The Dead Milkmen

The Dead Milkmen's 1985 debut Big Lizard in My Backyard was an instant college radio sensation and, for many listeners, their first indoctrination into the nuances of irony. ("You mean musicians don't always mean what they say?") First person accounts "Tiny Town" and "Bitchin' Camaro" dismantled bigotry and conformity from within, while "Thing That Only Eats Hippies" off Eat Your Paisley tipped some of rock's stodgiest sacred cows. The Dead Milkmen provided what every kid coming up in the '80s needed to keep it real: a reminder that the adult world was absurd and fads were fleeting -- even gloomy apocalyptic Disco fads (see "Instant Club Hit (You'll Dance to Anything)"). Neither exceptionally talented as musicians nor terribly profound, the Dead Milkmen deserve credit for restoring humor and satire to a Post-Punk scene bloated with self-importance and rutted in gloom. Though the band's humor stalled towards the end, their first few albums proved some of the funniest and most sarcastic of the era.