Beyond the Valley of 1984 by The Plasmatics

Beyond the Valley of 1984, the Plasmatics' second album, came out on Stiff Records in May 1981, and it's the soundtrack to an Orwellian apocalypse with a chainsaw in the mix, literally. After their debut New Hope for the Wretched ran up the bills, Stiff's Bruce Kirkland agreed to pay for this one as long as manager Rod Swenson produced it. Swenson also came up with the title, and the band knocked it out in less than three weeks for a quarter of what the debut had cost.

They cut it at the Ranch in New York, with Alice Cooper's Neal Smith sitting in on drums behind Wendy O. Williams, Richie Stotts and Wes Beech. Engineer Eddie Ciletti came in to overdub guitars, vocals and that electric chainsaw, and to mix under Swenson's odd rules: no wide stereo, played quietly enough that he could talk business on the phone. "Masterplan", "Pig Is a Pig" and "Sex Junkie" snarl through it, and it spent nine weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at 142.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.