thought. Nothing, it turned out, could really kill The Prostitutes. What started out as a punk rock band from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania became a compulsion that followed Kevin McGovern wherever he went. And even as time passed and the supporting casts continued to revolve, the music continued to fiercely rage against the dull trappings of conformity. If an esteemed scribe like Mick Fletcher describes McGovern as a "punk rock legend," that's not an overstatement. The Prostitutes were more than worthy of a second proper LP, and I love that it comes to us courtesy of SahLugg Records and super-fan Kenney Garrett.
Broken Ballads & Savage Beats is a Prostitutes retrospective that aims to cover the band's full career through 2019. It does include five tracks from the band's original, legendarily-volatile classic lineup, but it also includes three songs from the short-lived Y2K Prostitutes, a couple tunes from the band's 2000s California iteration, and several songs from the late 2010s when McGovern brought the band back to the East Coast. Essentially, the album splits the band's history into two halves: Side 1 is 1995 through 2000, and Side 2 is post-2000 (along with the closing demo track from McGovern's early '90s band Mainliner). And there's no drop-off from one side to the other. Of course "123 Go" and "Suicide Is Fun" are classics. But if "Sick to Death" or "Cheap Highs" were your very first exposure to The Prostitutes, you'd instantly want to hear more. Sometimes with band retrospectives or best-of compilations, the track selection can be too obvious or too encompassing. But that's not what is going on here. This album gives a balanced overview of a quarter century of The Prostitutes. It's not trying to be a best-of or a greatest hits comp. What it really is is a carefully-selected group of songs that collectively make a great punk rock LP. If you're looking for something more exhaustive, there are plenty of options available via Bandcamp. But if you want to own a Prostitutes LP that can throw on the turntable and enjoy along side all your other classic punk albums, Broken Ballads & Savage Beats will not disappoint. I love that this album was made to exist as a vinyl record. Sure, you can still download it if that's your preference. But this retrospective was made for Prostitutes fans who are vinyl lovers. The red vinyl and artwork look great, and the liner notes were penned by Mr. Kevin McGovern himself.
If you had bet me a million dollars back in 1996 that I would still be writing about The Prostitutes in my mid-50s, I'd be in big trouble now. I never would have believed that I'd still be writing about music at this age, and I certainly wouldn't have believed that a Prostitutes album in 2025 was remotely possible. But here we are. Broken Ballads & Savage Beats instantly earns a spot on the short list of classic punk rock compilation LPs. And I'm betting this won't be the last time I have the occasion to write about this band!
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