13 Songs

90年代後半のエモ/ポスト・ハードコア・シーンの隆盛、あるいはワシントンD.C．から注目すべきバンドが続々登場するなどといった出来事により、著しい評価を獲得することになったフガジ。マイナー・スレットなどのハードコア・バンドを通過したイアン・マッケイはじめメンバーらによるサウンドやアティチュードは後進のバンドに多大すぎる影響を与えた。これは初期の音源集で、彼らのパンクからの進化過程がわかる。「Waiting Room」（M1）は言わずもがなの超キラー・チューン。

Spin (5/01, p.110) - Ranked #33 in Spin's "50 Most Essential Punk Records" - "...Modernized hardcore overnight....Earnestly explosive." Alternative Press (3/02, p.96) - Included in AP's "Essential Punk Influences '02 Style" - "...This is the album that first showed a million lesser-known bands it was possible to make it on your own terms..." New York Times (Publisher) (3/7/91) - "Fugazi has broken free of hard-core's conventions...the music is all muscle and bone; songs riff, blare, riff, pause and crunch, then stop dead, as terse and Apollonian as a string quartet."

Disregarding all the wordiness and adjectives that can be heaped like a pile of horse dung at Disneyland upon great, timeless albums, the importance of this record can perhaps be more suitably measured by the number of people who remember the first time they heard it. 13 Songs (a combination of the Fugazi and Margin Walker EPs) is usually among the first records that spring to mind when defining alternative rock. Furious, intelligent, artful, and entirely musical, it's a baker's dozen of cannon shots to the gut -- not just a batch of emotionally visceral and defiant songs recorded by angry young men, but something greater. Nearly every song here reaches an anthemic level without falling prey to pomposity. Most of these songs are anthems of the self rather than a rallying cry of accusation or unification, with "Waiting Room" and "Suggestion" serving as two examples. The attention-getting drop into silence that occurs at the 22-second mark of the former is instantly memorable. The relentless ska/reggae-inflected drive of the song is equally effective, as Ian MacKaye tells everyone listening to get off their behinds and do what they want. During the Meters-meets-Ruts thrust of "Suggestion," MacKaye switches genders for an entirely convincing rant on the objectification of women. Guy Picciotto takes on the persona of an addict on "Glue Man," whose blurred sense of reality is also conveyed in the warped, psychedelic guitars. Picciotto threatens to set himself on fire during "Margin Walker"; given the spirited play of the remaining members, it sounds like the same could be said for the rest of them. Foreshadowing the band's knack for introspective and mid-tempo concluding tracks, the disc ends with MacKaye's "Promises," examining the pitfalls of trust in relationships of any nature. A landmark record. ~ Andy Kellman